It wasn’t until this past year at Zach and Jody Gray’s Incamera workshop that I finally cracked the mystery that is white balance…. but let me tell you- it has completely changed everything since. Have you ever taken a photo that looks really blue or orange? That’s a white balance problem. There are a few simple tricks that you can try to solve that problem- and even a few ways to use white balance to your incredible advantage to save a heck of a lot of editing time and at the same time help your look look uniform. If you look at your camera, you will see a few white balance options. Auto white balance…. which is what most of you probably keep your settings tuned to. This works fine in most situations, but you never really want your camera thinking for itself. Your camera only reads reflected light… which can be completely false… especially against dark and warm backgrounds. But have no fear, I have a few solutions for you…

Kelvin: The warmth of light is measured in something called Kelvin. You’ll see different values… the lower the number, the more blue the photo will appear… higher… warmer. Move that dial up or down… take a photo and change the numbers up until you like the look of the color on your camera. THIS IS IMPORTANT (and entirely too many photographers miss out on this very simple but key technique) Now, every photo that you take in that lighting condition will have the same look. Do you know what that means for you? When it comes time to edit the photo, no more manually white balancing images. On top of that, if you expose all of those photos similarly… and they all have the same white balance… that means that if you are using Lightroom (DO IT!) you can edit one photo and then select the rest taken in that area and SYNC THE EDITS! Let that sink in a minute…. you could have just edited a whole mess of photos with all of TWO CLICKS of a button! Not only that, but your photos appear more uniform and therefore professional and polished. If the light changes drastically or you move to a different locations you may need to change the white balance again.

You can also achieve this pretty easily with something called an expo disc. You can buy one here. Get the larger size and you will be able to use it with all of your lenses. This handy little disc is a great tool that you hold in front of your lens and it sets a perfect white balance for you! I will make a video tutorial on how to use it!

Please let me know if this has been useful or if you have any questions!