I see this question come up quite a bit; what white balance should I use with "insert drone model here" so I decided I would continue my food for thought threads and share why I ALWAYS use daylight WB with every drone I have ever flown, along with my single exception to that rule.
DEFINITION
It is important to first understand what White Balance (WB) even is and how cameras use their white balance settings to display the captured image. The way I describe WB is it is the camera's way of adding an opposing color temperature and tint to an image to attempt to counter color cast introduced into an image by non-white light sources. For example, if an incandescent bulb with a color temperature around 2600 were to shine on a white surface the white surface would be very orange vs white which is it's actual color. So in that scenario, the camera if set to Automatic White Balance (AWB) would add a lot of blue to the image until the color temperature of the white surface (white reference point) is closer to 5600K (daylight Kelvin).
There is a second color factor in play as well whenever lighting is involved and that is tint. A light source could give off a tint which would also need to be corrected by the white balance. If the tint is green then magenta needs to be added to counter the green tint and vice versa. Although color temperature can be somewhat corrected by the human eye, tint is nearly impossible to correct manually because the human eye automatically adjusts for it which makes it very difficult to calculate in post.
AUTOMATIC WHITE BALANCE (AWB)
Pretty much every modern camera has an AWB option which will attempt to analyze the image coming from the sensor and adjust the color temperature and tint to make the scene have an accurate white reference point. This actually works surprisingly well in many situations but there are also many situations where it can completely fail; one such situation is when too much of the scene has a strong enough color cast that the camera overcompensates by adding too much of the opposing color or tint to the scene. An example is a drone flying over a green forest, the camera sensor will be saturated with a green cast being reflected from the forest and will probably add too much magenta to the scene.
Where AWB really falls apart and can ruin your footage is when in the previous example you are filming video and go from flying over a green forest to flying over a brown warehouse in the same video clip. In that example, if the camera were set to AWB, it would go from adding a strong magenta tint to removing the tint and possibly changing the color temperature as well since the brown building will reflect the sunlight at a different color temperature from the green forest; this WB shift would be very noticeable in the video and would also be very undesirable.
AWB falls apart even faster and more noticeably under mixed lighting conditions, but for the purposes of this discussion, mixed lighting conditions really won't be an issue since most drones are flown outdoors where the sun is the key, fill, and backlight; in other words there is only one light source.
AWB is not all bad; if you are taking photos with your drone and saving them in a RAW format then you can non-destructively set the WB later when processing the images. With video it is a different story; since most prosumer/consumer/hobbyist drones shoot video in a compressed format (H.264 or H.265) changing the white balance later is a destructive process; meaning it will degrade the video footage to some extent. This is where 10bit footage starts to show it's strength, 10bit footage gives you much more WB latitude vs. 8bit; both fall apart when extreme changes are made but 8bit falls apart much faster than 10bit.
MANUAL WHITE BALANCE
So now that it is obvious that for the best results you should set a manual white balance the big question becomes why don't I just manually set the WB? With regular cameras this is easy, you just use a white card or something like an ExpoDisc (my preferred method) and you will achieve perfect WB every time.
The problem with a drone camera though is how do you do that? Even if you managed to sit a white card in front of a drone camera while it is on the ground, there's no way it will be accurate once it is in the air; not to mention most drone camera apps don't even provide a way to manually white balance using a white card. Sure you could try dialing in a Kelvin and tint values by hand, but that's just as unlikely to succeed as leaving it in AWB.
WHAT DO I DO?
So after a lot of testing and experimenting over the years I decided to always just use Daylight WB (the little sun icon in the WB menu). Remember when I said outdoors during the day the sun is the key, fill, and backlight? So basically, if daylight is all of these light sources why not just set the WB to daylight and forget about it? This method also means it is one less thing you have to fiddle with when shooting in Manual mode (which I always do) especially when you are in the air where every minute counts. Yes, you could technically switch to AWB when shooting images and back to Daylight WB when shooting video, and I used to do that; the problem was a few times I forgot to set the WB back to daylight and the video clips ended up with shifting white balances within the clip. Also, with a RAW image file who cares what WB it was shot at so there's no real reason to bother switching to AWB for photos.
Sticking to Daylight WB for everything is not perfect, below are some of the problems with this method:
HOW TO FIX WB IN POST
As you can see by now, it is pretty difficult if not impossible to nail the WB prior to flying with most consumer/prosumer drones. Sure if you are flying for a Hollywood movie you will probably be lifting an Arri or Red into the air and have a whole team to help you with every aspect of the shoot including the proper WB. But for the rest of us the more realistic way of doing it is to simply set the WB to Daylight and fix it in your NLE.
The way I fix the WB in my NLE which is Davinci Resolve, is I simply locate something that is white on the ground and tap the WB sampler eye dropper to set the proper color temperature and tint values. With 10bit footage this works really well. Sometimes I check a few different objects in the video until one looks right to my eyes. When there is nothing on the ground that is white then I either leave it as is or slightly adjust it to enhance the scene. For example, for a sunset scene I know the Daylight WB is too "cold" so I skew it towards the warmer end of the Kelvin scale to bring out the truer colors of the sunset.
USING WB CREATIVELY
One of the best things about photography/videography is that there are no rules, since there are no rules there's also nothing that says the WB even has to be accurate. Many times in the past I have used the WB to match the rest of the footage vs making sure that white was really white. For example if I am shooting a project that is a full day, and it starts getting towards evening time but I want all of the footage to look like it was shot around the same time of day, I will skew the WB towards the cooler side to mute the sunset colors so that it appears more like the footage was shot earlier in the day.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this post helps someone or some people gain a better understanding of WB and some of the unique considerations of working with it for drone photography/videos. The concept is still the same but it is actually easier than with other types of cameras because mixed lighting isn't the problem it is for other cameras. In mixed lighting the WB is never perfect and you really need to pick your tradeoff. If people are in the scene then of course you want to WB as close to the subject as possible to protect the skin tones.
BONUS
Before I forget, there is one single instance where I do in fact change the White Balance to 3600K and that is when filming fireworks at night. To get the blue, red, and white fireworks to really stand out and look true to their colors at night, 3600K is the better WB setting to use vs. Daylight for both photos and video.
SAMPLE VIDEO
I put together the following sample video showing shooting with the EVO II 6K at night with both a Daylight WB and the WB set to 3600K. The camera settings were the same settings I always use for night video: 4K@30FPS, H.265 compression, F2.8, 1/30s shutter, ISO800, LOG color profile, and to show the WB differences I used a WB of 3600K and Daylight WB.
For the daylight WB, during the color grade I adjusted the WB to match the 3600K WB. The main point of the video is that it is quite easy to adjust the WB in post to match whatever look you are going for as long as you shoot with a LOG profile and use one of the 10bit camera options which means shooting in 4K vs 6K and 30FPS vs 60FPS.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Why I Never Shoot Video At 24FPS
Why I Never Use ND Filters With Drone Cameras
Why I Never Use CPL Filters With Drone Cameras
Autel EVO II Pro - User Experience from a DJI User
EXPLORE YOUR WORLD: An Autel EVO II Pro 6K Cinematic Story
DEFINITION
It is important to first understand what White Balance (WB) even is and how cameras use their white balance settings to display the captured image. The way I describe WB is it is the camera's way of adding an opposing color temperature and tint to an image to attempt to counter color cast introduced into an image by non-white light sources. For example, if an incandescent bulb with a color temperature around 2600 were to shine on a white surface the white surface would be very orange vs white which is it's actual color. So in that scenario, the camera if set to Automatic White Balance (AWB) would add a lot of blue to the image until the color temperature of the white surface (white reference point) is closer to 5600K (daylight Kelvin).
There is a second color factor in play as well whenever lighting is involved and that is tint. A light source could give off a tint which would also need to be corrected by the white balance. If the tint is green then magenta needs to be added to counter the green tint and vice versa. Although color temperature can be somewhat corrected by the human eye, tint is nearly impossible to correct manually because the human eye automatically adjusts for it which makes it very difficult to calculate in post.
AUTOMATIC WHITE BALANCE (AWB)
Pretty much every modern camera has an AWB option which will attempt to analyze the image coming from the sensor and adjust the color temperature and tint to make the scene have an accurate white reference point. This actually works surprisingly well in many situations but there are also many situations where it can completely fail; one such situation is when too much of the scene has a strong enough color cast that the camera overcompensates by adding too much of the opposing color or tint to the scene. An example is a drone flying over a green forest, the camera sensor will be saturated with a green cast being reflected from the forest and will probably add too much magenta to the scene.
Where AWB really falls apart and can ruin your footage is when in the previous example you are filming video and go from flying over a green forest to flying over a brown warehouse in the same video clip. In that example, if the camera were set to AWB, it would go from adding a strong magenta tint to removing the tint and possibly changing the color temperature as well since the brown building will reflect the sunlight at a different color temperature from the green forest; this WB shift would be very noticeable in the video and would also be very undesirable.
AWB falls apart even faster and more noticeably under mixed lighting conditions, but for the purposes of this discussion, mixed lighting conditions really won't be an issue since most drones are flown outdoors where the sun is the key, fill, and backlight; in other words there is only one light source.
AWB is not all bad; if you are taking photos with your drone and saving them in a RAW format then you can non-destructively set the WB later when processing the images. With video it is a different story; since most prosumer/consumer/hobbyist drones shoot video in a compressed format (H.264 or H.265) changing the white balance later is a destructive process; meaning it will degrade the video footage to some extent. This is where 10bit footage starts to show it's strength, 10bit footage gives you much more WB latitude vs. 8bit; both fall apart when extreme changes are made but 8bit falls apart much faster than 10bit.
MANUAL WHITE BALANCE
So now that it is obvious that for the best results you should set a manual white balance the big question becomes why don't I just manually set the WB? With regular cameras this is easy, you just use a white card or something like an ExpoDisc (my preferred method) and you will achieve perfect WB every time.
The problem with a drone camera though is how do you do that? Even if you managed to sit a white card in front of a drone camera while it is on the ground, there's no way it will be accurate once it is in the air; not to mention most drone camera apps don't even provide a way to manually white balance using a white card. Sure you could try dialing in a Kelvin and tint values by hand, but that's just as unlikely to succeed as leaving it in AWB.
WHAT DO I DO?
So after a lot of testing and experimenting over the years I decided to always just use Daylight WB (the little sun icon in the WB menu). Remember when I said outdoors during the day the sun is the key, fill, and backlight? So basically, if daylight is all of these light sources why not just set the WB to daylight and forget about it? This method also means it is one less thing you have to fiddle with when shooting in Manual mode (which I always do) especially when you are in the air where every minute counts. Yes, you could technically switch to AWB when shooting images and back to Daylight WB when shooting video, and I used to do that; the problem was a few times I forgot to set the WB back to daylight and the video clips ended up with shifting white balances within the clip. Also, with a RAW image file who cares what WB it was shot at so there's no real reason to bother switching to AWB for photos.
Sticking to Daylight WB for everything is not perfect, below are some of the problems with this method:
- Cloudy Days - On cloudy days the Daylight WB will not be accurate, Daylight WB is typically 5600K but on a cloudy day you will want a WB closer to 6500K. So why not just use the Cloudy WB preset? I have consistently found that that preset does not look natural in almost every camera (not just drone cameras) that I have tested. In fact, in my testing, the Cloudy WB preset usually looks worse to my eyes than just leaving the preset at Daylight WB. But the problem with Daylight WB on a cloudy day is that it can be inaccurate by up to 1000K.
- Sunrise / Sunset - Sunrises and Sunsets are typically much "warmer" on the Kelvin scale than midday. During a sunrise or sunset, your keylight (the sun) can be as "warm" as 3000K or as cool as 4500K which means your Daylight WB once again could be off by as much as 2000K.
- Nighttime - At night there is no sunlight, let alone daylight, so depending on what lighting is present at night, the Daylight WB could once again be off by a few thousand Kelvin.
- Tint - Daylight WB does not correct any tint or color casts like AWB does, so if there is a strong green or magenta cast, Daylight WB will not fix it.
- Simplicity - A key mantra for me is simplicity whenever possible. Leaving the WB permanently on Daylight WB keeps things simple and is one of those things that simply do not matter in the grand scheme of things.
- Target Audience - I do not shoot Hollywood feature length movies; I know my WB could be off at times by a few 1000K but for the types of projects that I work no one will notice or care. Daylight WB lands me right in the middle of every WB I will encounter outdoors with a drone and thanks to 10bit video I can now get closer than ever before to the proper WB with just a few mouse clicks.
- Correctable In Post - As I alluded to, Daylight WB is at most only a few thousand Kelvin away from the proper WB when it comes to flying a drone outdoors. Thanks to 10bit video compression options it is possible to correct the WB in post without some of the problems that 8bit footage would encounter.
HOW TO FIX WB IN POST
As you can see by now, it is pretty difficult if not impossible to nail the WB prior to flying with most consumer/prosumer drones. Sure if you are flying for a Hollywood movie you will probably be lifting an Arri or Red into the air and have a whole team to help you with every aspect of the shoot including the proper WB. But for the rest of us the more realistic way of doing it is to simply set the WB to Daylight and fix it in your NLE.
The way I fix the WB in my NLE which is Davinci Resolve, is I simply locate something that is white on the ground and tap the WB sampler eye dropper to set the proper color temperature and tint values. With 10bit footage this works really well. Sometimes I check a few different objects in the video until one looks right to my eyes. When there is nothing on the ground that is white then I either leave it as is or slightly adjust it to enhance the scene. For example, for a sunset scene I know the Daylight WB is too "cold" so I skew it towards the warmer end of the Kelvin scale to bring out the truer colors of the sunset.
USING WB CREATIVELY
One of the best things about photography/videography is that there are no rules, since there are no rules there's also nothing that says the WB even has to be accurate. Many times in the past I have used the WB to match the rest of the footage vs making sure that white was really white. For example if I am shooting a project that is a full day, and it starts getting towards evening time but I want all of the footage to look like it was shot around the same time of day, I will skew the WB towards the cooler side to mute the sunset colors so that it appears more like the footage was shot earlier in the day.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this post helps someone or some people gain a better understanding of WB and some of the unique considerations of working with it for drone photography/videos. The concept is still the same but it is actually easier than with other types of cameras because mixed lighting isn't the problem it is for other cameras. In mixed lighting the WB is never perfect and you really need to pick your tradeoff. If people are in the scene then of course you want to WB as close to the subject as possible to protect the skin tones.
BONUS
Before I forget, there is one single instance where I do in fact change the White Balance to 3600K and that is when filming fireworks at night. To get the blue, red, and white fireworks to really stand out and look true to their colors at night, 3600K is the better WB setting to use vs. Daylight for both photos and video.
SAMPLE VIDEO
I put together the following sample video showing shooting with the EVO II 6K at night with both a Daylight WB and the WB set to 3600K. The camera settings were the same settings I always use for night video: 4K@30FPS, H.265 compression, F2.8, 1/30s shutter, ISO800, LOG color profile, and to show the WB differences I used a WB of 3600K and Daylight WB.
For the daylight WB, during the color grade I adjusted the WB to match the 3600K WB. The main point of the video is that it is quite easy to adjust the WB in post to match whatever look you are going for as long as you shoot with a LOG profile and use one of the 10bit camera options which means shooting in 4K vs 6K and 30FPS vs 60FPS.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Why I Never Shoot Video At 24FPS
Why I Never Use ND Filters With Drone Cameras
Why I Never Use CPL Filters With Drone Cameras
Autel EVO II Pro - User Experience from a DJI User
EXPLORE YOUR WORLD: An Autel EVO II Pro 6K Cinematic Story
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