Photography Basics 7 – White Balance

When we are in different lighting situations (outdoors in the day or indoors with the lights on for example) we are generally able to distinguish colours (and white) fairly accurately.   

Understanding white balance is important because camera sensors can’t do this and need to be set accordingly.  I want to control white balance so I never use the auto white balance setting.   

Photographers use the Kelvin Scale (K) which measures the different colour temperatures of light. These  range from warm tones like candlelight and standard household indoor lighting  to neutral tones (like the midday sun on a clear day) and cooler tones  (such as a deep blue sky or shaded areas).

There are different white balance settings on cameras which you can use to set a suitable white balance. The symbols and settings measured in K can vary depending on the make of camera but essentially they all do the same job.

On my Canon cameras (together with the symbols used) these are:

Daylight  (sun) 5200 K

Shade (house) 7000 K

Cloudy (cloud) 6000 K

Tungsten (lightbulb) 3200 K

White fluorescent (fluorescent light) 4000 K

Flash  (lightning flash) 6000 K

Custom White Balance setting (a rectangle with 2 white triangles inside it)  

Specific white balance settings are used for: 

Accurate colours

Setting the correct white balance ensures that colours are rendered naturally, without an unwanted colour cast. 

Creative control

By adjusting the white balance you can choose warm or cool tones for a specific mood or artistic effect. 

Consistent results

Manually setting the white balance to the custom setting using a grey card helps achieve consistent colours across different photos, even when lighting conditions change. 

The pictures below are all lit by one ceiling light and two table lamps all with standard (warm) household bulbs.

You can see how the white balance used in each picture affects the tones. (I used the flash setting without actually using flash just to show the tone of that setting).

I’ve also worn a white shirt which will hopefully help you to see how white balance settings work.

The most accurate setting is achieved by using a custom white balance using a grey card (available online or from photographic shops).  You fill the frame with the grey card, take a picture and then set the custom white balance (see the instructions for your camera on how to do this).

As you can see, the tungsten white balance setting is the nearest to the custom setting, which is what would be expected when warm lighting is used in houses and restaurants etc.

Be aware that whilst phones and tablets generally show reasonably accurate colours, monitors of computers and laptops can be quite inaccurate unless they’re colour calibrated.    

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details here

Antony