ive been doing some research for a speech. ive read the basics on aperture, sensitivity, and shutter speed.
how does color tones fit into this?
say you snap a pic in a cafe without the flash, the shot comes out kinda oranges/brownish
with the flash on colors come out more true

 

Are you talking about digital or film, because film is less prone to the white balance issue you are talking about.

 

are you thinking of white balance?

look here for what difference white balance can make:
https://www.honda-acura.net/forums/s...d.php?t=200548

no flash in either pic.

regardless, what you're noticing is probably the difference in light (tungsten vs. fluorescent, etc.)

 

digital
ok taking your example, without flash it looks like the first, with flash it looks like the second

 

someone correct me if i'm wrong, but i think you're talking about the difference in lighting then. tungsten makes everything look orange/brown/yellow, which is likely the kind of lighting in that cafe. on the contrary, the flash of a camera is more like sunlight (or at least the camera balances for it), so color comes out more natural, like the 2nd pic. and that's the purpose of white balance, to adjust for different light like tungsten that will make things look funky.

 

Yeah tungsten gives yellow/orange caste to images, but this can be compensated slightly with exposure length and aperture setting, though not completely eliminated.

In the digital shooting it is more common to have a white balance setting to cover for this issue. With film you have to buy tungsten balanced film which adds a blue caste on the film itself to counter.

 

Is that more common on the higher number films? Im a noob on this one, but my wife said the higher numbers help dark pics come out more realistic :happysad:

 

Higher numbered films are just films with a higher ISO. Like ISO100 and ISO400. The higher the number, the more sensative the film is to light and picking up noise.

 

cool.