White Balance and Digital Infrared Images

We test various white balance settings for infrared images and come to the obvious conclusion.
As part of our ongoing coverage of digital infrared we decided to do the obvious, so you don’t have to, of tested what is actually the best white balance setting when shooting digital infrared. The test was done with our converted for infrared 350D camera, but is also applicable to unconverted cameras.

The camera came with a custom white balance after the conversion at MaxMax.com

Auto


Daylight


Shade


Cloudy

Tungsten


Fluoro

Flash

A new custom white balance


So, it is obvious that a custom white balance gives you the most monochromatic infrared image. This was obvious before we did it, bust as I said at the start, I do these dumb things so you don’t have to. But I also believe in showing you rather than telling you, so you can choose for yourself.

Follow the instructions for your camera for setting a custom white balance. And of course if you have a camera that doesn’t let you , you can still fix it in Photoshop. But I found working with a custom white balance when shooting gives me a much better idea from the camera LCD of what the eventual result will look like. With the heavily colored images, this can be a bit harder to visualise.