White balance is one of the most critical aspects of camera control, as it determines the color of whites in your image, and consequently can affect how neutral (or not) your image is. There are two ways to access the white balance settings on your Canon 70D:
- Click the Quick Settings button (next to the top right corner of the rear display with the letter Q inside a square) then select or tap on AWB.
Or:
- Click the Menu button and navigate to the third Camera Settings page and open the White Balance menu.
Both methods take you to the same menu, and you have a few white balance settings to choose from.
- Auto White Balance is the default setting and will attempt to calculate the white balance from the frame automatically. For a majority of situations, this mode will work fine (or at least close enough to not need too much post production tweaking). However, in extreme situations, auto white balance can fail to accurately measure the white balance of a given situation, and manual adjustment might produce more accurate results.
- The first five selections are presets for some of the most common lighting situations:
- Daylight (5200 K)
- Shade (7000 K)
- Cloudy (6000 K)
- Tungsten light (3200 K)
- White fluorescent light (4000 K)
- Flash is for use with compatible Speedlites, which will automatically set the white balance based on the connected flash units. If the Flash option is selected and there are no compatible flash units connected, white balance is fixed at 6000 K.
- Custom is a manually set white balance that makes it easy to set then return to a white balance quickly. This is a useful function if you have a lighting setup or location where you know the white balance will remain the same. Check out our article How to Set a Custom White Balance.
Check out our Canon 70D Tips & Tricks Roundup for more info!
