White balancing can affect the overall look of your film, and by color balancing incorrectly you can end up with a color cast to your footage. So let’s get into why white balancing is important and how you can do it!
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First off, white balancing actually has to do with light. That’s because for the most part, there’s two types of lights, tungsten and daylight and they both actually have a color to them.
Tungsten lights are typically the type of lights you have around your home in lamps and other light fixtures. While daylight is the natural light that comes from the sun. Tungsten lights tend to be more orange, while daylight tends to be more blue.
That’s because of a thing called color temperature. Now, I don’t want to get too nerdy on you here, but basically lights with a lower color temperature are on the warm side, while lights with a higher color temperature are on the cool side. Tungsten lights have a color temp of 3200, while daylight has a color temp of 5600.
So because of this, if your camera’s white balance is set to daylight but you’re shooting inside using tungsten lights, those lights will appear orange.
While on the other hand, if your camera’s white balance is set to tungsten and you’re shooting outside, the daylight will appear blue.
This is why it’s so important to make sure you white balance your camera before shooting, because footage that has an incorrect color balance can affect skin tones and be a real nightmare when it comes to color correcting.
When color correcting it’s key to always try to make skin tones look as natural as possible, because when they’re off it’s extremely noticeable to your audience. After all, we see skin tones every day, so we’re pretty good at noticing when they are off.
For more on color correcting, check out my video here.
Now, there’s two methods you can use for white balancing.
First, is using the built in white balance settings your camera already has. Most cameras have a button labeled “WB” for white balance, and by clicking on it you can select from various built in white balance settings. Daylight is usually represented with a sun icon, while tungsten is usually represented with a light bulb icon.
Now you might be tempted to select auto white balance, however I’d advise against doing that as this can lead to issues like your white balance changing mid shot.
Also keep in mind that all cameras are different so you might need to go into a menu to find your white balance settings. Do some research to see where your camera’s white balance settings are.
The second way you can set your white balance is with a white balance card. (I hold up card)
A white balance card is a white card that is the accurate shade of white you need to white balance your camera correctly, and you can pick one up on Amazon for around $10, so it’s worth the investment. I’ll put a link in the description below.
To white balance your camera, you’ll want to place your white balance card in front of your camera in the same light that will be lighting your subject, and make sure it fills up the frame. Next you’ll want to go back to your white balance settings and find the setting for custom white balance. Here your camera will ask you to set your white balance, and your camera will use that white card to make a new custom white balance that matches your lighting.
Now setting your custom white balance can be different for every camera, so you might want to do some research to find out how exactly it works for your camera. But now that you know how important it is, your shots are sure to always be in balance.
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