The need for color constancy and the effect of illuminant changes on the outputs of spectral image queries are examined in this study. The queries are performed in five spectral image databases which are similar in content but different in lighting condition. One of the used databases consists of reflectance images whereas the images of the other databases are under the International Commission on Illumination illuminants A, D₆₅, F8 and F11. Color and texture features are utilized in the performed queries and the similarity of two query outputs is evaluated by calculating the Hamming distance and intersection number between the outputs. The results indicate the importance of the correct lighting condition, the need of color constancy, and the robustness of the local binary pattern-based texture features under illuminant changes.