How To Set Up White Balance

On this short video Daniel Norton from Adorama demonstrates how to set up the current white balance while shooting

Although you can change the white balance in post production, there are cases where setting it up during the shoot can be important (for example when you need to make sure that the colors are exactly correct – for instance commercial product photographers might need to sample a clothing in a very precise way for a commercial).

To set the white balance all you need to have besides your camera is some sort of calibration target – Norton uses the PhotoVision 14 Inch Pocket One Shot Digital Calibration Target (which cost about $47, but there are other maybe more cheaper targets that you can buy). You need to go to your camera setting and use the custom setting for the white balance, fill the frame with the target with the light that you are going to shoot with (always do this after you set up the lighting) and take a picture. Than you can use your post processing software – Lightroom, capture one, Photoshop etc. to sample the grey part of the target, which will automatically fix the white balance.

We have looked at different aspects of setting and working with white balance both in camera and in post processing here on LensVid. You can check out “6 Tips To Help You Understand White Balance and Color Temperature“, “How to Use Neutral Guides to Set white balance in Photoshop” and “How to Do Custom Camera White Balance with a Gray Card“.

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.