Friday, August 17, 2012

A Whiter Shade of Green - Problem solved

I did  a bit of poking about the net about that yellow cast on pictures thing and one site recommended including something white or if not white, then neutral in the pictures. It was on the internet so it "had to be true" but I decided to test it anyway.

Hunh! How about that? Who'd a thunk it?

No change to lighting or camera settings, just dropped a piece of paper on the table.. Used it all the way through the game, being as careful as possible to place the paper where I could crop it. Every time I skipped, the yellow came back. Hunh.....I'll be. 

25 comments:

  1. I believe that's something to do with how the camera measures the whiteness of the image. It finds the whitest thing in the picture and calibrates everything else off that.

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    1. Yeah, the photography site said something like that but took 2 pages to say it.

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  2. Ross, maybe try this. It will depend on your camera's capabilities. Try putting the piece of paper in the picture, then holding down the shutter button "half way." Not all the way, so that it takes a picture, but to the first stop. Assuming your camera has such a thing (and it's pretty common), holding the shutter button down half way will lock in the exposure until you either let go or take the picture. So, while holding it down, remove the paper, then take the picture. This will also lock in the focus, so you'll have to do this without moving the camera much. An assistant, if available, is quite handy...

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    1. I have used that for focus issues, I think I tried it to no effect on colour but didn't make notes do could be wrong. Good idea though Will.

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  3. Wow, that is a useful bit of camera info, Ross. I suspect that it might help my photos too.

    Thanks for passing it on.


    -- Jeff

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  4. I'm going to have to play with this. Niffy if it works.

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    1. I found I needed "enough" white. There is probably an easier way.

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    2. There is ;D

      What make/model is your camera?

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    3. Ah well, its black....ok ok I'll go look.....Fuji S700

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    4. Mike I should perhaps mention that if I go manual, I can find the settings, I just get really lousy pictures since I haven't taken the time and made the effort to correctly understand what the hell I'm doing!

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  5. Excellent - a lot of us are going benefit from that piece of research. Many thanks, sir - your honorary doctorate is in the post!

    Tony

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  6. That is very useful information - thanks for sharing it with us lesser (or lazier) mortals.

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  7. Great idea. Back in the days of film we used to calibrate off of an 18% grey card. I believe many image editors like Photoshop and Gimp have filters to colour correct for the light used. Still a simple piece of paper is quick and easy.

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    1. Picasso has a filter but so far I'm not smart enough to use it to good effect very often. A little more study on how it works might help bit this is pretty easy. TG I can tell the colour shift right away on the display when shooting.

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  8. Agreed! I'll need to try this too. Thanks, Ross!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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  9. Stokes have you gone digital? I thought a traditionalist like you would be still using film!

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  10. Check your camera's manual for "set custom white balance"...you might have a control to calibrate, set it, and then shoot without the paper..

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    1. My first step was to run through the camera menus looking for a white balance setting. Seems to me my old camera had one. Hunting down an on line copy of the manual is a chore for a day when I have lots of time to kill.

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  11. Good Lord! Magic - it must be, I can see no other explanation.

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  12. Astonishing. I've never particularly noticed that. Mind you, the yellow look I rather like - gives a king of 'Classical glow' to the subject and its setting.

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