White Balance

Information on how to set the white balance on Canon cameras

Why do we need to use a custom white balance? Is auto-white balance not fine? The answer is that most of the time auto white balance will work fine, however as the camera is in automatic mode, it will redo the automatic white balance every time we take a photo or video, as it assumes we could have changed the scene. This means that during a shoot the white balance could be very different from look to look. Auto white balance is also often thrown off by brightly coloured outfits which means the colours in the image do not match the real-life item. By setting a custom white balance we remove this variable and ensure the colours will be consistent for the whole shoot.

To set the custom white balance to ensure accurate colours, perform the following steps:

• To create a custom white balance profile, we need to take an image of an 18% grey card, the one we typically use is: Manfrotto LL LR2050 Ezybalance Grey Card - 50 cm, Grey/White

• Ensure there are other light sources that will impact the set. If there are house lights or windows etc lighting the set then these light sources should be removed first.

• Turn ON the ORB lights using the software, ensuring they are set to the correct light levels in the settings

• Remove the camera from the tripod

• When all lights are on - take the camera off the tripod - and move closer to the subject so the grey card fills the frame ensuring the grey card is in the centre of the image. See the examples images below.

• Once you have taken a correct image, go to; "Menu" -> "Custom White Balance" -> Navigate to the photograph of the grey card you just took the "Set"

• Then go to "White Balance" and set the white balance to "Custom"

This is CORRECT

The below image is an example of an incorrect image. The centre target is aimed at his neck - this will set the white balance from his skin - this is wrong as it misses the grey card - you MUST target the grey card

This is INCORRECT

This is CORRECT