Camera Tech: White Balance

White balance is how the camera adjusts the intensity of primary colours, to correct the colour scale in an image by keeping neutral colours neutral. This means that by adjusting white balance it ensures that objects which appear white in reality are rendered as white in the image and removes colour casts that may occur that would give the image a blue,orange or green tint to it. The adjustment of white balance on a camera means it has to discern the "colour temperature" of a light source which refers to relative "coolness" or "warmth" of neutral white light which can improve the image taken on a camera under different light conditions.

The following table is a guide on  the correlated colour temperature of common light sources.

Color Temperature	Light Source
1000-2000 K	Candlelight
2500-3500 K	Tungsten Bulb (household variety)
3000-4000 K	Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky)
4000-5000 K	Fluorescent Lamps
5000-5500 K	Electronic Flash
5000-6500 K	Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead)
6500-8000 K	Moderately Overcast Sky
9000-10000 K	Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky

The following footage shows how the white balance needs to be adjusted in certain light conditions in order to render colours correctly within the image as they would appear in reality.

White balance from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

The first piece of footage shows how the white balance as it was by default which in the lighting conditions of the location we were in cast an orange tinted glow over the images which was not how the colours appeared in reality, the second piece of footage shows the effects of the white balance being changed to suit the lighting conditions which made the images appear much clearer, the whites in the images also appear as they appear in reality which makes the footage look brighter by comparison.