White Balance & ISO for Product Photography

Video Transcript

"At this point, we have our instrument set. Our lights set. It is framed in the camera. We know where everything is. We have got all the lights on. At this point, all I really want to do is I want to go into the camera and make sure I have everything set properly for the kind of image and the kind of details that I want. So, one of the first things I want to do is within the camera I have gone to the menu on this. And now, I am going to move down to the WB, white balance and slide over in the menu to see which kinds of light balances there are. And, luckily on this camera, I can actually see what happens as I shift the white balance from; auto, to daylight, to cloudy sky. Can you see the shift? When we put on cloudy sky, it shifted into a pink for the background. If we move down to the next one, tungsten, it turned the, the background turns blue. And, if we move to the fluorescent, it has a slightly pinkish orange cast. The closest to pure white appears to be the auto function, which is a little bit bluer than the daylight function. Probably as a result of that fluorescent light right there. So, we will leave it on auto. We will set it to auto. And then, let us move down to ISO. Now, why would we want to adjust the ISO on a digital camera? It does not really make any difference. In film, it makes a big deal of difference because you have to put a four hundred speed film in a camera and set the ISO if you are running under, using fast film. Or, you might have to set it for sixty four speed ISO if you are shooting, say, Kodachrome. And, the ISO makes a big deal of difference in that digital, or, in that film realm. Whereas in the digital realm, it is, what is the point? The film, there is no film. So, you do not have to worry about the ISO or the speed of the film. Why would we want to adjust the ISO on a digital camera? Well, because the ISO in the digital camera has to do with its speed. The speed that it can capture an image. The speed that it can capture an image affects the F-stop or the size of the opening required in order to let the light in. So, we would want to adjust the ISO, in order to adjust those things that are affected by the size of that opening. The most important of which, in this particular case, is being able to control the depth of focus."