There are many places in Walt Disney World were one will run into challenging light for the Auto White Balance or AWB settings on today’s digital cameras. One such place is the Railroad Station on Main Street USA. The lighting is very yellow in color even to the naked eye. This mimicks the lighting found back in the early 1900’s which is the era of Main Street USA. While it looks pleasing to our eyes, camera’s tend to see more of the yellow cast to the light. The photo below is an example of a photo using AWB of the Main Street Railroad Station office in the Magic Kingdom.
Main Street Railroad Station office behind a Christmas tree decoration.
Nikon D700/28-300VR, 1/5s, f/16, ISO 200, EV 0, 92mm focal length, tripod.
While this color can be removed in post processing, it is much easier to do it with your camera. To do that, I used a Preset White Balance often referred to as a custom white balance. For my Nikon camera, I pressed the White Balance (WB) button and used the rear command dial to move to the PRE icon on the upper LCD screen. I then released, pressed and held the WB button again until the PRE started to blink on the LCD screen. I then filled the viewfinder with a white object (in the case of the Railroad Station, I used the white woodwork next to the office window) and clicked the shutter. I checked the LCD screen and saw a flashing ‘GOOD’ on the screen indicating I did the PRESET correcly. If it had said, ‘No Good’, I would have had to try again.
I once again pointed my camera towards the Railroad Station office. This time I included the two Christmas trees on either side of the office’s windows.
Main Street Railroad Station office framed by a pair of Christmas trees.
Nikon D700/Tokina 11-16mm, 4s, f/16, ISO 200, EV 0, 16mm Focal Length, tripod.
The colors are much truer in the PRESET WB photo than the AWB one. Check your camera’s manual to see if you can do a custom white balance and how to do it. I must warn you, once you do so, to remember any light change on your subject or if you move to another location will need a new WB setting or a switch back to AWB. Otherwise, you could get some really strange results.
This being within two weeks of Christmas, here are a couple of previous posts about photographing Christmas lights at Walt Disney World and at home:
Photographing Christmas Lights at Disney
Photographing Christmas Lights at Disney II
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
Thanks for the tip. I noticed that most of my photos that I took at the Grand Floridian have that same yellow color. Will have to try this next time!
Scott replies: Yes, the GF is another place with lots of the very same yellow lighting of the time period Disney tries to emulate. Good luck!