How to Set White Balance

The phrase "White Balance" comes from professional video. Videographers make it tough and use a special kind of oscilloscope called a waveform monitor to match or "balance" the signals from the camera's red, green and blue channels to make whites look neutral under these different kinds of light.

In digital photography and amateur video we have it much easier. You can just press a button to make whites neutral, or let the camera do this automatically. It's also trivial to use this adjustment instead to make whatever colors you prefer.

Digital cameras usually have built-in sensors to measure the current color temperature and use an algorithm to process the image so that the final result may be close to what we see. But, the algorithm(s) being used may not be accurate enough to make every situation correct.

example
auto white balance


manual white balance


Digital cameras have some built-in sets (Daylight, Cloudy, Flash, Shade etc.) but we can get the best result we use manual set.

1. Look for a white surface.
2. Direct the camera to surface.
3. Press the "White Balance" buttom on camera.

You can record pictures in real colors with this setting.