White balance
Also known as: WB, color temperature
The camera setting that makes white objects look white under different kinds of light, measured in kelvin. It shifts the whole image warmer or cooler.
Updated
What it means
Light has color. Midday sun is roughly neutral, shade and overcast skies are bluish, and tungsten bulbs or low sunset light are orange. White balance tells the camera what the light is so it can neutralize the cast. It is measured in kelvin: around 5500K for daylight, 3200K for tungsten, and higher values for shade.
Set a lower kelvin value and the camera compensates by making the image cooler; set it higher and the image gets warmer. Auto white balance guesses from the scene, which works most of the time but drifts as the scene changes - a real problem for POV footage that moves through changing light.
How it works in practice
On action cameras, auto white balance can shift during a single clip: ride from sun into forest shade and the picture visibly changes color mid-shot. GoPro lets you lock white balance in Protune, with fixed values from about 2300K to 6500K, and DJI and Insta360 offer manual white balance in their Pro modes. Locking 5500K on a sunny day keeps every clip consistent.
Consistency matters most when you film with several cameras. A helmet GoPro on auto and a drone set to 5600K will never quite match, and the color correction step gets much harder. Pick one value for all cameras on the same shoot, especially for B-roll and wide scenic shots.
What to watch out for
Underwater, auto white balance struggles: water absorbs red light quickly, so footage turns blue-green a few meters down. Divers use a red filter or manual white balance, because fixing it afterwards only works partly.
Snow and sunsets are other weak spots, where auto white balance tries to neutralize the scene - turning snow grey-blue or killing the warm glow you wanted. A Log profile in 10-bit gives more room to adjust white balance afterwards, but 8-bit footage with the wrong setting often bands or turns muddy when pushed hard in color grading.
How RawClip handles it
White balance is baked into the footage. RawClip does not correct underwater colors or apply color grades you choose, so set it in the camera and fix any strong casts before upload. Clips from different cameras can then go into one order and one finished highlight.