P
Pete Biggs
Guest
naked_draughtsman wrote:
> I've just got back from a shortish ride which conveniently took me to
> the top of one of the local hills just in time for sunset.
>
> I've got a Canon Powershot A40 camera which I've had for about 5
> years and I'm looking to replace it soon as it has a habit of making
> all my pictures pink for no reason at all.
>
> I had the camera with me today so took a couple of photos of the
> lovely red sun as it was going down behind the hills, but the image
> recorded by the camera had the sun (and sky) as a golden yellow
> rather than the beautiful red that it really was. I tried it on a
> few different settings (different colour balance, 'exposures',
> special effects but to no avail).
>
> I also took a picture of the sunset with my mobile phone (to send to a
> friend who was stuck indoors!) and even though the quality of pictures
> taken on it are usually awful, the colours look a lot more realistic.
>
> Does anyone know why my camera doesn't capture colours properly in
> some situations? Is there a feature I should look out for on more
> modern cameras which stops this happening?
I don't know your particular camera, but usually the colour balance or
"white balance" settings on a digital camera do make a difference to the hue
of colours. It also helps to prevent over-exposure. Probably your shot was
too highly exposed for the sunset to look red. Trouble is that if the sky
did look right, then the rest of the scene may then have been very dark
(which can be worth accepting). It's a limitation of the dynamic range. No
camera can reproduce what the human eyes and brain see entirely.
I'm not up-to-date enough with compact cameras to recommend a better one.
Look for one that provides easy exposure compensation, so you can make the
shot darker or lighter than the camera would do automatically otherwise
without too much fiddling around. Manual white balance can be useful, but
wouldn't necessarily provide the warm look you may like for sunset.
Meanwhile, you could have a go at post-processing your with a software
program to adjust the colour.
A camera that can record in RAW as well as JPEG allows the ultimate control
over colour, because the white balance is separate from the image data. It
can be changed afterwards without spoiling the picture at all.
~PB
> I've just got back from a shortish ride which conveniently took me to
> the top of one of the local hills just in time for sunset.
>
> I've got a Canon Powershot A40 camera which I've had for about 5
> years and I'm looking to replace it soon as it has a habit of making
> all my pictures pink for no reason at all.
>
> I had the camera with me today so took a couple of photos of the
> lovely red sun as it was going down behind the hills, but the image
> recorded by the camera had the sun (and sky) as a golden yellow
> rather than the beautiful red that it really was. I tried it on a
> few different settings (different colour balance, 'exposures',
> special effects but to no avail).
>
> I also took a picture of the sunset with my mobile phone (to send to a
> friend who was stuck indoors!) and even though the quality of pictures
> taken on it are usually awful, the colours look a lot more realistic.
>
> Does anyone know why my camera doesn't capture colours properly in
> some situations? Is there a feature I should look out for on more
> modern cameras which stops this happening?
I don't know your particular camera, but usually the colour balance or
"white balance" settings on a digital camera do make a difference to the hue
of colours. It also helps to prevent over-exposure. Probably your shot was
too highly exposed for the sunset to look red. Trouble is that if the sky
did look right, then the rest of the scene may then have been very dark
(which can be worth accepting). It's a limitation of the dynamic range. No
camera can reproduce what the human eyes and brain see entirely.
I'm not up-to-date enough with compact cameras to recommend a better one.
Look for one that provides easy exposure compensation, so you can make the
shot darker or lighter than the camera would do automatically otherwise
without too much fiddling around. Manual white balance can be useful, but
wouldn't necessarily provide the warm look you may like for sunset.
Meanwhile, you could have a go at post-processing your with a software
program to adjust the colour.
A camera that can record in RAW as well as JPEG allows the ultimate control
over colour, because the white balance is separate from the image data. It
can be changed afterwards without spoiling the picture at all.
~PB
