White Balance

When I first started in the hobby of photography, I took lots of photographs with a small 110 compact camera. Unfortunately my indoor photographs often had a yellow or bluish tint. When I upgraded to a film SLR camera, I often used a filter when taking indoor photographs. The filter would correct for the indoor lighting problems. When I acquired a digital camera I was pleased to learn that color correction filters for indoor lighting were no longer necessary. Instead, the “white balance” setting on my camera took on the same task as those filters.

When the human eyes sees objects, it adjusts the colors automatically. A digital camera cannot do that automatically. To determine colors the digital camera uses a white balance setting, which adjusts the brightest part of a scene so it appears white. Then, it calculates the rest of the colors based on the white balance standard.

This works fairly well except when taking indoor photographs. Fluorescent, halogen and tungsten bulbs emit color tones that cameras pick up and the result is discoloring in the photograph. With special white balance settings, the camera can calculate the correct color and then shift all colors correctly.

Automatic White Balance (AWB). In automatic white balance mode the camera looks at the overall color of the image and calculates the best white balance setting. While the automatic white balance mode often works, it can make mistakes. There are times when white balance needs to be changed manually to obtain better colors in a photograph.

To find out how well your camera works in AWB mode, set your camera to AWB mode and take pictures under different lighting conditions. See if the results are okay. When they are okay, you can use the automatic white balance mode for those situations. If you are not satisfied, you will need to find an adequate manual white balance setting or use custom white balance.

Manual White Balance. Most digital cameras also allow you to choose a white balance mode manually. Choosing a manual white balance gives you a consistent white balance within a series of photographs. It also allows you to control the look of your photographs while you are in the shooting situation.

There is no single white balance setting that will cover every situation because lighting conditions change. The most common white balance settings are the following:

• Daylight - Gives good neutral tones under most sunlit conditions.
• Cloudy - Gives extra warmth with shady, overcast skies.
• Flash – For use in flash photography situations.
• Fluorescent - For use with tube lighting.
• Incandescent/tungsten - For use when shooting a scene lit by standard light bulbs and some forms of fluorescent lighting.

To find out what white balance setting you like the most, take a photograph in a certain lighting condition using each of the white balance settings. Here I took a photograph outside on a sunny day. To find out what manual setting I prefer to use in sunny situations, I took the same picture at 1/4000 f/6.3 and ISO 400. The only thing I changed is the white balance setting. My results were the following:

For me I prefer the warm look of the cloudy test photograph. You may have a different preference.

Here’s the same experiment done indoors at 1/125 f/3.5 and ISO 400:

Custom White Balance. SLR digital cameras allow you to define the white balance standard. Before making the actual shot, you can shoot a white object that will serve as the standard for white balance. The camera will then use this standard when making the actual shot. By pointing the camera at a white card or piece of paper, filling the screen completely with it, then pressing the White Balance button (or set it in the menu), the camera does its WB calculation. Check your manual for specific instructions. You can get the hang of it quite easily.

You can change the white balance setting back and forth between photographs. Once you've selected a white balance setting, remember to reset it when you change location.

Often when I get to a new location, especially indoors, I will shoot several test shots just to see which white balance setting I prefer for that location. The wonderful thing about digital cameras is that you can experiment and immediately see the results.

Even though the white balance can be changed with photo editing software it is easier to get it right the first time.

With a little knowledge and experience with white balance, you can dramatically improve your success rate when shooting digital photographs.

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