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Understanding White Balance
Understanding White Balance
by Chris Gheen
An essential component to ensuring quality nature images is monitoring your camera’s white balance. Since the majority of wildlife and landscape photographers are using natural light, it’s important to showcase that in your photography, or else risk your images appearing unnatural in their coloring. This can be managed with proper white balance, and, if done correctly, can really make or break an image. So what is white balance? And how does it affect your photography? Let’s take a look.
What is White Balance?
White balance is a method for managing your camera’s interpretation of the color (or temperature) of various light sources. This is measured in degrees kelvin on a range from about 2500 to 10000 (depending on your camera). Varying light sources produce different colors of light. Natural sunlight is typically between 5000 and 5500. Light sources that cast a blue hue, such as fluorescent bulbs or shadows are referred to as “colder” and carry a lower number. “Warmer” light, like candles, tungsten bulbs or even sunsets and sunrises carry a higher number, and tend to be more orange or red. If you only ever shoot under natural, direct sunlight, then white balance would be a non-issue, just set it once and move on. However, since light changes frequently and we often like to take photos during a wide variety of conditions, it is important to balance the color of your light source to ensure proper exposure.
Why do we need to use white balance?
If you ever get a headache after sitting under fluorescent lighting for too long, it’s often a result of the prolonged exposure to an unnatural light source that is causing your eyes to tell your brain to modify your interpretation of your surroundings and the colors of various items. As a result, a sheet of white paper will still look white under fluorescent lighting, even though the light source actually casts a bluish tint to the white paper. Your eyes do this on their own to help you naturally interpret what is considered “white.” In the same way, your camera can also tell its brain to modify its interpretation of the surrounding lights through the use of white balance. The problem is, the “brain” in your camera is in no way as precise as the human brain when it comes to white balance. This is where your abilities as a photographer come into play and you can begin to utilize your artistic license to make an image exactly what you want it to be.
How do I use white balance?
There are a few different ways to utilize white balance in your camera to get the most out of your images. What I most commonly do when managing my camera’s white balance is I’ll just shoot on Auto. This is one of the only automated settings I use in camera, and it works great, because I also shoot in RAW. If you find yourself taking images in JPEG format, your white balance will be more deeply ingrained into your photograph, and will give you less wiggle room when it comes to adjusting your image with post processing software. The nice thing (and perhaps one of the biggest arguments for shooting in RAW) is that the adjustment that your camera makes to white balance is on the same plane as the adjustment made in Lightroom or Photoshop. Your camera uses very similar software to adjust color and white balance on the temperature spectrum as the majority of post processing software, so as long as you’re shooting in RAW, your adjustments can be made either in camera, or in post processing, with the same results. An image with a white balance of 7500k in your camera will look the same as if you were to manually adjust your white balance to 7500k in Lightroom after shooting at 5000k.
What is White Balance?
White balance is a method for managing your camera’s interpretation of the color (or temperature) of various light sources. This is measured in degrees kelvin on a range from about 2500 to 10000 (depending on your camera). Varying light sources produce different colors of light. Natural sunlight is typically between 5000 and 5500. Light sources that cast a blue hue, such as fluorescent bulbs or shadows are referred to as “colder” and carry a lower number. “Warmer” light, like candles, tungsten bulbs or even sunsets and sunrises carry a higher number, and tend to be more orange or red. If you only ever shoot under natural, direct sunlight, then white balance would be a non-issue, just set it once and move on. However, since light changes frequently and we often like to take photos during a wide variety of conditions, it is important to balance the color of your light source to ensure proper exposure.
Why do we need to use white balance?
If you ever get a headache after sitting under fluorescent lighting for too long, it’s often a result of the prolonged exposure to an unnatural light source that is causing your eyes to tell your brain to modify your interpretation of your surroundings and the colors of various items. As a result, a sheet of white paper will still look white under fluorescent lighting, even though the light source actually casts a bluish tint to the white paper. Your eyes do this on their own to help you naturally interpret what is considered “white.” In the same way, your camera can also tell its brain to modify its interpretation of the surrounding lights through the use of white balance. The problem is, the “brain” in your camera is in no way as precise as the human brain when it comes to white balance. This is where your abilities as a photographer come into play and you can begin to utilize your artistic license to make an image exactly what you want it to be.
How do I use white balance?
There are a few different ways to utilize white balance in your camera to get the most out of your images. What I most commonly do when managing my camera’s white balance is I’ll just shoot on Auto. This is one of the only automated settings I use in camera, and it works great, because I also shoot in RAW. If you find yourself taking images in JPEG format, your white balance will be more deeply ingrained into your photograph, and will give you less wiggle room when it comes to adjusting your image with post processing software. The nice thing (and perhaps one of the biggest arguments for shooting in RAW) is that the adjustment that your camera makes to white balance is on the same plane as the adjustment made in Lightroom or Photoshop. Your camera uses very similar software to adjust color and white balance on the temperature spectrum as the majority of post processing software, so as long as you’re shooting in RAW, your adjustments can be made either in camera, or in post processing, with the same results. An image with a white balance of 7500k in your camera will look the same as if you were to manually adjust your white balance to 7500k in Lightroom after shooting at 5000k.
This image was taken using auto white balance. The top image was balanced to a sunny neutral value of around 5000k. To show the differences in white balance, the middle frame has been warmed up significantly (to about 9000) and the bottom frame has been cooled down significantly (to about 3000k).
If you read your camera’s user manual, you’ll find that there are a variety of white balance presets. These will often be things like, sunny, cloudy, tungsten and fluorescent, as well as a manual, auto and maybe a flash setting. The exact terms vary from camera to camera, but the general ideas are the same. The presets are all about balancing cool or warm light by shifting the white balance in the opposite direction to accommodate. Typically, the sunny preset will be in that 5000 to 5500 range consistent with natural, direct sunlight and as such, your camera will usually not make many adjustments to the color temperature. Cloudy light will usually be a bit cooler than sunshine, so your camera will warm up the scene slightly. Tungsten (traditional light bulb) light is typically warmer than standard sunlight, so the tungsten setting will cool the scene down a bit to compensate. Fluorescent light is often cooler than shadows, so this is usually the warmest preset, as the camera compensates for such blue light. You get the idea.
Now, with that said, there are a few times when I will make manual adjustments to my white balance in camera to ensure I’m getting the desired result. The time I manually adjust my white balance most often is when shooting night photography.
If you read your camera’s user manual, you’ll find that there are a variety of white balance presets. These will often be things like, sunny, cloudy, tungsten and fluorescent, as well as a manual, auto and maybe a flash setting. The exact terms vary from camera to camera, but the general ideas are the same. The presets are all about balancing cool or warm light by shifting the white balance in the opposite direction to accommodate. Typically, the sunny preset will be in that 5000 to 5500 range consistent with natural, direct sunlight and as such, your camera will usually not make many adjustments to the color temperature. Cloudy light will usually be a bit cooler than sunshine, so your camera will warm up the scene slightly. Tungsten (traditional light bulb) light is typically warmer than standard sunlight, so the tungsten setting will cool the scene down a bit to compensate. Fluorescent light is often cooler than shadows, so this is usually the warmest preset, as the camera compensates for such blue light. You get the idea.
Now, with that said, there are a few times when I will make manual adjustments to my white balance in camera to ensure I’m getting the desired result. The time I manually adjust my white balance most often is when shooting night photography.
Astrophotography is a great time to utilize your camera’s manual white balance to ensure compelling coloration of stars or clouds.
I’ve found that I like the look of a cooler white balance when shooting stars, as it gives the sky a darker, more blue tone, and tends to brighten the stars and give them a more white look. The problem with most night photography is that there isn’t enough light hitting your camera’s sensor for most primary functions, like white balance and auto focus, to work. This is where your manual white balance adjustment is crucial. I’ll often adjust my white balance during night shoots to then give me a better idea of what my camera’s sensor is actually picking up when the image comes back on the screen.
Another very useful way to utilize the manual white balance adjustment is when you have a scene that needs to be spot on for white balance, and you don’t want to rely on your memory later in post processing to get it right (such as really dynamic sunsets, or macro flower photography). In this instance, I will switch my camera to live view and modify my white balance in camera while watching my result on the screen.
I’ve found that I like the look of a cooler white balance when shooting stars, as it gives the sky a darker, more blue tone, and tends to brighten the stars and give them a more white look. The problem with most night photography is that there isn’t enough light hitting your camera’s sensor for most primary functions, like white balance and auto focus, to work. This is where your manual white balance adjustment is crucial. I’ll often adjust my white balance during night shoots to then give me a better idea of what my camera’s sensor is actually picking up when the image comes back on the screen.
Another very useful way to utilize the manual white balance adjustment is when you have a scene that needs to be spot on for white balance, and you don’t want to rely on your memory later in post processing to get it right (such as really dynamic sunsets, or macro flower photography). In this instance, I will switch my camera to live view and modify my white balance in camera while watching my result on the screen.
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"Backcountry Journeys offers guests the unique opportunity to explore our natural world from behind their own lens. We run a selection of hand-crafted Photo Tours, Workshops & Safaris connecting passionate people to exceptional experiences. Locations worldwide.
- Russ Nordstrand, Backcountry Journeys Founder & Director
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All Images & Content are property of Backcountry Photography Tours, Workshops & Safaris LLCs - Copyright 2024
BACKCOUNTRY JOURNEYS
"Backcountry Journeys offers guests the unique opportunity to explore our natural world from behind their own lens. We run a selection of hand-crafted Photo Tours, Workshops & Safaris connecting passionate people to exceptional experiences. Locations worldwide.
All Images & Content are property of Backcountry Journeys Photography Tours, Workshops & Safaris LLC - Copyright 2024
TRIP CATALOG
Download our Trip Catalog for detailed information on our many destinations for photography tours, workshops, and safaris.