Trouble photographing a car - colour cast

T

The Boz

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Hi,

The other night my housemate asked me to photograph his car for an autotrader advert as he's selling it.

His car is a deep navy blue, very much blue. I got the photos on screen and the car was a very distinct bright purple in every shot. The difference in colour wasn't subtle at all, it was miles out.

I thought it might be me having the white balance on auto. So out we went again and I re-shot with it on "sunlight". Came back inside and got them on screen, purple again.

Clutching at straws we went out yet again and I shot in raw (was shooting jpeg before). I wasn't expecting it to make any difference, but it totally did! I had to tweak the colour temp slightly to make it perfect, but even on the default setting as soon as I opened the raws the colour was blue and correct to real life.

Can someone explain this please? The colour wasn't just a bit out, it was so completely different to real life that my mate couldn't even use the photos in an advert!

I don't usually use raw unless I'm shooting something critical where I know I wanna get the absolute best result I can, and know I'll be spending a while in photoshop with it. But now I'm having second thoughts, are there huge errors in colour on all my jpegs?
 
Sorry, should probably say. Camera is a D90, and I was using the kit 18-55. The sun was just setting, and I had my mate park it in the shade out of direct sunlight
 
I guess when you switched to raw, the camera started using auto wb. I have one of those D90 things, auto wb gets it right 90% of the time. I shoot in raw 100% of the time
 
May be your monitor? Sounds like your monitor.
Have you tried viewing the same image on multiple screens?
Or even post it here so people with calibrated monitors can have a look, mine is and it makes a real difference when the calibration profile is switched off.
 
I suspect that you may have changed a setting my mistake on your cameras in camera processing where as a RAW file is like a negative it has not been through any in camera processing :thumbs:

So I would suggest it may be good to check there :thumbs: could be that you need to do a factory reset :thumbs: take everything back to how it was as it could take ages to work out what you've changed in error/by accident :bonk:

Matt
MWHCVT
 
Do you have picture styles, these work on jpegs so you could have changed from standard. Were you shooting jpeg in a creative mode, or full auto, in which case it will override any settings you may think you have set.
 
I'd tend to go along with in-camera pre-sets. How much saturation/contrast/sharpening and so forth is being added to every jpeg you take?

Shooting RAW, any in-camera settings can be removed. For jpeg, you can still make adjustments, but not as easily or as accurately.
 
neil_g said:
did i read something the other day about problems with colour casts on this camera being a sensor issue or did i dream it?
Click to expand...

Yes the d90 can exhibit a colour cast when the sensor is about to go caput, but it's on all images, all over the frame, jpg or raw.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Yes the d90 can exhibit a colour cast when the sensor is about to go caput, but it's on all images, all over the frame, jpg or raw.
Click to expand...

Interesting! Have you a link to this info, please?
 
Are the other colours normal? if so it might be a reflectance issue, some colours notably blues can reflect a lot of IR/UV ight, this can lead to odd colous.
 
jon ryan said:
Interesting! Have you a link to this info, please?
Click to expand...

Not to hand no. Google it, I'm sure you'll find lots about it. I'm sure there was a post on here not to long ago featuring the symptoms.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Not to hand no. Google it, I'm sure you'll find lots about it. I'm sure there was a post on here not to long ago featuring the symptoms.
Click to expand...

Have done. Doesn't appear to be a significant problem. As you cited this, I imagined you'd have something solid. Where did you hear of this?
 
jon ryan said:
Have done. Doesn't appear to be a significant problem. As you cited this, I imagined you'd have something solid. Where did you hear of this?
Click to expand...

On here
 
jon ryan said:
Fair enough. I can't find it. Perhaps it may be worth making sure you have a link when you mention stuff as worrying as that. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Dude chill out seriously. It's not worrying, it's something that happened to someone once that they reported on here which I recalled reading. Funnily enough I don't keep an index of every single thread where someone has reported an issue they have had ready to post up just to please you. It's not like every single d90 in the world is about to self destruct.
It actually wasnt the thread linked above that I first read it, I saw it a few years ago on here too. The thread above jogged my memory of the previous issue.
 
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I've had issues before when shooting bright orange cars, it's fools the sensor into thinking that it needs to reduce the colour temperature, however the raw is always recoverable.
 
Cheers for all the replies guys. I realise now there's loads of factors at play.

It could have something to do with my picture presets, as I have the saturation on +1.

Interesting about how blues can reflect a lot of uv/ir. This could be the issue maybe.

Yes the pics looked fine on the camera, so it may well be my monitor. It's not a particularly good one and defo not calibrated. Strange how shooting in raw fixed it instantly tho...
 
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