Judging Colour Temperature 1

For this exercise I took three separate images; the first in the middle of a clear day (although turned away from the sun to avoid squinting), then at the same time in shade beneath some trees, then finally on a different day with a low sun. I generally keep my camera set to 'shade' white balance, as this generally warms my images. As I shoot RAW it was easy to adjust this setting after the fact in lightroom to daylight white balance. The differences in the colour temperature of the light is clear to see:

 

The light in the first image is very bright with strong highlights, but colourless. There is also high contrast in this image due to the shadows cast by the direct light.

 

This image has a much 'cooler' feel as it is in shade, and the light hitting the subject is reflected from the blue sky. In contrast to the first image, this one is very low contrast due to there being no direct sunlight. This is an example of where the 'shade' white balance in the camera or image software would produce a more asthetically-pleasing image by increasing the colour temperature to 'warm' the image. In lightroom, this image with daylight white balance setting has a temperature of 5500k, but with the shade setting the software ups this to 7500k.

With a low sun the particles in the atmosphere scatter the blue wavelengths of light leaving the orange/reddish wavelengths. This is an attractive time of day for photography, often called the 'golden hour'. This is also a high contrast time of day, with long shadows.

Conclusion

Without the camera adjusting the white balance, it is clear to see, when the images are presented side by side, the colour differences of the light. This can evidently have a big impact on your image, depending on the type of image you want to make.