White Balance – The measure of warmth (colour), measured in kelvins, K

White Balance adjustment is required for accurate, natural looking reproduction of colour, and for minimising post post-production colour correction.  Ideally you are looking to achieve within the camera an accurate representation of the level of warmth perceived by your eyes. 

Look for the below settings on your camera. Each setting makes a subtle adjustment to what your camera perceives white to be in relation to the type of light in the scene. It is essentially a scale of visual warmth from hot to cold, measured in Kelvins, K.  It is advisable to set your white balance in each new space. 

Auto – Makes white balance adjustments automatically.

Daylight – Fairly neutral setting, the camera should be able to read white fairly accurately under this type of light. 

Cloudy – Adds warmth to the cool tones of a cloudy scene.

Shade – Similar to Cloudy, adds warmth to the cool tones created by the shade. 

Tungsten – Aims to neutralize the yellow tungsten light by adding cool blue tones.

Fluorescent – Opposite of Tungsten. Aims to neutralize the cool blue tones of Fluorescent light by adding warm yellows.

Flash – Similarly, the flash can cool down some shots, so adds a touch of warmth.

Custom – Lets you manually tell the camera the light conditions, in relation to the light it is reading. You can adjust the white balance by holding a piece of white paper up to the camera and adjusting the white balance using the custom setting. When you remove the paper from the scene, the white balance should be reflected accurately in the image you are recording. 

K – There often an additional setting where you can manually choose a precise Kelvin level from 2500–10000.