Which white balance setting should you use for landscape photography? In my opinion, white balance is one of the most overrated controls on a digital camera.
Some of you might be confused about how to set it up correctly, and I’m pretty sure at some point you got lost in a forum thread or social media post where some photographers argue about what’s the best white balance setting for each scene:
- “You should use this or that in-camera preset”
- Or, “Just use the AWB, and you’re good to go”
- Or, “You should always set the white balance manually in-camera using the Kelvin value”
- Or a grey card or even the color-checker
Personally, one camera setting I never mess with when I’m shooting outdoors it’s the white balance.
A lot of people get hung up on white balance. And they tend to overthink it. Except for a few specific scenarios, I keep it simple:
- shooting in RAW
- setting the white balance to Daylight in-camera
- and tweaking it in Capture One or Lightroom if needed.
That’s it!
In this article, I’ll break down why sticking to this simple approach helps me to get the perfect colour balance and keep colour consistency in my landscape images.
White Balance: What is it?
I find working with colour to be one of the most difficult aspects of photography. And the key to accurate colour is good white balance.
White balance is a setting that can sometimes be confusing, and I have found it to be a common problem among some of my students.
White balance in photography involves adjusting and fine-tuning the colour in an image, and one of the most beneficial things about white balance adjustment is that it can significantly affect a landscape image’s overall appearance, feeling, and mood with a few minor tweaks.
Unlike other photography genres, landscape photography has many freedoms when it comes to white balance.
If you’re not somewhat familiar with the white balance, let me explain very quickly what it is.
Different lights have different colours. Some are warm and yellowish, and some are cool and bluish.
That changes how the colours of things look in photos. Let’s take a look at this sequence of images I took last January during my winter workshop in the Dolomites.
You can see a beautiful transition from the late afternoon light to the blue hour. Our eyes have a property called colour constancy that makes objects appear to have the same colour regardless of the colour of the light they are in.
So, our eye naturally adjusts to the temperature of the light, enabling us to always perceive it as “white or neutral”. But cameras are not that smart, so we have to let them know what kind of light we’re using.
To overcome this problem, camera manufacturers invented the “Auto White Balance”, which attempts to mimic the colour constancy property of our visual system. Put another way, it attempts to remove any colour casts produced by the different temperatures of light so that the image looks more natural.
The temperature of light is measured in degrees Kelvin (ºK), and it ranges from warm (orange) to cool (blue). Different light sources have different colour temperatures, and they can affect how your camera perceives the colours in your scene.
For example, sunlight has a high colour temperature of around 5500K, while shade under a cool blue sky has a higher colour temperature of around 7500ºK.
Most cameras have several preset white balance modes that you can choose from. Each mode has a different colour temperature value that corresponds to a typical lighting condition.
If you don’t adjust your white balance correctly, your image may look too warm or too cool, and the colours may not be accurate.
For example, if you shoot a sunset with a white balance setting that is too cool, your image may look bluish and lose the warm tones of the sky. On the other hand, if you shoot a snow scene with a white balance setting that is too warm, your image may look yellowish and lose the cold tones of the snow.
White Balance: In-Camera and Post
There are two ways to adjust your white balance: in-camera and in post-processing.
In-camera means that you set your white balance before you take the picture, while post-processing means that you adjust it after you import your image to your computer. Shooting in RAW, you have complete control over white balance when editing the image.
If you shoot Jpeg, the WB settings are baked into the image data, and you will never have quite the same amount of flexibility as you would if you were using RAW.
That’s one of the many key reasons why I always shoot RAW!
Speaking about the Auto White Balance, as useful as it can be, it is not a good tool for landscape photographers. For example, if we are shooting at sunset, we might want to preserve the warm hues of the sun. Similarly, if we are shooting during the blue hour, we might want our images to have a cool and calm feel.
If you choose auto white balance, the camera will think, “Oh! You’re shooting under tungsten light and want me to cool down the image!”
When shooting landscapes, I always set the white balance to Daylight. If I’m lucky enough to catch the stunning warm light illuminating a snow-capped peak at sunrise, I want to capture that glow.
Setting the WB to Daylight, the camera records the colours that are actually present in the scene without altering them. It essentially tells the camera, “Record the wavelengths actually present in the scene, and don’t mess around with the colour.”
Colour temperature can have a significant impact on the look of your landscapes. For instance, this is the same scene captured with slightly different framing and at a different time during the sunrise, and locking the white balance to Daylight allowed me to consistently record the changing colour cast of the light.
The Issue with Auto White Balance
What would have happened if we used the in-camera AWB? The AWB analyzes the entire scene in front of the camera, and its goal is to dynamically neutralize any colour cast.
As you can see, the AWB adjustment attempts to remove any colour cast and neutralize the image. This sequence illustrates the dramatic effect that different white-balance settings can have on a scene.
Now, all three shots look very alike, and the unique and beautiful colour cast of each version has vanished, altering the emotion and the atmosphere of the image.
I know I’m not actually changing the in-camera white balance, I’m just simulating it in Capture One. However, the result you’d achieve is quite similar to using the in-camera AWB. So, this is the main reason why using an automated WB adjustment it’s not actually a smart decision.
There are times when I rely on auto white balance, particularly indoors, I would say. For example, here are some interior shots from a beautiful project I collaborated on with the Sweden Tourism Board last summer.
These types of shots require a very different approach, as I had to work with different and more complex light scenarios and artificial lights, where colours need to be more accurate.
That being said, it doesn’t mean when post-processing the shot I’ll leave the WB completely untouched. But starting from a fixed reference allows me to better decide the direction to take the shot, whether to make it a bit warmer or cooler, based on my creative vision.
Cloudy & Shade White Balance: When to use them?
You might be asking, ‘and what about the Cloudy and Shade settings’? The Cloudy and Shade settings each have their own purpose. The cloudy setting is great for overcast days. I mean, not just when there are a few puffy clouds in the sky, but when it’s truly overcast, like in this shot here, for example.
Using the cloudy setting, we’ll add a touch of yellow to counteract the dominant blue tones we have on cloudy days.
Open shade is something we experience a lot in the mountains but not as much in flat areas. But open shade is when you can see, but there’s no sunlight hitting you.
Let’s take this example. The warm light of the sun illuminates the entire landscape. We have a uniform light temperature for the full scene. In this second example, the sun is not able to penetrate this mountain to get down into the valley.
So, the only light that this part of the landscape is receiving is the light coming from the blue sky overhead. That’s why we have a strong blue colour cast.
When we’re out there shooting sunrise or sunset scenes, we really want to stick with that natural daylight setting. Not the auto setting. I’ve heard many photographers say, ‘Oh when I shoot sunrises or sunsets, I just switch the white balance to cloudy. Please, don’t do it.
The thing is, the cloudy setting tends to add more warmth to your shot. But here’s the deal: sunrises and sunsets often have this beautiful mix of blue and warm tones. So, if you set the white balance to cloudy mode by default, you’re gonna end up pumping up those warm tones while losing out on the richness of the blue tones in the sky.
You’re basically desaturating the blue tones in the sky. In my opinion, it’s not a very good idea. My recommendation is to shoot in daylight mode for your sunrise and sunset, and you’ll always have an excellent starting point for your edits and colour separation.
Here’s a waterfall shot I’ve taken in Scotland, and you can see how blue it is. That’s because the only illumination there was from the sky.
Switching the white balance to the ‘Shade’ preset clears that colour cast, and we can now appreciate a better colour separation and more natural tones.
Examples using Daylight White Balance
Before wrapping up, I wanna go through some more quick examples and give you an overall idea of the common different scenarios where I always use the daylight setting.
In this first image, it does a pretty good job with nice and neutral whites. If we were to use the eyedropper tool to click over the white snow hit by the direct light, you can see it just warms the white balance up a notch. It’s not a drastic change, but it’s a noticeable one. Anyway, I prefer the cooler feeling.
This is a drone shot from the Azores. 5.00 pm in the afternoon. A full sunshine blue sky. 5150K and plus 9 in the magenta. Probably, I’d increase the temperature just a hair. And we have a very natural look, nice blues in the sky and the ocean.
Let’s try for a sec the Auto White Balance mode, and you can see the image looks off, and we lost those lovely deep blues.
In this shot, we have got a very strong blue cast. This has been captured about half an hour before sunrise.
If we try to boost the contrast, you can see the intensity of the blue becomes overwhelmingly strong. So, this is where I add a touch of warmth to offset the strong blue cast and achieve a cooler tone that’s more subtle yet still conveys a sense of coolness.
The last thing you’d want to do is completely remove the blue cast using the eyedropper tool, for instance, by sampling one of the white areas. It’s not a very good idea.
Here’s another cool example: a photo taken at sunrise with pretty purple and magenta shades in the sky. If we were to try to white balance here on the snow, then all those pastel colours would be lost.
And I see this mistake a lot with these shots taken before sunrise or before dawn. With a too-warm white balance, you lose all the colour nuances, and the magenta/pinky tones start to look kind of orangey.
On this next shot we have got different light conditions. The colour balance looks absolutely great. We can see the lovely blue tonalities in the sky and the subtle pink hues in the clouds. Additionally, the warm orange tones of the rock in direct sunlight create a beautiful colour contrast with the cool blue tones in the shadowy areas.
Another example is here. We’ve got a beautiful colour range of reds and oranges, contrasting with the cooler blue shadows of the fjord in the foreground. Again, the daylight setting provides the best result for nice and natural colour separation. If we were to use a warmer or cooler temperature, the result wouldn’t be great at all.
Your thoughts?
Colour temperature can hugely influence the look and feel of your landscape photos, so don’t underestimate its importance. Of course, there are other specific scenarios where white balance requires further consideration, but the daylight setting allows me to always get an excellent foundation and colour balance for almost 90% of my images.
I hope you found the article/video useful. What challenges have you faced in using the white balance in your landscape images? Let me know in the comments!
