How To Set Your White Balance

Have you ever taken a photo inside and wondered why everyone is orange? Or perhaps you took a photo in the shade and your child was a strange shade of blue? Today we are going to talk about how to set your White Balance.

White Balance

White balance is how your camera interprets the color of light in a scene. Each light source has it’s own individual color. When we take a photo, our cameras usually try to neutralize these different colors to give you the most natural looking photo it can. Like this:

There are several ways to correct your white balance and today, I’m going to show you a few options that should help you get the best white balance for your photos! 

The following photos are are straight out of my camera, no editing except for sharpening for web and taken with A Canon 6D and a 50 1.8 Lens.

Presets

Presets are a quick easy way to help you get white balance correct straight out of your cameras. The trick is to KNOW what kind of lighting you are in and choose the correct preset. You need to know when you need to cool down warm light and warm up cool light.

Custom White Balance

Custom white balance is another great way to get your white balance correct straight out of camera. However, it does take planning.

Note: For this picture I used a expodisc.

You will need a neutral item such as a gray card or an expodisc. This option for setting white balance is best if you have really really bad lighting. Different cameras have different methods for setting your custom white balance, but for the most part, it involves taking a photo with the neutral (the gray card or expodisc) and then telling your camera “this is what I need the color in my photo to look like, fix it!”

But REMEMBER: If your light changes, you have to go back and reset your custom white balance again.

Kelvin

Adjusting the Kelvin Temperature is a very specific way to correct your white balance. Kelvin is a scale for measuring color temperature. Cool colors like Blue usually have a color temperature over 7000K, while warmer colors like orange and red are around 2000K. Not all cameras allow you to set Kelvin White Balance, but if you have a high end DLSR, you should be able to. It takes a lot of practice to be able to read the light and then know the best temperature to dial in. There are various kelvin charts floating around the web, and a lot of photographers just memorize the chart.

An easy way to learn kelvin is to set your camera to live view and adjust the kelvin white balance in real time until you find the perfect color. The key is to remember that your goal is to neutralize the temperature of the light of your scene. So, if you are in the shade, you want to set your Kelvin Temperature HIGH like 7000K to get rid of bluish tones and light. And if you are somewhere where your light is really yellow, like your kid’s gymnasium, you will want to set your Kelvin White Balance to a low temperature.

Just remember, the key to white balance is to remember that you are trying to neutralize the light.

Now go out and practice!

What is your favorite way to set white balance?

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About Tracie Nall

Tracie lives in Arizona with her husband, teen daughter, and more books than her shelves will hold. She spends her days writing and editing. Many of her words end up on her blog, From Tracie. Find Tracie on Twitter @FromTracie and on Instagram where she takes pictures of things that are yellow.

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