White balance is the camera’s ability to make different types of lighting appear
neutral. The effect is similar to selecting daylight or tungsten film, or using colour
compensating filters in conventional photography. One automatic and four preset
white-balance setting are available with still image and movie recording. White bal-
ance is set in the main recording menu (p. 36) or the movie-recording mode (p. 61). When auto reset
(p. 55) is active, the white balance will be reset to automatic white balance when the camera is
turned off. White balance can be assigned to the controller with controller customization (p. 54).
The automatic white balance compensates for the colour temperature of a scene. In most cases,
the auto setting will balance the ambient light and create beautiful images, even under mixed-light-
ing conditions. When the built-in flash is used, the white balance is set for the colour temperature of
the flash.
Preset white-balance settings must be set before the image is taken.
When one of the preset white-balance settings is selected, an indica-
tor will be displayed on the LCD monitor to indicate the active white-
balance setting; the effect is immediately visible on the monitor. To
record the ambient light, set the flash mode to flash cancel (p. 39).
The built-in flash can be used with preset white-balance, but will cre-
ate a pinkish or blueish cast with the fluorescent and tungsten set-
tings. The flash is daylight balanced and will produce good results
with the daylight and cloudy settings.
44
R
ECORDING - ADVANCED OPERATION
WHITE BALANCE
Cloudy - for overcast outdoor scenes.
Tungsten - for incandescent lighting: household filament light bulbs.
Fluorescent - for fluorescent lighting: office ceiling lights.
Daylight - for outdoor and sunlit subjects.
White balance