Purple in the sky.. vs. other camera

[pehansen]

Hi,

So far I have used the Canon S10 for snapshots, and now I'm about to upgrade... it's still a match btw. the G1 and the Nikon 995....

In this and other forums the only real negative feed-back that I am worried about is the purple shades in outdoor sky shots etc....

Do other users think this to be a problem that should recommend not to buy this camera?

Of course it can be fixed in software... but are you all fixing all your pictures.. like the excellent pictures in this sites galleries..? or is the error not that bad..??

[RichardSimon]

I have occasionally run itno this problem, usually when the lighting conditions are a little unusual. I wouldn't regard this as an error - it is a function of the lighting. Fortunately, it is easy to correct with the G1!

Early afternoon, bright sun, blue sky plus clouds: no problem, good clean blue sky, nice white clouds. The camera auto mode correctly selected the right white balance.

Extreme late afternoon, slight haze: the warm yellow of the sunlight can fool the automatic white balance, cooling the overall color balance of the image, making the sky slightly purple. The camera is trying to correct the warm yellow light of late afternoon, much the way it would try to correct tungsten lighting. This makes whites too white, and drives the sky toward a lavender tint. The camera was fooled by the light.

This is *easy* to correct, however: I take virtually all of my pictures in RAW mode, so I can accept or correct the camera's settings for white balance, sharpness, contrast, and saturation. The tool to do this is extremely easy to use, and interfaces transparently with the software I use to manage my pictures. The ability to take full resolution raw images, and correct the white balance settings of the camera, after the fact, is especially nice. I usually leave the camera in automatic white balance mode (just fine most of the time), and in a few seconds correct the few shots needing it. Let me emphasize this point: pictures taken in RAW mode can be set to any white balance mode one wants, just by selecting the mode from a list, after the fact!

In contrast - my old digital camera (a Kodak DC265) didn't do well under difficult lighting conditions, and there was no way to quickly correct it when it guessed incorrectly. I think the way that the G1 works in this area is absolutely great: truly excellent in automatic mode for most circumstances, and easily overridden, *after the fact*, in unusual lighting.

This feature, the ability to accept 1GB microdrives, and the movies with sound were the features that decided me on the G1 instead of the 995.

Good luck with whichever camera you select - and have fun!

[Steve L]

What tool do you use to work on the RAW files?Thanks!

[reddawn]

Steve L wrote:
What tool do you use to work on the RAW files?Thanks!

refer to my post here:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...read.php?t=628

[pehansen]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for the answers to my question, I only discovered this site a few days ago, looking for some
good G1 info from experienced users... and now I already got some valuable feed-back.

So I guess it's going to be the G1 after all..

Regards,
Paul-Erik.

[Paul Marcano]

I am not so sure about this Magenta Shift... being a product of lighting conditions... I have gone out on shoots with a friend with a Fuji 6900Z and he doesn't come home with magenta tinted skies, although his camera seems to be more yellow tinted by comparison.

I am a color match fanatic and in general am very unhappy with the basic auto shots that the G1 takes.
I have gone through a significant number of experiments to try and manually arrive at a color correct image and am amazed at how misleading the thumbnail preview image is. The camera seems to have no problem whatsoever creating a great thumbnail image, perfectly color matching the shot you think you have captured, but get it home and oh wow, totally wrong! The Magenta filtering that gets added to the final saved jpg is horrific.

So far I have succeeded a few times in using manual white balance to get a blue sky but ONLY if I shoot a RAW file which takes quite a bit of time to process and is impossible to preview accurately because it is not thumnailed very clearly in the preview.

As a solution, I have actually taken to bringing along some variable color swatches of tinted whites from the paint store. Believe me, you get much more accurate colors in the early morning if you use a very lightly tinted green white swatch to do a manual white balance! I find that it counters the slightly green cast that balancing to pure white creates. (it is all very interesting mind you, exploring the variables of white balancing to different colors of white to slightly modify the results towards what you want, the problem is the preview image is not to be trusted as even close to what you will actually get... you need to acclimatize to this idiosyncracy over time, a major drag)

I am currently looking for the perfect formula for filtering out this Magenta cast with PhotoShop if anyone has experimented please enlightened me.

One other thing regarding the Coolpix 995 versa G1 Choice, while I was still able to return the G1 (two weeks) I went over to a friend who has the 995 and took a shot of the Sky in one direction, moved the camera 45 degrees to the right and shot another shot... the first shot had a purple sky and the second one a blue sky, (so camera make may not mean anything - the 995 blows out highlights badly). I admit that lighting conditions and Sky polarization is partly to blame it is just that in reality the Canon G1 fails 9 out of 10 times to correctly shoot a blue sky and save it correctly as a jpeg without this magenta overall cast to everything in the shot (including skin tones). It is ESPECIALLY bad in Auto mode where you would hope to get a generally idiot-proof great shot, like the Canon A20 shoots time and again and again for half the price!

I am still not sure why I upgraded to the G1 for less easily attained quality images, but I do love the lens, all the manual features, the remote, swivel LCD, sturdy metal body and 'forever lasting' battery! Why they don't fix this Magenta problem with a Firmware upgrade I don't know.

[Kevin M]

Re Magenta Cast and the G1

The fix that I use to make jpeg colour balance emulate raw files is with Photoshop's Color Balance Tool, first check the HIGHLIGHTS radio button, then minus 8 red and minus 4 blue.

It is important to check the highlights button as it does not work with the midtones checked.