Shooting a crazy-colored yellow sky with manual white balance on iPhone

They sky that I saw (left) did not match what appeared on my iPhone. Here’s how I was able to capture the photo.

The other night there was a crazy glowing yellow and orange sky color at sunset. Everything was basked in the color. I went outside with my iPhone to grab a shot. But the world I saw with my eyes came out normal on my phone. The camera, maybe a little too intelligently, made everything look like a normal night.

Normally I don’t like to use third party apps: the built-in camera app is my main driver because it’s easyily accessible and pretty powerful. But I wondered if another camera app could capture this amazing light we had.

I opened Manual — a good camera app that offers a lot of control. The sky looked the same as the system camera app. I realized it was the auto white balance that was adjusting the color. I toggled the white balance to manual and adjusted it to be warmer.

I found what I wanted by holding the camera to the sky and making the camera match what I saw.

Thinking back on it, I could take these photos any time I want to. But I feel confident to say that these images are photographic documents of the sky that night — not a crazy filter but the world I saw around me.

The camera’s auto white balance (left) compared to what the sky looked like with adjusted white balance (right).