Color Temp and W/B settings for LED Lighting
- Thread starter Mike D90
- Start date
Their range is pretty broad. Anywhere from 2500-6000 depending on the LED light. Do a custom white balance and you're golden. You should always do a custom white balance for situations you're not sure on. Of course if you're shooting in RAW who cares. In post set the WB to correct the photos taken under that light.
I have a battery operated LED VIDEO LIGHTING unit that attaches to the flash slot, rated at 5400K, and a battery operated LED lens mounted RING LIGHT that is rated at 5600K. It might be, that most of these lighting units for video and still cameras would have to be rated in this 5000 to 6000K range, which basically is daylight in the Kelvin chart.
Most of time, the manufactures will post the Kelvin temperature on the box or information sheet.
Most of time, the manufactures will post the Kelvin temperature on the box or information sheet.
I do the same with mine but, there is no choice for LED light in the drop menus (on any of the software I use) so I was curious what others would use as a WB adjustment setting.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
This really needs to be repeated and emphasized. One of the best tricks I've figured out so far with my D3200 is how to sample the ambient light in any place, and set the white balance accordingly. This is truly the ultimate answer to any white balance questions.
Would you elaborate a little on this trick? I would like to know more about it.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
The process may be different with your D90, but on my D3200, it goes something like this:
- Set the main mode dial to one of the PSAM modes.
- Under the shooting menu, go to “White balance”.
- Go to the bottommost item in the “White balance” menu, which is “PRE Preset manual”.
- Go deeper into that menu, where you will see that it gives you the options “Measure” or “Use photo”.
- Select “Measure”. Confirm that yes, you do want to override the previous setting.
- Now, point the camera at something that is neutral in color, and is illuminated by the light for which you are trying to compensate.
At this point, the “PRE Preset manual” setting under white balance will be set to compensate for the light that was relevant in that last step above. The PSAM modes will be set to use that white balance, while the other modes will not, but this will also be one of the white balance options available to use in NEF/RAW processing.
The “Use photo” option mentioned above, instead of “Measure”, will allow you to use a previously-taken, uncorrected photograph of a color-neutral scene to set the PRE setting to compensate for the lighting used in that scene.
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If wanting to do a custom WB on the D90 all you do is hold down the WB button while scrolling through the options using the sub command dial until you see PRE displayed. Once displayed you hold down the WB button again until Pre appears bigger and is blinking. Once you see this you only have about 5 seconds to take a photo of something white under the lighting you're using . If the photo you took is good than GOOD will apear on the display. If NO GOOD apears than retake another photo. For me i've used the fancy gadgets that fit over the end of the lense and simply point the lense at the light and shoot. I've had better results using a peice of white printer paper laying on a flat surface under the lighting you're shooting in. I've also used anything white while doing this such as a dry erase board, white projection screen etc... Most times while i'm out and about, i'm not carrying a piece of paper. Just make sure you fill the view finder up with the white paper while taking the shot.
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Hey Mike glad you figured it out. You can also save the custom WB photo and pull it up when shooting in that same light situatiuion. That way you don't need to keep doing a custom every time. Here at my house when my boy's have their b-day cake. We always seem to have it at the bar area in our kitchen. Well the overhead pendants are CFL's. Every where else in the house are the normal incendecent bulbs. So when ever I shoot under those lights I pull up the shot thats in the WB menu and i'm all set. I'm one for wanting to get it right in camera rather in post.