Why Do I Have Computer Paper in my Camera Bag?

Hey Everyone! So this is just a short post about a stress saving idea that I had. =) When I first got my camera and started taking artistic photography I sort of leaned on the pre set white balances programed into the camera. =P I soon learned that while they work okay, I had to do a lot of color correcting in Photoshop. =P and even then... that doesn't always work...

So one day I'm in my friendly neighborhood photography shop picking up some new light bulbs for my lights and I was trying to decide between the different kinds (Like tungsten etc) and temperatures so that my pictures will come out white. Upon hearing that it not only depends on the location and lighting in my home, but that it also depends on the time of day, and pretty much how my camera is feeling right at that moment. >< I was pretty stressed out. Fearing that I will never be able to take a picture with the actual correct white balance, the incredibly nice sales person told me that I could just do a custom white balance. =P Something I just never thought of doing before for some reason. =P

As it turns out, with my camera, all I have to do is make sure my white balance setting is in "Custom" then take a picture of something white, (like a white background) hit Menu, select the second menu screen, and then hit "Custom WB" then it'll pull up the last picture I took on the memory card (so the white background) and you press "Set" and it'll ask if you want to use the information from that picture to set the white balance. Hitting "Okay" again, your custom white balance is now set!

This entire process takes about 10 seconds. =P and is incredibly handy! The only problem I ran into was when I was spending the day taking pictures in a public garden and the white balance was all wrong! And I couldn't find a single white thing to take a picture of to change it. >< And the preset ones weren't working at all. =P

The minute I got home I folded a regular, white piece of computer paper and put it in my camera bag so I will always have something white to use to set the white balance. =P

Thanks for reading!