Just a quick note today, since I am travelling to Montreal and Quebec City.
White balance is the process your camera uses to make white white.
But you can also use it to distort an image’s colours to your liking.
To turn white yellow, for instance. This shot is Tungsten light, but shot with the camera’s white balance set to flash:
You can, and should, experiment with white balance! Turn images blue or orange. Play a little!
Of course if you are only using one light source and you shoot RAW, this makes no actual difference, but it is still worth setting, if only (as I have pointed out here before) because you save timelater – and becasue you get to see an idea of what the image will look like in the end.
I actually had my white balance accidentally set to indoor lighting when I made this shot. Tried “correcting” the white balance in Lightroom but loved the original too much.
Oh yes: you can use white balance for creative purposes.