Consider these facts regarding white bal-
ance and using Speedlights:
✦Speedlights are set to 5500K.
Speedlights produce light with a
color temperature of 5500K, which
is also the same color temperature
as the daylight white balance set-
ting on Nikon dSLRs. When shoot-
ing subjects with Speedlights, set
the white balance setting on your
digital camera to the Flash setting.
✦Cooler color temperatures
appear blue. If your digital camera
is set to a white balance setting
that represents lower color temper-
atures (below 5000K), your images
appear more blue, or cooler.
✦Warmer color temperatures
appear yellow. Setting your digital
camera to a white balance setting
that represents higher color tem-
peratures (above 5000K) makes
your images appear more yellow.
These images are considered to
appear warmer.
✦Automatic white balance set-
tings can be very accurate.
Today’s digital cameras perform a
very accurate job of measuring a
subject’s white balance. Setting
your digital camera to an automatic
white balance setting often results
in a correctly color temperature bal-
anced image. When using Auto
white balance and a Speedlight
with a CLS-compatible digital cam-
era, the Speedlight sends color
temperature information to the
camera usually resulting in a more
accurate white balance than when
set to flash white balance.
64 Part II ✦Creating Great Photos with the Creative Lighting System
3.16 Daylight, 5500K 3.17 Cloudy, 6500K
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