# Canon EOS 450D Not picking the colors correctly



## oekoeloe (Aug 17, 2013)

Hello,

I'm a photography amateur and I have a difficulty. I use the Canon EOS 450D with an EF 50mm 1:1.8 II Lens for portrait photos.

The camera doesn't pick the correct colors especially Red, when I make photos during bright daylight.
I use Manual mode and adjust F-stop, shutter speed, ISO and WB.
If I find myself to have a nice light effect, the colors are wrong. But with the right colors it's way too dark.
Changing positions to make the sun have a different angle and then trying to adjust the settings is no succes either.

I'm already learning differences between ISO, F-Stop, Shutterspeed and White Balance.
Tho, I have no clue to make it pick the right colors.
Red, orange and coral colors become bright pink while the green colors are correct.

Here are some of the settings I tried the most:
F/10 1/160 AWB ISO800 Too Bright
F/11 1/250 AWB ISO800 Bad Light
F/13 1/160 AWB ISO800 Bad Light
F/13 1/320 AWB ISO800 Too Dark

Everything in between, less and more has no succes either.
Different WB like full sunlight or anything else didn't work.
Hopefully, someone could explain how to get better colors.

Edit: Here is an example of the color shift

    From this color                    ---->                      To this one       











Thank you!


----------



## KmH (Aug 17, 2013)

What color space are the images made in? sRGB or Adobe RGB?

For more complete information, particularly if you're doing portraits, visit this small group of tutorials - Tutorials on Color Management & Printing


----------



## oekoeloe (Aug 17, 2013)

KmH said:


> What color space are the images made in? sRGB or Adobe RGB?
> 
> For more complete information, particularly if you're doing portraits, visit this small group of tutorials - Tutorials on Color Management & Printing



sRBG, I did try out the Adobe once before which also didn't work. But that was just once a couple of photos.
I did test a lot with sRBG.
Thanks for the link, I'll check that one out.

I do know some more about the 2 colors I posted. The coral one has 20% less Blues in it but almost equal amounts of Reds and Greens.
Could this be happening in the sensors? That they pick 20% more blue than it should? Even on lower ISO's?


----------



## KmH (Aug 17, 2013)

You are not providing enough information.

What are you looking at the image on? The camera's rear LCD, a computer display, a mobile device?


----------



## oekoeloe (Aug 17, 2013)

KmH said:


> You are not providing enough information.
> 
> What are you looking at the image on? The camera's rear LCD, a computer display, a mobile device?



The rear LCD and on the computer. Both are pretty similar images. But not what it is in real.


----------



## KmH (Aug 17, 2013)

The camera rear LCD is useless for evaluating color, or exposure by looking at the image.
Exposure can be evaluated by looking at the _histogram_ for the image on the rear LCD. Note however, that the rear LCD cannot show a Raw image nor the Raw images histogram. A JPEG basic thumbnail is added to the Raw file expressly for display on the rear LCD and in computer applications that are not Raw converters.

As far as your computer display, you may want to check the color space assigned to your display.

There are several types of computer TFT-LCD display.
The most common, and least expensive, is the Twisted Nematic (TN) type display. TN displays have pretty narrow color accurate viewing angles. So narrow that you have to move your head around to accurately see the colors in an image that fills the display.
Next best is Parallel Vertical Alignment (PVA) type displays.
For image editing, the preferred display type is In-Plane Switching (IPS). Good IPS displays that can display a wide gamut of colors run from $1300 and up.


----------



## Overread (Aug 17, 2013)

I would suggest looking into the following topics; 

1) White balance and setting custom white balance in camera. This will solve your colour issue since it allows you to measure and set the white balance for the scene and lighting you are shooting in. 

2) Exposure and the histogram - as mentioned before the LCD isn't much good, the histogram will, however, give you a clear display of your cameras exposure and you can from there look into exposure theories such as 'expose to the right'. Note that exposure won't affect colour, but affects the overall brightness of the shot.

3) Screen and printing calibration - you'll need to have your monitor calibrated by a machine (you can't do it with your eyes as they adapt to lighting and colour and thus are far to heavily biased). If you are printing at home then that needs to be calibrated as well - Spyder do a good screen calibrator and separate printer calibrator - Colour Monkey do a good all in one - there are also other options on the market.


Once you understand exposure - can set your white balance in the light you are present in and have a working colour calibrated computer (and if needed printing) setup then you should be able to get the correct light colour. I would also strongly advise shooting in RAW mode which allows you to adjust the white balance of the photo after taking it with ease (JPEGs are harder to adjust the white balance on (ergo colour) and a get a good result). 


Check out the following two websites, both of which have detailed articles that cover these topics (and more)

Digital Photography Tutorials

Ron Bigelow Photography Articles


----------

