When I shot film, before the digital revolution, I would pick my film stock with a specific intention … based on the lighting conditions I was expecting. But once I started shooting digital, first with Canon, and then later with Fujifilm, I just set my WB to auto. It was a case of “set it, and forget it.” But honestly, why in the world would I leave it up to the camera (today), when in the past I always seriously considered it. Thanks for resetting my perspective. Well done!

The quality of both explanations and simultaneously showing examples 🔥

It’s crazy, I’ve been shooting for 14 years. I’ve watched hundreds of KZfaq videos on photography, and this is the first time I completely understood HOW white balance works. Don’t get me wrong I’ve used white balance expertly over the years to correct colors and also creatively, but that white paper with the color slider made it finally click for me. Props on the teaching skills! I appreciate it, thank you!

I have never thought of white balance this way before. Thanks for the clear explanation and offering this as food for thought. I think I'll give it a try!

I really love it when Sean drops a new video. It’s just a bright spot in my week.

We were so happy to have the WB auto correction that we forgot that a white paper under a lamp should be orange 😅 Thanks for the reminder, great video as always! 👍 I'll definitely experiment more with the WB settings

After watching this video, I realized I've never fully understood white balance in digital photography. This made all the pieces I've tried to learn come together for me. Thank you for being the incredible communicator you are, Sean!

Not surprisingly as I'm merely an amateur and Sean is one the best there is, I completely subscribe to what he says around minute 9. Perfect white balance robs ambiance but strictly staying at 5500K tends to exaggerate colour-casts the moment the lighting strays in either direction. Now obviously its a matter of personal preference if you want to keep it like that but I too tend to pull back a bit in post or if I remember, in camera. One thing, Sean says RAW has a ton of latitude. He's oversimplifying for our benefit. RAW doesn't actually give a hoot about your white balance setting, that is applied afterwards during RAW conversion so you can put it anywhere you like and it shouldn't affect image quality in the slightest. A bit more information that might interest some - First, daylight temperature depends greatly on where you are shooting. Generally the farther from the equator the further light from the sun has to travel through our atmosphere and this tends to absorb blue light, resulting in natural light at midday that is quite warm. Thus daylight in (say) Birmingham is a good deal warmer in tone that it is in Chennai (latitudes 52 north and 13 north respectively). The midpoint daylight setting in Chennai is not 5500K but 6400K. Shall I ramble on? This at first seems counterintuitive: why is the light in the tropics cool and in the arctic warm? Well perhaps simply because there were misnamed. A blue flame is hotter than a red-orange flame so whilst, if applied correctly, blues should have been called hot and reds cool, it turns out our brains start to break at that point. Because since we lived in caves we've associated a flickering orange fire with warmth and many a proto-human has probably singed his fur on a glowing red ember. Secondly, the interesting bit about daylight colour temperature is the effect it has on human culture. Because blue light is kind of cold and desaturating, can even look slightly metallic, tropical cultures love bright and saturated colours. You see it in the clothes, in the art and in the architectural decoration. And some may notice that the the same pink, green, turquoise and gold saree that looks quite opulent in Colombo looks frankly a bit garish when worn in New York, whilst tourists fresh off the plane from Malmo landing in Bangkok look somewhat wan and anaemic until they start to develop a bit of a tan. Sorry for going on for so long. Colour fascinates me. :) Edit: Just a footnote - I forgot to mention however that I slightly disagree with the bit around minute 12, that our eyes are daylight white balanced. First - daylight where? If I live all my life in Lagos (latitude 6N) it would be quite a handicap to have my eyes biologically set to 5500K. Secondly, most computers and phones you may have noticed have a night light setting to ease eye strain. This is because if you are in a tungsten lit room and someone hands you a sheet of white paper - you see a sheet of white paper. You do not see a sheet of orange paper, your brain (not your eyes) has already made the adjustment for you*. So here's a tip to help those of you who work late at your computers and suffer from eye strain. Hold a white piece of paper next to your monitor and then lower the temperature on your monitor until the screen and the paper look about the same. Second tip, reduce the brightness until that looks about the same too. Your eyes will thank you and as long as you are not doing colour critical work* you will soon forget that you have the night light setting on. *however if they actually handed you a sheet of orange paper your brain might still see it as white. Because it matches the colour of the light, that's the point at which our brain can get fooled. For colour critical work therefore you need balanced lighting or if you know the lighting that will be used by your viewers you should work in similar light. Maybach and Lexus for example have light booths in their main showrooms where they can park the car and change the ambient light to match the light where you live. This way you can see what it will look like when you get it home.

Old guy here and I use white balance creatively. Just used, what pleases the image. But I never got the “how stuff works” part, which left me always wanting to “really understand”. That strip thingy did it for me, brilliant ! 😀

After 50 years of photography, hobby only, I realized the deep truth of how we see and yes, film was as it was. Digital wants to make it better, what is already perfect. Thank you.

Sean I've been doing this too! It's good to see others use WB this way. After starting photography and learning about WB I pretty quickly discovered that id shooting in uncompressed RAW I could just leave it in one spot and that the in-camera WB doesn't change the data collected, it just embeds a WB setting that your editing software will pickup and set the settings to automatically. You can get the exact same result if you set it in post as you can if you set it in camera! Once I learnt this I decided to leave it at 5500k for the sake of consistency. Always having the same starting WB has given me a consistent reference to understand what temperature light sources are and how my camera sees them. It's allowed me to become aware of how my brain compensates for WB changes when I'm just looking at the world and has trained me to understand temperatures of light sources so much better than I would have if I set WB in camera! I would encourage others to try this way of doing WB too, even if it's only for a couple months as a learning experience.

First new info from KZfaq about photography in ages for me. Thank you Sean.

This is the absolute best white balance video I’ve come across. You sir are a master teacher. The simplification of a seemingly complex topic? Wow. Thank you. And your work is an inspiration 💗

The depth of your explanation and your visual props are what make you such a great communicator. The video length also hits the sweet spot. Thanks.

Our job as photogs is to create, either in our style or the style desired by the client. For me, the bottom line is WB can be adjusted in post so I don't get too worried about setting in camera, except when I need to represent the actual color as it was during the shoot. So, like Sean, I prefer to stick with the basic 5500K unless there is a need for a specific setting. Love this channel, always a fair, balanced and thoughtful approach to our craft... and Sean just seems like a darn decent human being!

I saw this yesterday and went out for a quick shoot last night. I’m very thankful because I like seeing the bright colors that the daylight wb brought. More experimentation is due. Thanks and God bless you.

The watercolor on paper is great and gets the idea across without needing a bunch of motion graphics. Cleverly done.

You will never find any tutorials anywhere about WB like this. I swear!

I’ve always set my camera on ‘daylight’ just because I was too lazy to always adjust my settings. And didn’t want auto because I never want my camera to make my decisions. Being a landscape / nature photographer, it seems to work out well for me. Thanks for explaining it!!

Your way of managing white balance isn't odd. I do it the same way and for the same reason. When I started photography shooting wildlife I used auto white balance and never really thought about it. One day an experienced photographer suggested me to set the camera to a fixed white balance for consistency between the shots and easier editing, which I tried. This made me discover the joy of capturing a scene the way my eyes see it and I never got back to auto. Thanks for letting others know about that joy!

I like the way you think and I agree with you. That's how I've been using my cameras for quite some time.

That was very technical for a change. And it mainly proved one point: "Shoot in RAW!" (...then you can decide which WB you use later...)

"But raw files have a ton of latitude" - Not super important here, but WB settings or auto-WB do not affect the raw file at all, data captured is the same regardless. It will affect what is loaded into your processing application though.

Digital white balance in photography got screwed up because of wedding and fashion style photography, where there is such a heavy focus on the exact color of an outfit, and skin tone. In great classic cinematography, however, the atmosphere and color quality of the light is much more a part of a shot scene, so things look more like what your eye sees in real life. I agree with the approach Sean Tucker is taking, here.

In 38 years as a full time pro, I don' think I have ever used Auto White balance. I work in exactly the same way you do, I leave it set to 5600K. The only time I change it is if I have a colour critical job that needs to render truly accurate colours. In that case I use an X-Rite Colour Checker to create custom colour profiles. I've nothing against using auto, its just not what I do. I worked with film for so long, when I changed to digital white balance wasn't really something I thought about. I just used the camera as if it were loaded with daylight balanced film. Great video Sean, I wish more people created content like yours, Thank you.

My understanding of white balance was poorly lacking, but I did not know why, until now. Your video is a great example of taking an idea that appeared on the periphery (conversation with a friend) and making it into something that will resonate with many people. That is the art of it.

I’ve been applying this advice since this video dropped and I swear my photography has improved DRAMATICALLY

Thanks for sharing this, it's the first time in many many years that I've watched advice that make my photography skills better.

Thanks Sean, you’ve put into words an internal struggle I’ve often had setting a custom white balance on my camera by “correcting” the white balance of a sheet of paper or a white ceiling. I’m an amateur and have bought into the mantra that white must always look white, which in my heart I knew was wrong but never before realised why. Thank you.

Glad to hear from a kindred spirit, I rarely use auto white balance. I liked what you said about staying true to the mood of the scene and not letting the camera neutralize it

Excellent!

A wonderful and unique channel, glad I tripped across it this morning.

Interesting approach... don't find this odd at all after I understood your idea. We all got so used to "camera-is-doing-so-many-things-automatically-for-us", nobody even thinks about these things any more. Thanks for throwing a thoughts boomerang.

Brilliant !!!

Same here, always has useful tips. Thanks Sean!

Good video! Very well explained and argumented, well done!

Love this approach

Outstanding! Thank you!

This is the way I have been shooting for years unless I'm trying to "correct" some horrendous mix of light sources. But then, I would do that post. Great explanation Sean.

Sean you never disappoint

Great explanation! Thank you

Excellent explanation! Ty!

I can't wait to try this out, really good advice!

Great video Sean - simply and brilliantly explained!

Excellent video!

Excellent video Sean, very helpful and informative. Much appreciated.

Sehr schön!

That's the best explanation I've heard. Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

Thank you!

Thank You!!! Very helpful, I am grateful

I'm going to have to try this. Thanks Sean!

I needed to hear this! ❤

Well done. Thank you.

I have never thought about that! Thank you so much for this video! You are the best!❤

Excellent Information!

Brilliant explanation!

This is amazing…. Thanks for sharing this knowledge. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Thanks, Sean. 👍👍👍

very well explained, Sean. Thank you

Thank you for this video. I learned something today!

Great introduction to the concept. One of the clearest I've seen I reckon. I just want to mention (if anyone sees this!) that the actual data in a RAW file is completely unaffected by the white balance set in camera - that's only a bit of metadata. So you're really not loosing anything, from a technical perspective, by changing it in post. Video is different though.

Eye and mind opener this, great work sean

You’re amazing ❤

Brilliant advice, thank you Sean

Thanks Sean, this is something I was playing with and you have solidified it, really appreciate your videos!

Thank you for making a video that helps me a lot 🙏

Another great video, Sean.

Thank you so much for this brilliant explanation

Incredibly helpful. Thank you Sean! Cheers from Chicago.

Thank you Sean. This video is very useful for me.

1. Your approach to white balance seems quite unusual and remarkable to me. Perhaps I'll give your method a try sometime. 2. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but as far as I recall, the smaller the number, the cooler the result. Therefore, I have doubts regarding your chart; for instance, the moon should have a smaller number than the tungsten light bulb (thus, the moon should be on the left at 3000K, and the tungsten should be on the right at 8000K). 3. Initially, I was astonished by how golden or yellowish my photographs appeared under tungsten light when I first acquired my camera. 4. However, upon experimenting with white balance, I became even more impressed by the myriad of colors and tones that emerged beneath that golden cast (though they still retained a nighttime ambiance). Since then, eliminating the yellowish tint has become my preferred approach to photography. 5. In all your examples of eyedropper white balance, I personally prefer the "AFTER" results (with the exception of your "Blue hour in Whitby," where I found the "BEFORE" version superior). 6. Ultimately, I believe it is the photographer's preference that holds significance. Personally, I favor "cooler" shots. In my experience, while warmer ones may initially appear attractive, cooler photos tend to endure and appeal more in the long run. 7. One might argue for staying true to what the eyes perceive, but photography's ability to manipulate colors and shades enables the photographer to recreate scenes with their own creative vision. This includes techniques such as cropping, adjusting shadows, lowering highlights, tweaking hue or saturation, as well as other adjustments like clarity or noise reduction. For some of us, fidelity to reality is not a strict requirement; rather, we embrace the opportunity to create images even more beautiful than reality itself. 8. I have no interest in manipulating photos by adding or removing objects, or altering proportions though. 9. Lastly, it's worth noting that only higher-end cameras can accurately reproduce the full spectrum of tungsten yellowish colors. Most others tend to capture a mere blob of yellowish or golden tint.

Really useful, Sean

One of your best videos. Thanks for sharing

Thank you, Sean. Really helpful.

Will try it out. Thanks for sharing yr thoughts

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

You're not the only one, my WB on all my cameras is always set to 5600k, that way if I decide to edit it, I know I have a consistent starting point

Sean has mastered the art of teaching as well as he's mastered the art of shooting. Always an informative pleasure listening to his well thought out explanations. I learn something every time.

Great video. Very informative. Thanks!

This is so helpful.

Thank you so much for sharing this.. Will be definitely trying it out soon. ❤❤❤🎉🎉

A really useful and clear video for everyone Sean. Thank You.

In short, white balance in digital photography is a technical setting for the demozaicing tool to compute correctly the colors of the image. Usually, the post-processing tool (Lightroom for example) fetches the temperature from the RAW metadata to use it by default and automatically while demozaicing the RAW. Usually, it is recommended to use color grading tools for color correction, and to use the white balance tool for adjusting a little (or correcting if the default setting is wrong) the white balance as any color retouch afterward will impact the way the saturation/chroma, the brightness/lightness, and the tint will move in the working color space of the post-processing application when playing with the colors of the image. Indeed, playing directly with the white balance can give us a more straightforward result for our taste. But don't forget it will also impact the way the color properties will behave in the working color space when we'll play a little with them for some secondary color corrections.

Your channel is a gem. Learned soo much from you

This makes sense. Thanks.

Great video. Food for thought

So interesting… as always 🖤

Brilliant and balanced. Your for and against arguments are well made and easy to understand. Thank you Sean ❤

Incredible video, one of the best on KZfaq.

Great video. Refreshing approach

This makes so much sense.

Such a wonderful teacher. Thank you.

That makes so much sense. I wish someone would have told me this sooner. Thank you for sharing!

The title of the video tricked me a little bit. I was expecting something really outside the box and weird. But you actually made point. I understand your point of view and it really makes sense. I always kept my white balance at Auto with the thought in the back of my mind that I'm shooting in RAW so I can always edit it in the post. And honestly I kind of like the idea of shooting in 5500K WB all the time. I am going to try it and who knows, perhaps I'll even like it. Great video. Thanks ;)

Thank you for a clear explanation

Presentation and explanation is so nice!

Great points here and creatively presented Sean!

Fantastic video! I never thought of it this way, I learned so. Thank you!

The best explanation on this subject. I now get it!! Thank you Sean😁

Sean. You are just the best.