White balance
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White balance is the pre-correction of colour temperature and hue so that when the photograph is taken, the colours are represented as they are perceived.
The reason for this is that the eye adapts to the overall ambient light, so that colours are correctly interpreted, but, without instructions from the user, a CCD is unable to do this.
Nikon white balance settings are:
A - Automatic, suitable for most shooting conditions, but probably not flash
(Bulb picture) - Tungsten, suitable for domestic tungsten lighting
(Strip light picture) - Fluorescent, suitable for most commercial lighting and domestic energy saving lightbulbs
(Sun picture) - Direct sunlight, suitable for when the subject is directly illuminated by the sun
(Cloud picture) - Shade, suitable for when the subject is illuminated by blue sky, but not directly by the sun
(Lighting zig-zag picture) - Flash, suitable for electronic flashguns and studio [strobe]]s
K - Colour temperature set in Kelvin, suitable if you know the exact colour temperature of the lighting
Pre - Preset, where you use a white card, grey card or a neutral object to preset the colour temperature at the beginning of a shoot.
A is the most reliable for general shooting, but a shoot with studio strobe lighting will benefit from the flash setting. Problematic settings, such as mercury vapour lighting can be addressed using Pre or K. When shooting a sequence where the lighting does not change, but the camera is being pointed in different directions in the room, or when the subject is moving, is best done using an appropriate setting which is _not_ A, as A will make a new calculation each time a shot is taken, thus resulting in small changes.
White balance can be reset in postprocessing when shooting in Raw.
