Nikon D80 New User, Colour Reproduction!?

[p.h.otography]

Hi, I'm a new owner of a Nikon D80 kit with the 18 - 135 mm lens and I'm happy

with all the functions and did my research before buying a new camera. I

thought I'd made a good choice with the D80 as it has technology from the D200

and D2xs and many other features to add to the list. I was very impressed with

the build and the quality and everything seemed fine until I noticed a strange

reproduction in the colours of green that are slightlty blue or 'bluish greens'.

It seems that my photographs have a tendency to be biased towards a blue colour

even though the real true colour I see with my eye is more of a green colour.

Is there something faulty? Have I not tuned my settings correctly? Is the 3d

colour matrix ii metering system not all that good? What's wrong can anybody

help?

[Matt Laur]

Are you talking about how the images appear on screen, how they appear when printed on your own printer, or how they appear when printed by a lab (and if so, are we talking about a professional lab, or a Wal-Mart/Costco, etc?). You are likely in need of color-calibrating your computer display, or making more appropriate use of a color profile that matches whatever device or service you are using to make your prints. Can you tell us more about any of the missing info above?

[screamin scott]

What shooting mode were you using? What was your WB set at?...Any photos with exif info for us to see so we can what gives?

[andrew robertson]

Sounds like you need to learn a bit about color management.

[albertdarmali]

If any, I know that some Nikon lenses might have this a bit 'coldish' tone in it. It's better if you can post some picture examples.

 

It can be from your camera auto WB, exposure, or even lighting - too many factors. But there's nothing wrong with D80, I've been using it all the time and never had a problem with colour balance. they are easily fixed using photoshop anyway.

 

Or if you want to worry less, shoot in RAW exclusively. It's much easier to adjust the initial colour balance there compared to when you shoot Jpegs.

 

If I were you, I'd worry more about your kit lens than anything else. :)

[p.h.otography]

I know my problems are easily fixed in photoshop and many software programs alike.

 

I use auto WB. Manual settings. I have not shot anything in RAW format yet because I want to get accustomed to my camera first.

 

As for colour management. I didn't give details, you're right. I only checked my results on a television screen, probably not that reliable of course and I found that the reproduction is far more realistic on a computer screen. I think that this is probably where my problem lies.... colour management.

 

However there is still a bluish look to my green colours. It's nothing serious but it is noticable. Any quick fixs?<div></div>

[p.h.otography]

EDIT: I used flash, 1600 ISO, manual 1/15th at f 5.3 Are any of those factors in the bluish green problem?

[Matt Laur]

If you're using Auto WB, it's possible your camera is just being fooled under certain circumstances (as they all can be). Since it's so trivial to tell the body that you're shooting with a flash, or under incandescant light, or under flourescents, or in daylight, just do that - it really helps.

 

Otherwise, it's rather hard to tell what the color in your sample image SHOULD look like, without any known neutral source in the image (say, an 18% grey card). Since you mentioned "manual settings" in the same sentence as "auto wb," I'm not entirely clear on whether or not you've actually altered the color temperature settings on your camera or not. Might want to reset to defaults, just in case.

[albertdarmali]

First of all, I don't think TVs are good sources to display accurate colours and contrast, but then again, I've never owned high end LCDs, so I might be wrong.

 

About the object, as Matt said, we have no idea regarding how it's supposed to look like, but looks like it's shot indoor, and most cameras can't be 100% accurate in indoor shots (heck, they can't be 100% accurate outdoor too).

 

Did you by any chance try setting manual white balance for that shot? It may be more accurate than auto.

[p.h.otography]

I've not played with the colour temperature settings. But maybe if setting the wb manually would give me a better result, in future I may do this. I just find that it slows me down sometimes and the auto WB is very convenient.

[elliot1]

Peter, you should ALWAYS set your WB to Flash manually when shooting with flash. Whey the camera does not do this is a mystery to me, but non of my Nikon DSLR cameras do.

 

 

The color mode you are shooting in will also have an effect on the colors (Ia, II or IIIA). The way you have your Optimize Image settings will have an effect as well.

 

To make things even more complicated, if you had your computer hooked up to several monitors, the color may look slightly different on each (unless they were color calibrated). If you view them on several televisions, the colors will look slightly different. If you print them at several different labs, you will get slightly different colors from each.

 

Keep in mind that the camera is not a copier. 'Pleasing color' is what you should shoot for, unless you need precise colors.

 

There are many programs that will allow you to change the white balance after a picture is shot, even if it is not shot in RAW. Even if you shot in RAW, depending on the RAW converter you use, you will end up with different color from one to another.

 

Sorry, didn't want to make this too complicated. Quick tip/suggestion. Set your D80 on the green fully automatic mode and reshoot. Then set it on P, set your WB to flash and take another shot. Compare the two.

[ilkka_nissila]

As Elliot says, you need to set WB to flash when using the built in flash. If you still find the results too blue, press and hold WB and dial -1 or -2 on the sub-command dial after you have set the WB to flash. This warms up the images taken with flash.

 

I recall that this problem isn't present when using the SB-800. I suppose the built in flashes aren't as carefully calibrated as the bigger units.

[p.h.otography]

Thanks for your responses I will try this out and let you know of the results.

[jon_de_la_cruz]

He used the flash but he was also shooting at 1/15th of a second, that allows quite a bit of ambient light to mix with the flash.

 

Shooting RAW and adjusting WB from there is one of the solutions.

[jeremy_kenyon]

Hi

 

My cousin and I both have D80s and both find them a bit blue, with and without flash. You can use the Flash WB setting but that doesn't help with outdoors, and to be honest I found it made the pics too warm.

 

The following is how I have set up the P mode (full auto isn't really usable in my opinion). The exact same adjustments were needed on my cousins, and from what I have read on various forums, the D80 setup is fairly consistent but just not what people want.

 

1. Stick to using Auto WB and dial in -2 on the sub dial (Press the WB button and use the front thumbwheel to set -2)

 

2, In the menu, Optimize image, choose Custom and change the Hue, and set it to -3 (it goes -9 to 9 in steps of 3)

 

3. Also the sharpness is probably not quite enough - in Optimise image, Custom, you can set the sharpness to +1.

 

4. It tends to under expose flash (built in flash) - hold the flash button down and wind it up to +0.7. You have a choice between the odd blown highlight and having to brighten up every flash photo.

 

Hope that helps - I have to say I was surprised that the D80 auto settings were so far from what people expect and get from almost every compact - seems common though - they must expect every D80 user to not want point and shoot - but the ones I know want exactly that, just quicker and better quality than a compact.

 

Cheers

Jez