Train the Trainer Part 3: Recording 101

The colour of your lighting is also important. Cameras are more susceptible to the colour of light than our eyes are. Our eyes naturally adjust to minor changes in light colour, cameras need to be told to do this. Cameras have a white balance button or menu option that allows you to adjust the camera’s colour so that it sees white as white, despite the colour it might be tinted. All you need to do is press the white balance button while the camera is pointed at a completely white object (a sheet of printer paper is usually fine) and the camera will do the rest. Just make sure that the white object you’re pointing at takes up most of the frame and is fairly evenly lit.

Your light sources themselves have colour qualities which shouldn't be ignored. The colour of a light source is measured in Kelvin, with the lower end of the scale being redder, and the higher end of the scale being bluer. Once again, we prefer to keep the lighting as "white" as possible, which translates to around 6400K. If choosing or changing the colour of your light source is not an option, it is best to limit the sources with conflicting colours. If you have already white balanced your camera and still find that part of the picture looks particularly orange or blue, this is likely due to one of your light sources being a radically different colour than the rest. Try turning that light off or switching to a different one if you need the light it provides. We can do some colour correction, but it's always best to fix such issues during recording than after the fact.