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Loss of colour in some shots

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heart-of-wessex

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Hello all,

I'm still a novice at photography, have only been doing it for a year, and even then I managed to loose my camera changing trains in a mad rush (long story, but never got it back). I got a Fuji Finepix S1800 Bridge camera, second hand and is highly rated on a lot of reviews, I've found it good for a bridge camera, but in the winter time, I get some odd results and I can't think why.

Example A:

60063 by james37611, on Flickr

This was taken on the Shutter Priority setting, at 1/400. I use this for moving trains as it blurs the train out on Auto (though my mates later Fuji model handles these fine on Auto).
Could have done a bit more but I'm happy with it. Anyway, facing the other way, on the exact same setting, this happens:

70008 by james37611, on Flickr

It looks a bit unnatural, as the colours of the train is there, but the background looks sort of 'greyscale', there's no colour in the tree's compared to the previous picture. I tried custom settings and even Auto, but every photo still had no colour on the leaves.

I wasn't focusing on the train either, like the first shot, I pointed to the trees and held the focus until the train was in view, then snapped the picture.


By the fact that no matter what setting I tried not making a difference, I guess there's not a lot I can do about it or is there something wrong somewhere?

Any help is much appreciated, because even my mate who's been doing photo's longer than me is baffled!



James.
 
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crehld

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Looks like you need to adjust the white balance settings on your camera. This basically tells your camera how to interpret colours, and you should be able to change it according to different lighting situations. I don't have your camera so I can't tell you how, but I'm sure it will be outlined in the manual.
 

wensley

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Looks like you need to adjust the white balance settings on your camera. This basically tells your camera how to interpret colours, and you should be able to change it according to different lighting situations. I don't have your camera so I can't tell you how, but I'm sure it will be outlined in the manual.

Agreed.

Auto White Balance can be a bit dodgy at adapting to different light. My camera has the option to set for various preset lighting states as well as inputting colour temperature in degrees kelvin (that all gets a bit technical!) for various scenarios. The majority will have a 'daylight' setting and a 'cloudy' setting. Try the cloudy one and it should warm the colours up.
 

Emyr

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Shoot raw and handle the white balance and colour balance when you process the shots on your computer.
 

ANDYS

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I agree with Emyr. I always shoot in RAW as things can get hectic when out and about shooting and settings can easily get left/forgotten. Much better to have the RAW data and edit when you get back home. That's what long winter nights were made for.

Andy S
 

wensley

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I agree with Emyr. I always shoot in RAW as things can get hectic when out and about shooting and settings can easily get left/forgotten. Much better to have the RAW data and edit when you get back home. That's what long winter nights were made for.

Andy S

That spoils the fun of it for me, the challenge is to set up the shot with what you've got to work with, I don't see the pleasure in re-building an image digitally after the event.
 

Emyr

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Not really re-building, it's just like doing the darkroom stuff yourself instead of using a 1hr photo service.
 

Dennis

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The S1800 does have a raw option but it is in a hidden menu!

This can be accessed by placing an empty folder called HiddenMenu in the root folder of the memory card. With this memory card inserted into the camera, open the setup menu, select Reset in the Settings 3 tab, then hold Left on the directional pad and pull the zoom rocker as if you were zooming in. The hidden menu will appear.

However, although the raw option is in there, it seems no converters are available, so it is of no use whatsoever!

PS - I wouldn't really recommend fiddling with the hidden menu options.

I expect the actual problems with the image stem somehow from generally low light with a rather bright sky and how multi-segment metering has coped with this. There is some colour in the grey regions, photoshopping will bring it out (although it does look a bit naff).

Incidentally, Photoshop CS2 is freely downloadable and comes in very handy for image editing.
 

wensley

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Each to their own, my preference is to use the camera to get the exposure etc. correct prior to taking an image. Most bridge and DSL-R models offer a large degree of manual control which overcomes the shortcomings of the auto settings which don't always cope well in certain lighting conditions.

If the WB option doesn't work, and the RAW option isn't possibke (I must confess to not knowing the OP's model well) then there are various processing options available for free to bring out the colours although, as already stated, these don't always look natural.
 

eastwestdivide

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Leaving aside any white balance considerations, there's quite a few factors in the location and angle of the shots which combine to make it hard to get a well-exposed and colourful shot: bright sky, low winter sun, winter trees without much inherent colour, low viewpoint and camera pointing upwards. Look how little light is illuminating the underframes/bogies of the trains.
If you can dial in some exposure compensation (i.e. overexpose a little), that might help in that situation.
 

heart-of-wessex

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Never thought of that, the white balance is indeed set to Auto, I'll fiddle around with it next time I have a scene like that and I'll try some settings and see how they come out.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, only these sort of scenes I get issues with, it's great on a clear day!
 
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