The Case of the Blue Tint: Solving the Puzzle of Your Colorful Videos

Does your video look like the one below? Mine used to. Working with video can be challenging, especially when you’re just starting out. Even the basics can give you headaches. However, the one thing that can make your videos look like trash is incorrect white balance.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "White balance? Isn't that just some fancy term that only professionals need to worry about?" Well, my friend, let me tell you that it's actually a pretty important concept for anyone who wants to take good-looking videos.

So, what is white balance? In simple terms, it's the process of adjusting the colours in your video so that white looks like actual white and not some weird shade of blue (just look at my beautiful image above) or yellow. When you set the correct white balance, your video will look more natural and true to life.

But here's the thing: setting the wrong white balance can completely ruin your things. Imagine capturing a beautiful sunset, only to have it come out looking like a sickly yellow mess because you forgot to adjust your white balance. Not exactly what you were going for, right?

The good news is that avoiding this mistake is actually pretty easy. Most cameras have an automatic white balance (or AWB )setting that does a decent job in most situations. However, it’s not perfect and should not be relied upon. That’s why it's worth taking the time to learn how to manually adjust your white balance.

So, how do you do that? Well, every camera is different, but typically you'll need to go into your camera's settings and find the white balance option. From there, you can choose from a variety of presets (like daylight or tungsten) or manually adjust the temperature and tint until your photo looks right.

Boring Bit: Colour temperature refers to the perceived warmth or coolness of light. It is measured in Kelvin (K) and helps describe the colour appearance of light sources, such as light bulbs or computer screens. Lower colour temperatures, around 2000K to 3000K, create warm and cozy light resembling the glow of a candle, while higher temperatures, around 5000K to 6500K, produce cooler and bluer light, similar to daylight. The graphic below shows the difference in temperatures with respect to the conditions.

Trust me, taking a few extra seconds to get your white balance right is totally worth it. Not only will your videos look better, but you'll also save yourself the frustration of having to delete a bunch of shots that didn't turn out the way you wanted.

In conclusion, don't be afraid to experiment with your camera's white balance settings. It's a simple but crucial part of videography that can make all the difference in the world. And who knows, maybe one day you'll even be able to impress your friends with your newfound knowledge of colour temperature and tint. Hey, we can all dream, right?

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