#4 White Balance

Published on February 9, 2025 at 10:20 PM

Chances are, the back of your camera has a button that says “WB” which is White Balance. We all notice different light sources cast shades of light. Remember, sunlight is made up of all the colors of light. The ones we can see are represented by a rainbow. Bright daylight includes the blue end of the spectrum; sometimes the blue is more filtered such as sunrise and sunset. So sunset shows more of the yellows and reds. At the store, I can buy light bulbs that cast a “bright white” color that has more blue in it. I can also buy bulbs that cast a “soft white” which is more yellow like light from tungsten bulbs. White Balance is your digital camera adjusting the general color of the photo so white things actually appear white.

If you haven’t changed the white balance, chances are it’s set on “Auto” WB. The camera notices the color of light where you are taking the photo and adjusts the color of your photo. You can not take it off auto WB if you are using the fully automatic modes. You have the option to change the white balance in Programmable Automatic and all the other manual modes.

Move the dial of your camera to Programmable Automatic and press the WB button. You will see different options. If you are taking a photo inside, use the auto WB. Then, change the WB setting to see how the photo color changes.

Personally, I rarely change the WB setting unless the photos are appearing differently than I expect. The danger of changing the WB is if I forget to return it to automatic when I’m done. This has happened to me before and ruined some photos. I took the above Lotus blossom photo at our local botanical gardens one July. It was a sunny day, but the water lily garden was largely shaded. I didn’t want to leave the WB on auto, since I didn’t know what the camera would choose. I ended up using the daylight WB setting since the sun peeked through the trees to highlight the lotus blossom surrounded by the darkness.

#4 White Balance