white balance - Does Earth's latitude affect the color of light?

I was talking with a friend about what conditions can affect color, gamma and white balance, and how to get in order these variables into the configuration to set up and get a good shot.

Beside the angle of the sun at some day (we will assume that the time is every the same in every place), and related to the season (but also we will assume that the same season in every place).

Also with the assumption for the same conditions and camera setup in every place...

So, first question:

1) Is there a change in the color or white balance or gamma or something taking one shot for example at tropic, at equator and pole, because the light from sun changes in every latitude?

For example, you get less/more color in equator than in north tropic, and both are different than on the south tropic?

If this is true:

2) Is the difference substantial, for e.g., from Lat 40S to 50N? (This assumption must be without seasons of course. I'm not talking about distances to the sun, so... for e.g. Summer in 40S and summer in 50N, the same day (21-12 for South, 21-6 for North)

3) Can it be corrected?

4) Do I have to take any consideration to set up my camera if I travel from one place to another place?

Answer

Latitude doesn't directly change the sun's light in any way. The angle of the sunlight and the amount of atmosphere it has to pass through both indirectly impact the intensity and color of the light, but this shouldn't have a significant impact on taking photos as long as you properly meter and white balance.

The bigger direct concern would be the angle of the light which you simply manually take in to account based on where in the sky the sun is. While the angle impacts the amount of atmosphere and thus the color and intensity, the direction of the light is a bigger concern. Light coming from above lights a scene differently from light coming in from the horizon and the angle the light is coming from impacts how you shoot.

The reason it can seem different is because of the effect of the atmosphere and surrounding terrain on the quality of the light. This is going to be impacted in a small part by latitude but is going to be much more dependent on season and weather conditions.

The way to correct for changes based on the day and weather is to use a grey card (or really any piece of white or medium grey paper can work) to manually set the white balance for the image. A full professional grey card can also be used in post to adjust for contrast/brightness/white balance/etc.

The shooting habits and techniques shouldn't change from one location to another. Even going from indoors to outdoors has fairly little change in how you assure good color, you just have situational techniques that you use based on criteria (such as if the shadows are too strong, use a fill light, or if the colors of the light don't match, use a filter to match them if possible).

Some situations are more likely to need a certain technique than others, but for the most part, light is light and you deal with it the same regardless of source. Which is to say, you deal with it based on conditions.