White Balance

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Key points

1. White balance corrects colour so that whites appear neutral, ensuring all colours in the photo look accurate.
2. Light sources have different colour temperatures, measured in Kelvin: candles are warm/orange (~1900K), daylight is neutral (~5500K), cloudy skies are cooler/blue (~8000K).
3. Cameras use auto white balance (AWB) to adjust colours by referencing neutral areas like white, grey or black.
4. Preset modes (incandescent, fluorescent, daylight, cloudy) can be chosen when shooting in known lighting conditions.
5. Custom white balance gives the most accurate results, set using a neutral card in-camera or corrected later when shooting RAW.
6. White balance can also be adjusted creatively to make images feel warmer or cooler.
7. White and grey cards serve as a neutral reference for your camera, allowing it to accurately interpret colours.
8. Achieving correct white balance using these cards ensures that whites are rendered as neutral white, which in turn ensures all other colours in the scene appear accurate.
9. These cards are particularly valuable for setting custom white balance directly in-camera or for precise colour correction during post-production when working with RAW files.

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Exercise

1. Try shooting at various different white balances to see their effect.
2. Google how to manually set the white balance on your camera, and compare that with using AWB (auto white balance) in various different settings.
3. Note down the impact of white balance and the settings in which your camera’s AWB failed to get as good a white balance as you could manually.