White Balance Settings for Fluorescent Lights

Suzanne B. recently purchased one of our light sets with daylight balanced bulbs. She asked if she should set her digital camera's white balance setting to the fluorescent setting.

Although it seems logical that fluorescent bulbs would require a digital camera's white balance to be set to the fluorescent setting, that is not the best setting for daylight balanced fluorescent bulbs. The fluorescent setting on digital cameras is normally meant to be used with the type of fluorescent bulbs found in offices and commercial buildings. Those bulbs typically have a slightly yellowish or greenish color cast. The daylight balanced bulbs which we sell (and which are typically found at photography stores) are daylight balanced bulbs. Daylight bulbs normally don't require color correction.

The standard white balance setting for daylight balanced fluorescent bulbs is Auto White Balance (typically marked as AWB). Should you find that you are getting a color cast with AWB, then you could try the Daylight setting.

If your camera has it, then Custom White Balance, is the best setting to use. The procedure for using Custom White Blanace varies depending on the specific model of camera, but it normally entails shooting a test picture with a gray or white background, then "telling" the camera to use that picture as its basis for color correction. Custom white balance takes a minute or so to set up. But it should deliver the truest colors.

And don't forget that if you set your camera to custome white balance for product phtography, be sure to return the camera to Auto White Balance for other uses, like family snapshots.