Lesson 10 of 14 · Module 4: Light and Color
Color Temperature and White Balance
Shoot two separate 8 second clips of the same subject, each lit by a single dominant light source (one warm, one cool), rather than a mix of both.
Interactive demo · One Light Source Only
Objective
Why This Matters
Mixed lighting confuses a phone’s automatic white balance more than almost anything else, and the result is skin that looks sick under warm bulbs or cold under blue window light, sometimes shifting mid-shot as the phone hunts between the two sources trying to guess which one to correct for.
The Technique
Auto white balance on modern flagships handles a single, consistent light source well. It struggles when two different color temperatures compete in the same shot, a warm tungsten lamp on one side and cool daylight from a window on the other.
The practical fix on iPhone: the stock Camera app doesn’t expose a manual white balance control for video. So instead of trying to correct color after the fact, remove the problem before you shoot: pick one dominant light source per shot. Turn off the lamp and shoot by window light, or close the blinds and shoot by lamp light. Don’t mix them in frame.
On Android, many flagships expose a manual white balance control in a Pro or Expert video mode, look for a “WB” icon and a Kelvin slider. Roughly 3200K matches warm indoor tungsten light, roughly 5600K matches daylight. If your phone has this, you can dial it to match whichever light source you’re using, but single-source lighting is still the more reliable fix.
Check the live preview before rolling: does skin look like skin, not obviously orange or obviously blue.
Watch For This
Good
- Skin tone looks natural and consistent for the whole clip.
Classic Failure
- Orange or yellow cast under a warm bulb makes skin look sickly.
- Blue cast near a window makes skin look cold.
- Color visibly shifts partway through a clip because two competing light sources were both active.
Your Drill
In one room with both a lamp and a window, shoot 8 seconds with only the lamp on (blinds closed or window out of frame), then 8 seconds with only window light (lamp off), same subject, roughly the same phone position. 2 takes each.
Shot it? The AI coach below reviews your clip against this lesson's pass checklist.
Pass Checklist
Lesson complete
Criterion met: Skin tone reads natural in each clip with no strong orange or blue cast, and no visible color shift occurs partway through either clip.
Next: Lesson 11: Editing In-Camera: Shot DisciplineHow solid did that feel?
Noted.
Coach Note
Both the lamp and the window were on in that take, and the color shifted the second you turned toward the window. Kill one source completely before you roll, don’t let the phone referee between them.
AI Coach
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Resurfaces In
Lesson 12 (Building a Scene From Three Shots), Lesson 14 (Capstone).