Why Changing White Balance on One Fujifilm Recipe Changes Another

On Fujifilm X-Trans cameras made before the X-Pro3, a custom setting does not store its white balance shift. The camera keeps one shift for each white balance setting (Auto, Daylight, Shade, Kelvin and the rest), and every custom setting that uses that white balance shares it. If C1 and C2 both use Auto, the shift you dial in while programming C2 becomes the shift C1 shoots with too.

The custom setting does remember which white balance setting it uses. Only the red and blue shift on top of it belongs to the white balance setting rather than to the custom setting. Fujifilm's manuals for these cameras list White Balance among the items a custom setting saves and say nothing about the shift, which is why so many photographers only find out when a favourite recipe suddenly looks wrong.

From the X-Pro3 onwards, each custom setting keeps a shift of its own, and none of this applies.

These bodies keep one shift for each white balance setting:

• X-Trans III: X-Pro2, X-T2, X-T20, X-E3, X-H1 and X100F
• The first X-Trans IV bodies: X-T3 and X-T30
• Older X-Trans I and II bodies that have custom settings

These save a shift with each custom setting:

• X-Trans IV from the X-Pro3: X-Pro3, X100V, X-T4, X-S10, X-E4 and X-T30 II
• Every X-Processor 5 body, including the X-T5, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X100VI, X-T50 and X-M5

The pair that catches people out is the X-T30 and the X-T30 II: the same 26.1MP sensor in almost the same body, with opposite behaviour. The original shares one shift per white balance setting; the II saves one with each custom setting. No firmware update has brought per-setting shifts to the X-T3 or X-T30. For the other ways these two generations differ, see Recipe Compatibility: Sensor Generations.

Say you program two recipes into an X100F, both on Auto white balance:

• C1: Auto, shift R+2, B-4
• C2: Auto, shift R-1, B+1

You set up C1 first and save it. Then you set up C2, and entering R-1, B+1 changes the one shift the camera keeps for Auto. Go back to C1 and it still says Auto, but it now shoots with R-1, B+1, and the warmth you programmed has gone. C1 has not lost anything, because it never stored a shift in the first place: it uses whatever shift Auto has now.

The same is true when you shoot without a custom setting. Change the shift for Auto in your everyday settings and every custom setting on Auto picks it up.

Kelvin counts as one white balance setting, whatever the temperature. Two recipes on Kelvin share a shift even when one is set to 5500K and the other to 6500K.

1. Give Each Custom Setting Its Own White Balance

Because the camera remembers one shift for each white balance setting, custom settings on different settings never collide. An X-Trans III body offers Auto, Daylight, Shade, three Fluorescent settings, Incandescent, Underwater and Kelvin, which is enough for seven custom settings if you choose your recipes with this in mind. Fuji X Weekly builds whole sets of seven recipes this way.

When you pick recipes for an older body, read the white balance line of each one before you program it, and give no two the same setting unless the next workaround applies.

2. Share the Shift

Two custom settings can use the same white balance setting if they also use the same shift. Recipes built on the same white balance and shift, differing only in film simulation, tone or grain, sit side by side without any trouble.

3. Reset the Shift When You Switch

If two recipes you love both need Auto with different shifts, keep both and re-enter the shift each time you change custom setting. On bodies that let you rename custom settings (the X-Pro2, X-T2, X-E3, X-H1, X-T3 and X-T30 do, through Edit Custom Name), put the shift in the name so it is in front of you when you choose it. The X100F and X-T20 manuals offer no way to rename them, so keep a note instead.

Each custom setting keeps its own shift, so a recipe programmed with R+2, B-4 keeps it however you set up the others, and two recipes on Auto with different shifts can sit side by side. Programming a recipe is the same as on any body; the step by step guide covers it.

One option is worth checking on the X-E4, the X-T30 II and recent bodies such as the X-T5, X-H2 and X100VI: Auto Update Custom Setting. While it is enabled, a change you make with a custom setting selected, a new shift included, is saved into that custom setting automatically. Set it to Disable if you want your recipes to stay exactly as you programmed them; the camera then marks changed items with a red dot in the custom setting's edit list and saves them only when you choose to.

For what the shift itself does to a recipe, see White Balance & Colour Temperature.