What does a review mean by 'white balance often excessively orange under artificial light'?
Asked 2/11/2012
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A camera review says the Nikon D3100's white balance is often too orange under artificial light. Does this usually refer to auto white balance under indoor lighting, or could it include flash? Is this a serious problem when choosing a camera, or is it something that can usually be corrected by using presets, custom white balance, or shooting RAW?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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No it is not a big concern and usually does not mean flash since flash is daylight balanced.
What it means is that when you use the automatic white-balance option, things will come out too orange under artificial light, mostly incandescent lighting.
There are plenty of ways around which mean different amount of work:
Use Custom White-Balance: You shoot a known white target first and then all your shots in the same lighting condition come out perfect.
Use Preset White-Balance, possibly with Fine-Tuning: You set the white-balance to current type of lighting which gives you better results but not necessarily perfect.
You shoot RAW and the white-balance problem is delayed. You then set the WB according to taste or use a known white object (ex: shoot of a reference WB-card) to set the WB to images in batch shot under specific condtions.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
It usually means the camera’s auto white balance can leave indoor shots too warm/orange under artificial light, especially sources like incandescent, fluorescent, LED, or other mixed lighting. It generally does not mean flash, since flash is typically close to daylight balance.
This is not unusual or unique to that camera. Auto white balance often struggles indoors because artificial light sources vary a lot in color temperature, and the scene can also be affected by wall colors or leftover daylight.
In practice, it’s usually not a major reason by itself to avoid a camera. Common ways to handle it are:
- use a white balance preset for the light source
- set a custom white balance from a neutral target
- shoot RAW and adjust white balance later
So the review comment is mainly a note that the camera’s automatic WB may be less accurate in some indoor situations. If you often shoot under artificial or mixed lighting, knowing how to set WB manually or edit RAW files matters more than this single review remark.
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