New Auto White Balance Options: White Priority & Ambience Priority

My wife, Amanda, upgraded her Fujifilm X-T20 to an X-T4! Video-wise, the X-T4 is a huge upgrade; stills-wise, the X-T20 is a solid camera, but the X-T4 is a little better. The picture above shows Amanda with her new camera, captured with my Fujifilm X100V using a new film simulation recipe that I will publish very soon! The Fujifilm X-T4 has two new Auto White Balance options: Auto White Priority and Auto Ambience Priority. What are these? What do they do to your pictures? Let’s take a look!

For Auto White Priority, the manual says, “Choose for whiter whites in scenes lit by incandescent bulbs.” And for Auto Ambience Priority, “Choose for warmer whites in scenes lit by incandescent bulbs.” Essentially, Auto White Priority is the same as Auto White Balance, except it has a cooler tone under artificial light, and Auto Ambience Priority is the same as Auto White Balance, except it has a warmer tone under artificial light. In natural light, all three are the same.

The pictures below show all three Auto White Balance options under natural light (using my Kodak Ultramax recipe). Can you tell which is Auto, Auto White Priority and Auto Ambience Priority?

Which is which? I have no idea! I can’t tell the difference. The three images look identical to me. Even when I closely examined the three full-resolution files, I couldn’t figure it out.

Under artificial light, the differences between Auto, Auto White Priority, and Auto Ambience Priority becomes much more obvious. You can see in the pictures below that Auto White Priority is cooler than standard Auto White Balance, and Auto Ambience Priority is warmer than standard Auto. Take a look!

Auto White Priority
Auto White Balance
Auto Ambience Priority

Of the two new Auto White Balance options, I’m most excited about Auto White Priority, although I think in some situations Auto Ambience Priority might produce nice results. The new LomoChrome Metropolis film simulation recipe that’s on the Fuji X Weekly App requires Auto White Priority, the first recipe to use one of the new White Balance options. I think there’s some good potential for incorporating these new options into new recipes to create different looks. Now if I can just convince my wife to let me borrow her new camera….

13 comments

  1. John Leftwich · December 2, 2020

    Have you noticed that hunting knife your wife has strapped to her waist? Just sayin.

  2. RDM · December 2, 2020

    Hi, I’m not sure what a better way to Reply is.

    Is the new Auto white balance availvsble for FujiX100v models. I have not gotten an update, but we use the same processor as the T4 but it wo y work on Fuji software as the camera doesn’t have it. You shoe with a V then used the T4 to process the image. That’s cool nit frustrating ,

    Richard Millard 1-646 801 8943 502 3001 5102

    >

    • Ritchie Roesch · December 3, 2020

      Unfortunately, at this time, it’s only on the X-T4 and I believe (but not 100% sure) the X-S10. I haven’t tried to see if the X-T4 will reprocess a RAW file from an X100V, would be interesting to try.

      • rla1022 · December 7, 2020

        Looking at the manual for the xs10, it is indeed in there as well. Cant wait to see some recipes.

      • Ritchie Roesch · December 7, 2020

        Awesome! Thank you for the report!

  3. Rob · December 3, 2020

    I think the third image (of the Clouds / Mountain) the clouds are a fraction more white. The most whitest of the three anyway. Regards Rob.

    Op 2 december 2020 19:55:08 schreef FUJI X WEEKLY

    • Ritchie Roesch · December 3, 2020

      It might be, and that would indicate that it’s Auto White Priority. I appreciate the comment!

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