by Lou Belcher

Created on: April 12, 2009

Using the white balance feature in a digital camera.

Our eyes look into a room and interpret white where it should be no matter the lighting. Cameras don't do this. Therefore, you are surprised by the picture you've taken when it has a bluish tint to it or a yellowish tint to it. This is because your white balance is off.

If you want accuracy of colors, it's a good idea to learn how to adjust the white balance on your digital camera. First, to save you some trouble, some digital cameras have an automatic white balance feature you can preset. Read the manual with your camera and determine if this is so. If it is, try it out. Take pictures under different lighting, such as cloudy conditions, florescent lighting, tungsten lights, shade, flash, etc. See what happens. If your experiment results in natural looking lighting, you're in good shape. If your experiment results in some strange tints, you know that you won't want to rely on the automatic white balance (awb).

Because white is white to us, we don't usually realize that the camera might be recording the scene differently. Our eyes adjust to make white look white to us even when it is a bit bluish or a bit yellow under certain types of light. The camera is not an artist, but we are, so we need to learn to adjust white balance manually to meet our artistic needs.

With film cameras we used to adjust white balance with filters. Now we need to adjust it manually or with the controls of the camera. One way to do it is to use the white balance button if your camera has one. With this, you aim your camera at something in the room that you want to come out totally white. You fill the lens with the object, then push the white balance button to set your camera. This will set the white balance for the picture.

On other cameras there are choices between white balance settings, such as florescent, tungsten, shade, daylight, cloudy, flash, etc., within the menus of the camera. It takes practice to get to know what to do and when to use each of these. Since digital exposures don't cost extra, take pictures of an item using each setting and note what you get. Study the results and determine which of the settings does what you want for the setting. For example, in a picture with direct lighting, it's often best to use a cloudy setting as it will add just enough warmth. As you practice, each setting will become clear to you. Practice under different types of lighting, such as outdoors, inside under artificial light, on a sunny day, on a cloudy day, etc., so white balance will come to you automatically when you are faced with a certain lighting.

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