White Balance: How to get it right every time
Twenty years ago, when digital camera was just being conceived in the minds of engineers, and film was the popular medium of photography, concept of white balance didn’t exist yet. Colors were the function of chemicals used in the production of a film, and there was only few things you could do about it (like use filters to alter colors).
Since the invention of a digital camera things have changed.
White balance is important variable in digital photography, it’s key to getting proper and consistent colors in every photo – unfortunately, it’s almost always overlooked.
Amateur photographers (myself included) rarely use anything but Auto White Balance Mode. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is important to understand the drawbacks: Auto mode only gives accurate results when used during day, under sunlight, or when used with camera Flash system. In any other scenario, when clouds cover the sun, when shooting at night, or composition is lit with any type of artificial light, AWB will be fooled and give you unnatural color cast.
Interesting observation: Auto White Balance works better in point and shoot cameras than in expensive Digital SLRs.
Most digital cameras provide options for changing white balance setting. Usually, There are few per-programmed modes, which are similar to Auto mode, but are fit to specific situations. I will try to explain all of the presets and provide examples of various situations when you might find them useful.
Preprogrammed modes are:
Auto: Camera sets white balance
As I already mentioned, this mode is great for shooting during day when sun is our main source of light. It’s also useful when light source is constantly changing and it’s hard to guess color temperature. Never use at night, or indoors, unless you use flash or strobes.
Daylight: Camera adds warm tones
I prefer AWB to this during daylight.
Cloudy: Camera adds warm tones
I won’t go into details here either, the tittle says it all.
Shade: Camera adds warm tones
This is very similar to “cloudy” setting. Essentially cloud acts as big soft box shading sun.
Tungsten: Camera adds cool tones
This is the preset for indoor use when light source is a conventional light bulb. “Tungsten” is the name of the metal out of which the bulb’s filament is made.
Fluorescent: Camera adds warm (red) tones
Fluorescent light comes from street lightning. This setting is best for street usage at night.
Flash: Camera adds warm tones
With Flash AWB works just fine, but to warm up the overall look, you might want to use this setting instead. This is optimized for a little on-camera flash. I never use it when using off-camera flash, or large studio strobes as it tends to make images reddish.
Custom: Photographer sets white balance
Custom white balance is an important instrument, I will talk about it in a separate paragraph.
*Icons might look different for your camera, for exact definitions consult the manual.
Custom White Balance
Contrary to common misconceptions, this setting is very easy to use, and provides magnificent results. You can use either white or 18% gray card to tell camera what is white in that particular lightning situation.
White Balance Lens Cap
For step-by-step instructions it’s better to consult your camera manual.
There are many gadgets to help you with custom white balance. There are different cards: gray, white, expensive, cheap… There are lens caps, etc. But in practice you don’t need to spend a cent, any white paper will do just fine.
In extreme scenarios you can even use white walls as a reference point for camera white balance.
This video shows exactly how to set custom white balance on canon cameras.
RAW
No article dealing with white balance is complete without mentioning RAW file format. One of the good things about RAW is the ability to choose white balance setting in post-processing.
Essentially, if you choose to shoot RAW instead of jpeg you can ignore this article, and set white balance in the comfort of your room while processing RAW in your favorite program.
Problem is, not all cameras can shoot RAW, but all of them give you possibility to choose the setting for White Balance. Besides, it’s better to get most things right in the first place, and spend more time using camera than fixing images on the computer.
Experiment
Setting white balance isn’t hard, and it instantly upgrades the overall look of your images. Best advice I can give you is to experiment… Digital era has given us unlimited space, so why not try every setting for yourself and see what you like the most…
Enough staring at the computer screen, now go and shoot!
There are 3 comments on this post.
Trackback URL | Comments RSS FeedI think these are great tips for a training photographer and an experienced one too. I have a Cannon Rebel and I am a beginning photographer and I actually put these tips to good use because of a trip I am going on that requires a lot of sunlight and “sitting by the fire” warm toned photos. Thank You!
-GiGi
@GiGi
Great! I wish you awesome trip. And when you get back let me know if you had any trouble with rebel.
Great article! I am just learning how to use my 5d! Thank you!