Sunsets on Digital

[FGYT]

we have had a few real nice red sunsets recently and ive rushed out to take a piccky or 2 on my Digital cameras
however on both the Mu500 Compact and the Nikon D90 none of the red shows up the picture is just blue sky and white clouds and its a deep red sky not justa little bit pink etc

i havent missed anything special yet as the pics where just outside the house to practice and see how the colours turned out if i did find a good shot

any ideas

atb
Duncan

 

[nodd]

hi
it might be to do with the white balance setting if it was set on auto? I think it averages it out and lightens the sky.
sunny or cloudy should give better colours.

Neil

 

[C_Claycomb]

Don't laugh too much, I am pretty ignorant about cameras, but...what about a red-eye-reduction feature trying to take the red out? I think my new camera has some such function, but I have never used it, so don't know whether it could cause such a problem. I just know that I have taken some lovely sunset pictures with my Dimage Xt and had no problems with the red.

Exposure compensation makes a difference if the sky just appears too bright/white, but I don't think it would selectively take out the red.

 

[nodd]

I have found this that may be of some help
http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/Advice/Search-Results/Techniques/Boost-your-sunrises-and-sunsets/

 

[AJB]

I'm sure it will be a combination of your exposure metering and your white balance. Set both to manual (your white balance to daylight) and try again. These automatic settings are always a compromise and easily fooled.

 

[Cobweb]

^^ What AJB said, it's the white balance, basically the camera wants to make everything the 'right' colour so it chooses something it thinks is white, like clouds for instance and sets the white balance to that one.

If you want red sunsets, set your white balance to cloudy (little cloud symbol), daylight(sun) may be a bit too washed out.
If you know how to do it, set your camera to under expose by 1/2, you will get stronger colours in the sky.

For fun, you could try setting your white balance to fluorescent (thick line with dashes coming off it) This will turn your sky a deep magenta(pink).

If you are unsure of how to change white balance or set exposure compensation, take a look at your cameras manual.

 

[AJB]

What AJB said, it's the white balance, basically the camera wants to make everything the 'right' colour .

Cheers

Your camera (simple sole that it is) thinks everything it looks at will integrate to a scene of grey which reflects 18% of all incident light acting on it. Your colour and light level meter assumes this and that assumption is the cause of most photographic issues you may face – snow scenes, black cats in coal mines, scenes with an overriding single colour, these will all send your cutting edge camera running back to first principals.

A simple solution to this is to meter from an 18% Grey card, Kodak make what is considered by most to be the industry standard. If this is positioned in your scene and illuminated by the light you are recording, metering** on this will give you an accurate reproduction of what you’re looking at (within the confines of your brain and your emotions making a romantic sunset “nicer” than it really is). All photography is a compromise and matching what you see to the results you get to what was really there is damn near impossible.

** if you’ve seen photographers taking light readings using a hand held meter pointing not at the scene, but back at the camera from within the scene, they are doing the same thing. The meter will be fitted with an “invercone” which mimics the action of metering the light reflected from a grey card. You can buy incident light meters fairly cheaply and they will make a huge difference to your photography. Understanding metering and exposure really is the key to everything you will do.

 

[Cobweb]

One of the old opaque pringles lids held over the lens and a custom whibal was a great way to do it. Shame they have stopped producing them, I lost my old one.

 

[AJB]

One of the old opaque pringles lids held over the lens and a custom whibal was a great way to do it. Shame they have stopped producing them, I lost my old one.

As my qualifications are in sensitometer and photographic science, that actually made my toes curl

But if it works – great!

 

[Neanderthal]

Duncan,

Could you post a couple of pix so we can see what you have taken. It makes the feedback more useful.

Cheers
Stu

 

[Cobweb]

Lol, sorry, but what works, works! You probably hate my camera bag then I have all sorts of home made equipment! I even have a piece of string as a flash meter

 

[FGYT]

oks will try the white ballance on Cloudy next time
im running in P mode which on this camera (D90) means you can set all the bits but the camera sorts out apature and shutter (ie meters)
ive tryed a few shutter or apature priority shots but not full mannual yet

ISO is on 200 I think or auto
White balance in auto and there are several ways of controling it i will try the presets ie Cloudy

the compact has a basic white balance but i suspect it has a sunset mode some where

ATB

Duncan

 

[AJB]

Lol, sorry, but what works, works! You probably hate my camera bag then I have all sorts of home made equipment! I even have a piece of string as a flash meter

Well I’ve made my own colour film, but as yet I’ve not attempted a macramé flash meter! Tell me more.

 

[FGYT]

Duncan,

Could you post a couple of pix so we can see what you have taken. It makes the feedback more useful.

Cheers
Stu

was thinking that but to be honest it looks normal if you didnt see the original sky just not a lot of red/orange

what i will do next time is take a photo as is then change the WB as advised here and take again then i can post hopefully a difference

ATB

Duncan

 

[AJB]

was thinking that but to be honest it looks normal if you didnt see the original sky just not a lot of red/orange

what i will do next time is take a photo as is then change the WB as advised here and take again then i can post hopefully a difference

ATB

Duncan

And I would bracket your exposure as well - then you can see how exposure affects colour saturation.

Have fun

 

[Wayland]

If you shoot on Raw you can alter the white balance setting after the shot has been taken without losing any quality.

This gives you much more control of the final results.

I usually shoot on daylight which gives me a fairly accurate idea of what the light colour really was and then just tweak it if it needs it.

Of course Raw uses a bit more memory but if you don't want the best quality you could always buy a cheaper camera.

 

[Womble_Lancs]

Don't laugh too much, I am pretty ignorant about cameras, but...what about a red-eye-reduction feature trying to take the red out?

No, the red-eye reduction actually works on the eye, not the picture.

You may notice when using the red-eye reduction, that there is a double flash rather than a single one. With a single flash, sometimes, if the angle is right, it will reflect off the back of the eye, which is red, causing the red-eye in the picture.

With the red-eye reduction facility (with the double flash), when the first flash reaches the eye, the eye reacts to the sudden light by contracting the pupil, so by the time the second flash goes off, the pupil is nice and small, and the flash is less likely to reflect off the back of the eye.