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White balance

Photopedia

23 October 2007 15:08

Digital cameras use a system known as white balance to compensate for the varying colour temperatures from different light sources. This light varies in colour from the warm orange-red of normal light bulbs to the more blue light of bright, overcast daylight. Because the camera’s sensor will simply record the light hitting it this would normally result in the colours being incorrect in different lighting. 

The automatic white balance setting available on your camera tries to interpret the colours to give a neutral result. While there’s also a selection of manual settings that give preset values to the colours so that you can get a more predictable result.