Manual White Balance, By Kelvin and By Custom Preset

Smartphone Lesson 10 taught you to solve color by removing the problem, one light source, nothing to mix. That still applies here, but now the camera actually gives you the tools to correct for whatever that one source is instead of just hoping auto white balance guesses right. Getting comfortable dialing a Kelvin number and measuring a custom preset means you stop being at the mercy of a guess, on set or anywhere else.

Set up one room with one dominant light source active, everything else off, same rule as before. Go into the white balance menu and select Kelvin (sometimes labeled “Color Temp” or shown as a “K” option alongside the preset icons like sun, cloud, and bulb). Warm household bulbs generally sit around 2700 to 3200K, daylight through a window generally sits around 5200 to 5600K. Dial the Kelvin value to roughly match your specific light source, then check the live preview, does skin look like skin, not obviously orange or obviously blue. Adjust the number until it does. Record 8 seconds.

Now switch to the camera’s Custom White Balance function (sometimes called “Custom” on the WB dial, with a separate registration step in the menu). Hold your white or gray card, or a blank sheet of white paper, in the same light, fill the frame with it, and trigger the “set” or “register” function the menu describes, usually a half-press of a dedicated button while the card fills the frame. The camera reads the actual color of your light source directly off the card rather than you guessing a number. Confirm the preview looks correct, then record another 8 seconds of the same subject and setup.

Play both clips back to back. They should be close enough in color that neither reads as obviously warmer or cooler than the other. If one is clearly off, the Kelvin guess was probably imprecise, custom-off-a-card is the more reliable method when you have a card handy, dialing Kelvin by eye is the faster method when you don’t.