Pye I believe is the best. He seems to be the only one in SLR Lounge that can explain something and have someone understand without having to stop and replay sections of the video. I watched a few other hosts on SLR and had to replay sections asking myself wtf did I just listen to.... Great work Pye! As always.
Great video. But one thing you didn't clarify at the end, and this may confuse some people, is that when you say warmer or cooler you are referring to the aspect of the tones, not the temperature. A warmer picture has more orange tones but this is a lower temperture in the Kelvin scale whereas a colder picture has more blue tones which correspond to a higher temperature. So it may be a little confusing when you say dial up or dial down the temperature.
Hey! The quality of this video tutorial is astounding! You're really good in front of the camera and everything you say come off as really convincing and easy to understand. Felt like something I'd paid for. Thank you :)
This is an amazing resource! As someone trying to learn more about the basics of photography I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for making this available!
Isn't 10,000 K warmer than 2000 K? The chart is confusing. When I edit White Balance, that's how the WB slider is set up: blue being 2000K and yellow being 10,000K.
At the end you said the expression "warm it up" and you increased the number of measurement to a higher value, while at the beginning in the scale you made shows that "warm color" means lower value. Can you explain that for me please? You're an awesome person\presenter and I love your videos so much. Thank you and take care :)
+Faisal Almaiman (ALTMedia) This also confused me at first! When he's changing the white balance in post it's like changing it in-camera. Let's say you have an outdoor shot (the colour temperature is around 5500K), but you had your white balance set to let's say 3200K. The colours are gonna be very cool because the camera treats 3200K light as neutral and thus the 5500K lighting that's actually in the shot seems cool. So when you correct your white balance to 5500K, you're warming up the colours. You're setting the white balance to a cooler temperature and thus making the cool light neutral, and thus warmer. Hope this helps! :)
+GodliaCo There is also the confusion that naturally we think red = hot and blue = cold. When you're talking about colour temperatures, red = 2000K, which is cold! And blue = 7000K, which is hot! So it's very unintuitive.
it is better to just think of kelvin in terms of neutral, higher, lower. and keep in mind that low is red, high is blue . I personally try to stick to some the real-life situations by head: candlelight, household bulbs, fluorescent = neon light, outdoor = morning, noon and evening. That's 6 altogether. The term kelvin TEMPerature is wrongfooting most of us, as we use temperature for Celsius/Fahrenheit in 99.5% of our daily life (I am not a pro photographer so that will be 99.5%)
Think of Kelvin as a negative. When the number increases you are getting further away from zero in other words below zero. So the more negative you go the colder (more blue) the light. As you start to approach zero more positive the warmer (more red) the light. So, 0 Kelvin would be boiling (very red) versus 10,000 Kelvin frozen solid (very blue).
Thanks for the lesson. Big question on the body builder. You said it was taken with on camera flash, but he's lit from the left side. The bright light from outside, under the door slit is behind him. How can this be on camera flash?
Lower your WB, the camera will 'add blue' to the frame. You'll do that when shooting indoors with tungsten light. Raise your WB, your camera will 'add orange' to the frame. You'll do that when shooting outside.
Love the 'not to nit pick comments' then they do, Thanks for an interesting presentation, I especially like the very simple tip of using live view and adjusting kelvin, seeing as how my name is also kelvin, I also use a free light meter app on my smart phone which shows kelvin as well as shutter speed f stop etc, using your method and this combined helps me to get things right more times than not. thanks for the tips.
When you balance to the light on set, your camera is adding the opposite color in the frame. Balance to tungsten/indoor light, your camera will add blue to the frame. Balance for daylight/overcast light, your camera will add orange to the frame.
22:30 "If you take this up to 16000 it looks wrong." And so the artistic license goes on because I really like it! Why is it wrong? That's one of the things I love about photography, you can manipulate a mood with white balance.
Thank you! I'm confused about how to get correct colors in camera for sunset photos :(. I ordered an Expodisc to help, but now I realize it will take out the orange colors. :( How do I just get correct colors as I see them with my eye :(. I see so many beautiful sunsets and the colors always end up different in camera (even when I try shade or daylight preset). Should I use Kelvin for sunset, you think??
I get the idea of tip 4 'dial in manually' and what u did is show that by scrolling the kelvin temp, the change in color is immediately visible. But what I don't get is how that matches the idea that we prefer to set WB manually in order to establish a 'neutral' WB. Isn't tip 4 based on subjective judgement of what the 'right' kelvin temp is? And probably also depending upon the keen eye of an experienced photographer who knows what to choose, yes that's my uneducated guess...
Hi there. When I use my 6d mark ii on camera flash, it's hard for me to control the white balance. What I see in the display is totally different from the photos I get. What should I do ? Who can help me ?
Faisal what he means is that in order to balance a warm scene like candle tungsten or surise/sunset you need to cool it down with blue(which are the lower numbers in your camera kelvin scale)so it will balance your warm scene to 5500K which is basicly white light that will keep everything that is white to your eyes also white in your photo. if you have live view in youre camera put it inside a room with tungsten light and drag the dial to the lower kelvin numbers(around 1500-2000 and you will see exactly what happens to your shots.
I think you misunderstood the chart in the video. If you want the 'natural' colour in your footage, you need to adjust your colour temperature accordingly. Let's say you're shooting an indoor scene. The colours from the household lamps are far more orange than the light outside, so you basically increase the blues to compensate. Hope that helped :)
We don't use any other tools. We usually just memorize the Kelvin numbers that we prefer in each lighting situation, adjust accordingly, and shoot in RAW. Hope that helps! Feel free to post any other questions in our FB group! facebook.com/groups/slrlounge
SLR Lounge | Photography Tutorials no tool to actually measure the color temperature...using presumed Kelvin number is not very scientific. I expected more.
Great video! Not to nitpick, but a Kelvin is the unit and is not measured in degrees (like the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales). For instance a temperature is correctly describes as "3200 Kelvins" rather than "3200 degrees Kelvin." e.g. physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Units/kelvin.html
+Justin Michrina In 1967/1968 Resolution 3 of the 13th CGPM renamed the unit increment of thermodynamic temperature "kelvin", symbol K, replacing "degree Kelvin", symbol °K
+fencerpts Uh no. Kelvin is a unit of measurement for temperatures based on the kelvin scale. I knew that was correct, but I double checked with google. And I mean, there is a reason, and that's because hot things give off heat and light, why something is red hot, white hot, or the hottest part of a flame is blue. So it very much so references actual temperature.
Hi, i'm a beginner videographer and photographer and it's all a bit tricky for me. Does white balance has anything to do with iso, aperture and shutter speed? And what is the difference between shooting raw and jpg? Thank you for the tutorial!
White Balance is a completely different setting. Here are two useful links for you: www.slrlounge.com/workshop/dynamic-range-and-raw-vs-jpeg/ and www.slrlounge.com/glossary/white-balance-definition/
i think you got it wrong. temperature rises as the number goes up. so if you want to make a candle neutral, you should set the wb to 1700K in camera. not that the candle is at 1700. i hope it's not complicated.
Yes and no. The RAW photo itself contains all the exact light that the sensor captures so the RAW image itself doesn't consider the white balance. However, the RAW file metadata contains the white balance information from the camera so that when you bring the RAW file into post processing software, the white balance is usually automatically corrected when you open the photo. By the way, colour temperature is measured in Kelvin and not degree Kelvin and the symbol is simply K with no superscript circle.
Why is colour temperature still based / measured on the old-fashioned metric system that was used in English worlds (UK/Australia/USA) only..? Non of the values in the English metric system (feet/miles/Fahrenheit etc.) have ever made sense to me anyways. Celsius DOES make sense, as 0°(C) is the point between frost and thaw and 100°(C) is the boiling point. So why not create a colour temperature scheme that's in line with that: 0° for pure white and -100° or (+)100° for pure blue/cold and pure red/warmth respectively.
I think your confused in the different units. Feet, miles and Fahrenheit are imperial units and not metric. Celcius and kilometres are metric. That being said, kelvins are also metric and the size of a Kelvin unit and a degree Celcius are exactly the same only shifted by 273.15 units so that 0 degree Celcius is 273.15 kelvins. The Kelvin scale is an absolute scale based on the coldest temperature possible that is, absolute zero. At that temperature, all molecular motion ceases and it is impossible for the temperature to go any lower. And the temperature is 0 K or if you prefer -273.15 degree Celcius. The Celcius scale on the other hand is an arbitrary scale which for convenience was set ar 0 degrees to coincide with the freezing point of water. Now if you look at the colour of a candle flame, it is yellowish red and not very hot. If you look at a gas torch, the flame is blue and extremely hot. So that is why blue has a higher Kelvin number than yellow. My dilemma in this is why blue looks colder in a photo than red when a blue flame is hotter than a red one.
The most useful white balance tutorial I ever seen! Thanks
Thank you so much for the encouragement! We hope you check out our other tutorials here: www.slrlounge.com/workshop/photography-101-trailer/
Pye I believe is the best. He seems to be the only one in SLR Lounge that can explain something and have someone understand without having to stop and replay sections of the video. I watched a few other hosts on SLR and had to replay sections asking myself wtf did I just listen to.... Great work Pye! As always.
Great video. But one thing you didn't clarify at the end, and this may confuse some people, is that when you say warmer or cooler you are referring to the aspect of the tones, not the temperature. A warmer picture has more orange tones but this is a lower temperture in the Kelvin scale whereas a colder picture has more blue tones which correspond to a higher temperature. So it may be a little confusing when you say dial up or dial down the temperature.
Finally a video where it explained, what light has what kelvin. Thanks
Hey! The quality of this video tutorial is astounding! You're really good in front of the camera and everything you say come off as really convincing and easy to understand. Felt like something I'd paid for. Thank you :)
This was really helpful, thank you.
This is an amazing resource! As someone trying to learn more about the basics of photography I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for making this available!
SLR Lounge | Photography Tutorials keep up this awesome tutorials its really gonna help me as i go through college for digital photography.
I've learned more here than when I was in the Photography class! SUBSCRIBED! Thanks!
Fantastic explanation!!! Thanks a bunch. 👍🏻👍🏻
Isn't 10,000 K warmer than 2000 K? The chart is confusing.
When I edit White Balance, that's how the WB slider is set up: blue being 2000K and yellow being 10,000K.
Same I don't understand this why it's opposite in my camera
At the end you said the expression "warm it up" and you increased the number of measurement to a higher value, while at the beginning in the scale you made shows that "warm color" means lower value. Can you explain that for me please?
You're an awesome person\presenter and I love your videos so much.
Thank you and take care :)
+Faisal Almaiman (ALTMedia) This also confused me at first!
When he's changing the white balance in post it's like changing it in-camera. Let's say you have an outdoor shot (the colour temperature is around 5500K), but you had your white balance set to let's say 3200K. The colours are gonna be very cool because the camera treats 3200K light as neutral and thus the 5500K lighting that's actually in the shot seems cool. So when you correct your white balance to 5500K, you're warming up the colours. You're setting the white balance to a cooler temperature and thus making the cool light neutral, and thus warmer.
Hope this helps! :)
+GodliaCo There is also the confusion that naturally we think red = hot and blue = cold. When you're talking about colour temperatures, red = 2000K, which is cold! And blue = 7000K, which is hot! So it's very unintuitive.
it is better to just think of kelvin in terms of neutral, higher, lower. and keep in mind that low is red, high is blue . I personally try to stick to some the real-life situations by head: candlelight, household bulbs, fluorescent = neon light, outdoor = morning, noon and evening. That's 6 altogether. The term kelvin TEMPerature is wrongfooting most of us, as we use temperature for Celsius/Fahrenheit in 99.5% of our daily life (I am not a pro photographer so that will be 99.5%)
Think of Kelvin as a negative. When the number increases you are getting further away from zero in other words below zero. So the more negative you go the colder (more blue) the light. As you start to approach zero more positive the warmer (more red) the light.
So, 0 Kelvin would be boiling (very red) versus 10,000 Kelvin frozen solid (very blue).
OMG!!! ive finnally got it! That was the best tutorial.i almost gave up cause it was so confusing. thank you so much!!!
Thanks sir .. thank you so much for cleaning out most of my concern 🙏🙏
Thanks for the info! Well thought out explaining. I use a rebel t7i and learned a lot from this video.
wow.. thank you. I've read a few articles on kelvin and I didn't seem to get it until now.
Thanks for this video. Very helpful.
Thanks for the lesson. Big question on the body builder. You said it was taken with on camera flash, but he's lit from the left side. The bright light from outside, under the door slit is behind him. How can this be on camera flash?
Lower your WB, the camera will 'add blue' to the frame. You'll do that when shooting indoors with tungsten light. Raise your WB, your camera will 'add orange' to the frame. You'll do that when shooting outside.
Love the 'not to nit pick comments' then they do, Thanks for an interesting presentation, I especially like the very simple tip of using live view and adjusting kelvin, seeing as how my name is also kelvin, I also use a free light meter app on my smart phone which shows kelvin as well as shutter speed f stop etc, using your method and this combined helps me to get things right more times than not. thanks for the tips.
Amazing class! Congrats!
You're very good, you do a great job of teaching..... :)
Very helpfull tutorial, thank you for the free content!
Thank you! We're glad you enjoyed it and hope to see you around!
When you balance to the light on set, your camera is adding the opposite color in the frame. Balance to tungsten/indoor light, your camera will add blue to the frame. Balance for daylight/overcast light, your camera will add orange to the frame.
Super is your video still around the one from this YT video on Lighting and white balance?
Good informative, When i shoot green screen that time arise some problem like yellow.I can i solve it?
22:30 "If you take this up to 16000 it looks wrong." And so the artistic license goes on because I really like it! Why is it wrong? That's one of the things I love about photography, you can manipulate a mood with white balance.
amazing video, thank you
Why are the number values and temperature color in camera opposite color from the chart??
Is it possible to calibrate the display on my laptop? It’s not a fancy Mac book or anything. Just a Dell Inspiron from a few years ago.
Thank you! I'm confused about how to get correct colors in camera for sunset photos :(. I ordered an Expodisc to help, but now I realize it will take out the orange colors. :( How do I just get correct colors as I see them with my eye :(. I see so many beautiful sunsets and the colors always end up different in camera (even when I try shade or daylight preset). Should I use Kelvin for sunset, you think??
I get the idea of tip 4 'dial in manually' and what u did is show that by scrolling the kelvin temp, the change in color is immediately visible. But what I don't get is how that matches the idea that we prefer to set WB manually in order to establish a 'neutral' WB. Isn't tip 4 based on subjective judgement of what the 'right' kelvin temp is? And probably also depending upon the keen eye of an experienced photographer who knows what to choose, yes that's my uneducated guess...
4:05 Missed opportunity for a light saber sound :D
Hi there. When I use my 6d mark ii on camera flash, it's hard for me to control the white balance. What I see in the display is totally different from the photos I get. What should I do ? Who can help me ?
Faisal what he means is that in order to balance a warm scene like candle tungsten or surise/sunset you need to cool it down with blue(which are the lower numbers in your camera kelvin scale)so it will balance your warm scene to 5500K which is basicly white light that will keep everything that is white to your eyes also white in your photo.
if you have live view in youre camera put it inside a room with tungsten light and drag the dial to the lower kelvin numbers(around 1500-2000 and you will see exactly what happens to your shots.
Great tutorial! Question.. so if I'm indoors do I set it to the environment (2500 for example), or do I set it to 5500, natural, which is what I want?
I think you misunderstood the chart in the video. If you want the 'natural' colour in your footage, you need to adjust your colour temperature accordingly.
Let's say you're shooting an indoor scene. The colours from the household lamps are far more orange than the light outside, so you basically increase the blues to compensate. Hope that helped :)
Wht ia best settings on Canon 700d for Video in low light?
Im gonna watch this topic again to get more grasp
Great video.
Do you use a light/color temperature tool other than the built in meter to determine the Kelvin number dialed in?
We don't use any other tools. We usually just memorize the Kelvin numbers that we prefer in each lighting situation, adjust accordingly, and shoot in RAW. Hope that helps! Feel free to post any other questions in our FB group! facebook.com/groups/slrlounge
SLR Lounge | Photography Tutorials no tool to actually measure the color temperature...using presumed Kelvin number is not very scientific. I expected more.
If I understand this correctly, you would effectively neutralize the warm morning/afternoon 'color' by adjusting the WB? Exactly what I don't desire.
Great video!
Not to nitpick, but a Kelvin is the unit and is not measured in degrees (like the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales). For instance a temperature is correctly describes as "3200 Kelvins" rather than "3200 degrees Kelvin."
e.g. physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Units/kelvin.html
fencerpts Cool, thanks for that! I always appreciate CC like this =)
+Justin Michrina interesting, that's not at all what I said. But ok.
+Justin Michrina In 1967/1968 Resolution 3 of the 13th CGPM renamed the unit increment of thermodynamic temperature "kelvin", symbol K, replacing "degree Kelvin", symbol °K
+fencerpts Uh no. Kelvin is a unit of measurement for temperatures based on the kelvin scale. I knew that was correct, but I double checked with google. And I mean, there is a reason, and that's because hot things give off heat and light, why something is red hot, white hot, or the hottest part of a flame is blue. So it very much so references actual temperature.
2 Sense Entertainment the hottest part of a flame is white..
What's the difference between light color and light tint?
great video
Hi, i'm a beginner videographer and photographer and it's all a bit tricky for me. Does white balance has anything to do with iso, aperture and shutter speed? And what is the difference between shooting raw and jpg? Thank you for the tutorial!
White Balance is a completely different setting. Here are two useful links for you: www.slrlounge.com/workshop/dynamic-range-and-raw-vs-jpeg/ and www.slrlounge.com/glossary/white-balance-definition/
thank you!
Thank you
Odd that candle light WB is not achievable on most camera's. My camera only goes down to 2500 K
i think you got it wrong. temperature rises as the number goes up. so if you want to make a candle neutral, you should set the wb to 1700K in camera. not that the candle is at 1700. i hope it's not complicated.
i use 5d mark 3. But when i incrrase kelvin to 5000 its warm. 3000k is cool. its the other way round. why is that
What kind of software is he using to view pictures?
+Qiang Tong Adobe Lightroom.
Degrees Kelvin don't exist it's just Kelvin.
This. Video what setup do you use? 5000k
If you shoot RAW, doesn't the camera ignore the WB settings?
+Jim Kurczewski no, you can change settings for WB
Yes and no. The RAW photo itself contains all the exact light that the sensor captures so the RAW image itself doesn't consider the white balance. However, the RAW file metadata contains the white balance information from the camera so that when you bring the RAW file into post processing software, the white balance is usually automatically corrected when you open the photo.
By the way, colour temperature is measured in Kelvin and not degree Kelvin and the symbol is simply K with no superscript circle.
Why is colour temperature still based / measured on the old-fashioned metric system that was used in English worlds (UK/Australia/USA) only..? Non of the values in the English metric system (feet/miles/Fahrenheit etc.) have ever made sense to me anyways. Celsius DOES make sense, as 0°(C) is the point between frost and thaw and 100°(C) is the boiling point. So why not create a colour temperature scheme that's in line with that: 0° for pure white and -100° or (+)100° for pure blue/cold and pure red/warmth respectively.
I think your confused in the different units. Feet, miles and Fahrenheit are imperial units and not metric. Celcius and kilometres are metric. That being said, kelvins are also metric and the size of a Kelvin unit and a degree Celcius are exactly the same only shifted by 273.15 units so that 0 degree Celcius is 273.15 kelvins. The Kelvin scale is an absolute scale based on the coldest temperature possible that is, absolute zero. At that temperature, all molecular motion ceases and it is impossible for the temperature to go any lower. And the temperature is 0 K or if you prefer -273.15 degree Celcius. The Celcius scale on the other hand is an arbitrary scale which for convenience was set ar 0 degrees to coincide with the freezing point of water. Now if you look at the colour of a candle flame, it is yellowish red and not very hot. If you look at a gas torch, the flame is blue and extremely hot. So that is why blue has a higher Kelvin number than yellow. My dilemma in this is why blue looks colder in a photo than red when a blue flame is hotter than a red one.
You know you're a nerd when Pye says, "indoor" and you hear "Endor"
v nice
you have such a nice speaking voice. You should do voice over work. Handsome too
this is where lightroom shines
😁😽 THX!
THANK U SO MUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....
Im red/green colourblind and learning to use white balance manually wish me luck 😂😂😂😂😂
It pisses me off no end that it says "flourescent" on your little colour temperature diagram. Fluorescent. Like fluorine.
I happen to be a scientist.
Look at those perfect chompers! Your dentist must be proud!
a lightsaber is born
you are not make it easier to understand. still no idea
Here is a bit more info: www.slrlounge.com/glossary/white-balance-definition/ Does this help?
It's not true,,fake
The most useful white balance tutorial I ever seen! Thanks