Page 1--Forward to Page 2 or Go to Page 3

Warm Cards White Balance for Digital Cameras
Courtesy WarmCards.Com

As you are probably now discovering, white balancing can seem like a hassle at first, but once you understand it, manually controlling the electronic color adjustments of your digital camera can be a powerful new tool in your photography.

Although WarmCards were originally engineered with professional TV/video cameras in mind, they also work great with digital cameras.

In fact, hundreds of digital photographers have already discovered WarmCards. Their feedback, comments, and suggestions have led to the development of an all-new product. The Digital Camera Pack is designed to better fit the needs of both professional and amateur digital photographers.

Did you know that even today's most expensive professional video cameras still require a manual white balance? In fact, on a typical day's shooting a cameraman might have to set his white balance a dozen times or more. So, if an $80,000 broadcast television camera can't be counted on to white balance itself automatically, then it's not surprising that your under-$5000 digital camera can't do it either.

For all their sophistication, today's cameras can barely tell the difference in color between indoor lighting, a rainy day outside, or the bright sun. And there is a big difference. Bright daylight tends to look blue, incandescent lighting looks yellow, and fluorescent lighting looks green. The human eye adapts very quickly to the color temperature variations in these light sources so the differences are nearly imperceptible, but your camera isn't that smart.

If you expect to get accurate and consistent colors in your photographs, your digital camera must be told what "color" of light is illuminating the subject you're shooting. This is called "white balancing". And that's basically all white balancing is - showing the camera something that should look white and using that as a reference point so that all the other colors in the scene will be reproduced naturally. If you want to learn more about white balancing, click here for a basic tutorial.

A good camera can make a guess at white balance and sometimes come surprisingly close on Auto-WB.

And you can even help get it a little closer by choosing a Preset white balance such as "cloudy". But if you want accurate colors, where the hues don't shift from shot to shot . . . that don't have to be corrected later with Photoshop . . . there's no substitute for setting the white balance yourself.

If you haven't figured it out already, let us suggest that Auto-WB is the last option you should ever choose! A photographer who relies on Auto-WB or the built-in Presets of their camera, may not realize what poor results those settings provide and how much more time they ultimately waste to correct the images later.

A camera set to Auto-WB is always making changes. It's always adjusting the color as the framing changes, as the focus changes, and as the exposure changes. There's no consistency between photos, and there's no control over the quality of your images. Setting your camera to one of the built-in presets, such as "cloudy" or "incandescent" doesn't help much either because the preset only narrows the range of changes.

The concept of electronic white balance might be new to many still photographers, but it's 30-year old stuff for TV/video shooters, and believe us, there are no shortcuts to getting quality images. You must white balance manually.

So, we've made a pretty good case for setting your white balance manually to get accurate colors. But what if "accurate" colors aren't necessarily what you want?

Photographers and television cameramen make creative decisions all the time to override the supposedly "correct" settings of their cameras. That's what makes photography challenging and sets great photographers apart from mediocre photographers. Knowing when to increase the exposure a stop or two, changing the shutter speed to add a little blur to the action, adjusting the aperture to change the depth of field, putting a filter on the lens, setting up lights or reflectors, and choosing a different flash-mode, are just a few examples of creative decisions that can't be made by the camera automatically. Customizing the color balance to get better results is no different.

Remember, a manual white balance provides two important things:

1) Accurate colors
2) Consistency

Obviously, consistency is always a good thing, but what if you don't necessarily want true-to-life colors? Unless you're working in the food or fashion industry, 100% accurate color reproduction is rarely the creative choice.

In portrait photography, wedding photography, and other work where humans are the principal subjects, a true white balance using a gray/white card will NOT deliver pleasing skin tones. A "warmer" white balance is usually what customers and clients prefer, and using WarmCards to customize the color balance of your camera is the way to do it.

An accurate white balance, using an ordinary gray/white reference card, is rarely the best choice. That's why WarmCards were created for the television industry, and they work just as well for digital cameras. WarmCards make it simple and easy for photographers to get a warmer white balance, and then to keep the white balance consistent throughout a sequence of photos.


For many photographers, an ordinary white balance is rarely acceptable these days. By tricking the camera's white balance into producing better colors, it is possible to get the "warm look" that customers and clients prefer.

The problem is that, without WarmCards, cheating the white balance is difficult to control and risky. The WarmCards System provides an easy-to-use and consistent way of getting a warmer white balance

WarmCards work with all professional digital SLR cameras and many lower priced cameras that have manual white balance controls. They are as easy to use as an ordinary white/gray card. Once you've seen the difference WarmCards can make, you'll probably never use an ordinary white balance ever again. Clients and customers love the "warm look".

Based on the feedback, comments, and suggestions of digital photographers who already use WarmCards, we have developed a new product to better fit the needs of digital photography.

The WarmCards Digital Camera Pack (DCP) is smaller, lighter, more portable, and costs less than a regular set of WarmCards. The DCP includes five different shades of pocket-sized WarmCards, a genuine Kodak 18% gray card, and a convenient zippered carrying case to protect them. The DCP can be easily carried in a vest pocket or tucked out of the way in your camera bag for easy use on every shoot.

Find out more





Used with Permission from Vortex Media
© 2001 Vortex Media. All rights reserved.
Vortex Media and WarmCards are registered trademarks of Vortex Media.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.