Using a Custom White Balance

In this week’s Simplicity eClass tutorial, we’re taught how to set a custom white balance. It’s actually ridiculously easy and I can’t believe I’ve never done it before! I had to break my camera manual out anyway to get the directions specific for my camera, so if you want to learn, I highly recommend consulting your manual.

It’s EASY to set your white balance!

Here’s how I did it on my Nikon D50:

1. Hold down the WB button and turn the command dial until PRE is displayed as the white balance.
2. Hold down the WB button until PRE blinks in the display on the top of the camera.
3. Shoot your “white” just like you’re taking a picture. You should be able to use any surface as long as it’s large enough to fill the frame, but a card or piece of paper works really well.
4. After this shot, your camera should blink GOOD or NO GOOD at you. If NO GOOD, try the shot again. Maybe there wasn’t enough light or maybe you didn’t fill the frame with enough of the color. “NO GOOD” does not mean that the color you chose is no good for setting the white balance.

That’s it! It’s really as easy as that! Your camera will hold onto that custom white balance setting in the PRE mode until you set it again.

For true to life colors, use a white or grey card to set your balance. Why a grey card? Well, it’s complicated and I’m not the best person to explain, so try the article, If it’s Called “White Balance,” Why Do People Use Gray Cards?

Faith also mentions warming cards her husband bought for her with her camera stuff. What a brilliant idea! I have some warming filters I can put on my lens, but using a warming card to change the white balance would produce similar, if not completely identical results, I think!

I had this cardstock laying around, so I grabbed a white, grey, yellow and blue sheet and started experimenting!

It’s like a whole new world of photography opened up for me. Shooting in RAW, I can technically shoot in any white balance mode and I’ll have complete control over the temperature and tint without compromising the image quality. However, that assumes I have a good eye for color and can manually correct it. By setting my white balance manually according to my lighting conditions, I don’t need to worry so much about color correction! And do you know what that means?

It’s one step closer to getting the image right straight out of the camera.

Our first assignment this week is to use custom white balance in both 100% artificial and 100% natural light. I took it a step further and took a look at my results using Auto White Balance along with the Grey, Yellow and Blue cards. I got some very interesting results and think I may actually like the grey white balance best in both lighting situations.

The shot on the left is of Mr. Serious’ piggy bank in our bathroom (only place with 100% artificial light right now) which uses incandescent lights. Look how yellow Auto white balance turned out! The shot on the right is in our play room, opposite the windows. It’s all cloudy out, so the light is nice and even and not too harsh. In that case, Auto white balance turned out too blue.

If you haven’t tried setting custom white balance, crack open your camera manual and try it out! It took me literally all of 15 minutes to take all of these shots. It takes perhaps 5 seconds total to set your white balance. What are you waiting for!?

Also, if you have any desire to learn more about how to use your digital SLR and take creative photos, I highly recommend Faith’s classes. It’s a great experience, the classes are SO affordable, Faith is super nice and I really feel like my photography has come a long way in just a month through taking her course and shooting manually. My husband even told me yesterday that he’s impressed with the number of GOOD shots I take on a frequent basis now!

Go manual photography!