Photo by Steve Berardi
Well, as you probably already know, “automatic” doesn’t always work. And, with nature photography it rarely works. But, that’s what makes photography so fun 
When you first got into photography, you probably used your camera in full auto mode… I know I did. But, as you learned more and more, you hopefully progressed into the more manual modes–shutter priority or aperture priority–and then finally to full manual.
I always hear about the benefits of manual focus, manual exposure, and manual everything–but, I never hear about the glory of manual white balance… Well, I’m going to fill that void!
What is white balance?
White balance is pretty simple–it refers to the “color temperature” of your photo.
Have you ever seen a photo that looks too red (warm) or too blue (cold)?
Well, both problems are a result of improper white balance.
Most of the time, your camera is pretty good at determining the right temperature of your photograph, but sometimes it’s just way off. This usually happens when a big part of your photo is the same color.
Example of improper white balance
Bad (too warm):
Photo by Steve Berardi
Good:
Photo by Steve Berardi
My camera’s auto white balance failed with this photo because the scene was predominantly red (the warm light of the sunrise made those rocks a saturated shade of red).
How to avoid white balance problems
The best way to avoid white balance problems is to shoot in RAW. With RAW images, you can safely change the white balance later (without ANY loss of quality).
You won’t have this ability when shooting in JPEG mode, but for the things you shoot in JPEG mode (i.e. wildlife or wildflowers), you’re unlikely to get a poor “auto” white balance.
If your camera can’t shoot in RAW format, or you just don’t like RAW, then you can try using one of the white balance presets (i.e. shade, cloudy, etc), or you can choose the temperature manually. Here are a few common temperatures:
- Sunrise or sunset: 2000-3000K
- Midday sun: 5000-5400K
- Overcast sky: 6000-7500K
- Shade: 7000-8000K
These values are just estimates, so again: the best way to ensure a proper white balance is to shoot in RAW and manually fine tune it later in post processing.
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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Mojave Desert, both located in the beautiful state of California.
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I enjoyed this post immensely. I’ll no longer rely exclusively on automatic white balance.
I am a above average amateur photographer wanting more knowledge. You have helped me learn….thank you.
…and what helps even more is setting the white balance to manual (pre on most Nikons, i guess) and using that all the time. In my experience this is the only way to get consistant results.
When shooting in RAW, is it really neccesary to worry about white balance? With RAW software (like lightroom and aperture) you can easilly use an eyedropper to pick an grey or white area to determine the perfect whitebalance in seconds?
@Jochem – when shooting in RAW, there’s no reason to worry about white balance when you’re pressing the shutter, but you should always double check it later when post-processing (like you suggested with lightroom or aperture)..
sometimes its difficult to tell if a photo is too warm or cold, especially when you’re looking at hundreds of photos after a long day
every now and then you need to be reminded about the basics. Nice simple advice for improving photos
What about using a white balance card?