White Balance is one of those photography terms that sounds intimidating at first, but once you understand a little bit about it, your photos will look more professional in no time. White Balance just refers to the balancing of color temperature in your photos. You know how some photos have that blue, yellow, or orange color cast, and others look just like you would see them with your naked eye? The ones with the blue, yellow, or orange color casts look that way because the white balance wasn't set properly in camera or adjusted by the photographer during post-processing. In this article, we're going to discuss the basics of white balance, and provide a mini-guide for using it to improve your photography.
According to yourdictionary.com, in our cameras, white balance is “a setting that compensates for the differences in a color temperature of the surrounding light”. So, how much do you know about color temperature? Have you ever gone shopping for light bulbs and noticed all of the different options? Soft White, Bright White, Daylight? Did you just grab one and go, and then get home and realize that the light was different than some of the other bulbs in your house? This is because of the color temperature of the bulbs. Color temperature is measured in Kelvin, and represented by the symbol K. Soft White bulbs are 2700-3000K, Bright White or Cool White is 3500-4100K, and Daylight bulbs are 5000-6500K. 5500K is commonly considered as the color temperature rating for daylight. Candlelight is on the low end of the Kelvin spectrum at 1900K and a clear blue sky is on the high end of the Kelvin spectrum at 10000K.
For our purposes, we only need to know that lower light and indoor lighting conditions typically have lower Kelvin numbers, and brighter lighting conditions typically have higher Kelvin numbers. The lower the Kelvin number, the more yellow the light, the higher the Kelvin number, the bluer the light. To give you an idea of where different lighting situations you will encounter fall on the Kelvin scale, please refer to the table below. These are not exact numbers but will help you get a general idea of where your lighting situation falls on the Kelvin scale.