what went wrong? Help - New member and new to digital photography. Acquired a Sony NEX7 recently. Ploughing my way through David Busch's excellent book. Can't believe all the latest...

mmajor48 Loc: Surrey

Help - New member and new to digital photography. Acquired a Sony NEX7 recently. Ploughing my way through David Busch's excellent book. Can't believe all the latest gadgetry this camera has - will take a long time to master half of it!

However, shortly after buying the camera I took some family pictures (one attached) where the colours were all wrong - a lot of mauve where there wasn't any. Assuming this is not a hardware fault, and it's user inadequacy (!), can anyone tell me what I did wrong/why it happened? Thanks.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

No idea what causes that but it is atrocious! Its obviously a software issue. Does the image look like that when viewed on the cameras LCD also?

treadwl Loc: South Florida

My guess is that the photo is under exposed. The camera is trying to balance the bright washed out sky with interior shadows. Other than the baby in the front everyone else looks a bit under exposed. In digital camera shadows are the enemy and you often get color shifts and noise in this area.
That may be part of the problem.

That said, I once owned a digital Kodak camera that just added magenta to everything, it was the camera, up dating the software did not good---I eventually sold the camera.

Larry

Morkstar Loc: Newcastle United Kingdom

Wow, nasty - I've never seen this before and I've taken thousands of this kind of photo. My guess is that it has to be a software fault, either camera or application (the latter unlikely).

If I had to be bet I'd say it is the camera software not able to handle the bottom end. I take it that all of the magenta is supposed to be black?

Neilp Loc: Jersey, C.I.

Are all photos like this or just some? post up more examples of good and bad images

mmajor48 wrote:

Acquired a Sony NEX7 recently.

How exactly did you acquire this camera? From a dealer/local store or some where like e-bay? or similar?

If it is not a new one, i would speak to the last owner

sheryloneal Loc: California

mmajor48 wrote:

Help - New member and new to digital photography. ... (show quote)

Im new as well. Many mistakes and still many to go im sure but ive never seen this. Not on photos them selves or on the LCD screen. And Ive had my settings on some CRAZY settings just to see what happens.

lightchime Loc: Somewhere Over The Rainbow

treadwl wrote:

My guess is that the photo is under exposed. The ... (show quote)

I don't think under exposure is the answer. There is definitely a problem with tonal range - the highlights are blown and the people tend to be a bit underexposed. The low tonality of the people would make the colors of their clothing appear more saturated. The problem here is a significant color shift towards magenta on dark clothing. It is not a factor on the faces.

Unfortunately this is a picture that cannot be readily retaken.
A similar situation appeared on UHH a couple weeks ago - after several pages of entries, the question was not really answered.

I hope that someone can solve your problem. Many of us would like to know.

johnske Loc: Townsville

Have you a high DRO (dynamic range optimization) setting? It looks like the camera's bumping the pure blacks into the magenta - maybe because of a high DRO setting? ... (it should not do this just the same). Should look more like this >>

Clicker2014 Loc: Canada

Nice job! I was going to make an attempt but thought it was unretouchable ;-)! Nice job! What program do you use?

johnske wrote:

Have you a high DRO (dynamic range optimization) setting? It looks like the camera's bumping the pure blacks into the magenta - maybe because of a high DRO setting? ... (it should not do this just the same). Should look more like this >>

thepupsmom

Amazing job fixing that photo!!

johnske wrote:

Have you a high DRO (dynamic range optimization) setting? It looks like the camera's bumping the pure blacks into the magenta - maybe because of a high DRO setting? ... (it should not do this just the same). Should look more like this >>

johnske Loc: Townsville

Clicker2014 wrote:

Nice job! I was going to make an attempt but thought it was unretouchable ;-)! Nice job! What program do you use?

johnske wrote:

Have you a high DRO (dynamic range optimization) setting? It looks like the camera's bumping the pure blacks into the magenta - maybe because of a high DRO setting? ... (it should not do this just the same). Should look more like this >>

Photoshop CS2, just used 'replace color > lightness -100' couple of times on the different shades of magenta.

mdeman Loc: Damascus, Maryland

Here's my fix. I can do a better job for you if you will post the original.

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

I would see the same thing with colors "Out of Gamut" when printing art. I hope this ("gamut") might help you track down the problem.

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

Concsider lowering the HDR setting and any settings under scene setting. For example, if you shot this in Vivid with contrast set at +2, saturation set +2 and sharpness +2...lower those back to 0 and shoot in similar situations.

Reds can be a tough color to get 100% correct sooc.

For safety sake, shoot one on auto and then try to set manual to get that result. This may help to learn what your camera and lens are seeing.

ALYN Loc: Lebanon, Indiana

Yes--a basic photo principle: shooting INTO a backlight (windows). Your light meter measures the light coming in through the windows. You should have been on the other side of the room. alyn