How to Change White Balance on the Sony A6400? (Easy Guide)
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
People use Auto white balance most of the time. It saves some time and effort. But the footage is pretty meh and color inaccurate. Without proper white balance, colors in your photographs will take on warm or cold tones that you might not notice when taking pictures.
For freelance content producers and bloggers, the Sony A6400 is an excellent camera. It produces excellent photos and captures 4K videos.
As white balancing is very important in photography, I will assist you with how to change the white balance on the Sony a6400. And show you how a three years old camera is well enough to keep its name in the best cameras list.
What is white balance?
White balance is employed to modify colors to match the hue of the light source to make white things seem white.
Sunlight, incandescent bulbs, and fluorescent lighting are just a few examples of the various light sources that may be used to illuminate subjects.
This process unrealistic color casts so that objects are rendered in the exact color as you see.
Our eyes are amazing at determining what is white in various lighting conditions, but digital cameras frequently struggle greatly with auto-white balance.
Incorrect white balance settings make images very unnatural.
(Source: Photographylife.com)
How to change the white balance on the Sony A6400?
I am going very straightforwardly to show you how to change the white balance on the Sony a6400.
Step 1:
Go to the “Menu” and select the “White Balance” option. Usually, you will find the White balance in Menu number 2.
After going there, you will see the white balance is already set to Auto.
Step 2:
Now scroll down and you will see the various options you can set to your white balance.
Daylight:
Shade:
Cloudy:
Incandescent:
And many more.
Step 3:
You see the default white balance of the camera is very exposed to one color. And it is kind of useless for photography. Unless you want that specific tone in your footage.
What you need to do is, go find the Custom 1 option on the White Balance chart.
You will see the Temperature is already set to 3900K.
Click Set.
After clicking Set you will find this:
Step 4:
Now the real work begins. You need a gray pad with which you can accurately determine the color. You can buy one for a long time of professional use. If you can use a good gray colored board to do the job.
Buy Foto & Tech Double Sided 18%, Gray Card
Step 5:
Now what you have to do is, hold the gray card in front of your camera and record the data. Just the right distance where your camera collects all the data.
If you hold the card too close the camera will not get the reflected light from the surroundings and if you hold it very far the camera will lose focus on the card.
Get a perfect position and press the center button.
After doing that you will get a corrected color profile and temperature on the screen showing.
This will give you the most accurate white balance and color profile based on your surroundings.
Final Result:
(Source: Editors Key)
You can see the final result by doing that. It sets the perfect white tone and temperature for the surroundings.
What is color Temperature?
A system called “color temperature” uses numbers to measure the color qualities of a light source over a spectrum that ranges from warm to cold hues.
The unit of the color temperature is K (Kelvin). Higher values are cooler tones and Lower values are warmer tones.
The Numerical meaning for the color temperature is the opposite.
(Source: studiobinder.com)
This enables you to modify the overall depth of your photo by using color temperature.
Is the Sony A6400 worth it?
Sony A6400 is one of the most popular and best-selling APS-C mirrorless cameras. It has a vast kind of performance that delivers quality photos and videos to all kinds of photographers and bloggers.
The camera launched in 2019 and is still very popular in the market.
Here are some reasons to buy the Sony A6400 in 2022:
- It has a flip-up screen that allows you to move the camera according to your subject and you can take selfies with it.
- It has a good auto-focus system. That gives you the ability to focus on your subject fast. And the stabilization keeps the footage steady.
- It is compact in design and it has good weather sealing that assures you maximum durability and mobility. And on top of that, you won’t need to worry about the rains and little splashes.
- It has a vast lens collection in the mirrorless world. With a variety of options, E-mount lenses from Sony and independent producers like Sigma and Tamron cover nearly all focal ranges.
- If you decide to use APS-C-specific lenses, you can put together a small, reasonably priced kit, but if size and cost are not concerns, it’s good to know that you have access to a great selection of full-frame lenses.
- The Sony A6400 is not lagging. It has all the connections you will need in the future. It supports NFC, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth so that you can pair and transfer files easily between the devices.
The Sony A6400 is vastly used by video streamers and bloggers as well as it has 4K video recording capability.
So lastly I can say that It is worthy of having a Sony A6400 in 2022. The current market price of the Sony A6400 is around $1200.
And If you see the full review of the camera watch this video to have a better idea of what you will get in this machine.
FAQs.
How do I set the white balance on the Sony a6400?
Answer: Go to Menu > Camera Settings > White Balance> then you change the white balance.
What happens if you don’t white balance?
Answer: If you don’t white balance the captured image will have colors that are different from the actual color.
Should you use an auto-white balance?
Answer: For the majority of photography situations, Auto White Balance (AWB) is ideal. You might think about choosing a different white balance setting when the available light gets too warm or chilly.
Can you change the white balance after?
Answer: No. You can’t change the white balance of the camera or ISO after taking the photo. It is a myth that you can change the white balance and the ISO of RAW photos. You can change the color and correct the noise and sharpen the photos.
Conclusion
I hope you now have a clear idea of what white balance is and how to change white balance on the Sony a6400. White balance is a very important factor in photography as the aperture, ISO, and Shutter speed.
Setting the perfect mood of the footage is the reason why photographers and videographers spend so much time in the editing software.
I hope this article helps you to know your Sony a6400 better and allows you to play with it more.
Related Posts: