S-90 Red Cast?

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Peter Guy

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I was on a trip this past week and one of the people was very disappointed with her S-90 because it had a red cast on the images. I played around with the camera a little bit but didn't find anything that screamed out to me as to why.

Any ideas?

Setting -- Program
White Balance -- Auto
JPEG
 
The red cast is a common Canon issue. It is their jpeg processing and is done on purpose to provide warm skin tones. You can either do a custom white balance, pre-select a different WB setting under Func Set, or you can post process in RAW. Most people who buy a "party" camie shoot indoor pics of people and supposedly find the more natural, bluish, unappealing. So they shift the color processing to compensate and provide pleasing, warm skin colors. The camera does not know when you want this or not. The auto mode and auto ISO and WB settings are optimized for these "people" pics. Turn it off, switch to a different mode like Av or manual.

For the life of me I cannot understand why pocket shooters buy an advanced P&S camera and then shoot it like a low end auto everything P&S. The whole reason it has a multitude of adjustments and RAW is for this purpose.

Yes, many Canon cameras have the orange/red color cast. It is in the processing algorithm for jpegs. It is particularly noticeable indoors and to me under cloudy skies if I leave the WB on auto, which I do not.

Let me say this again, specific to the S90, if you have a S90 and shoot it on auto ISO, auto WB, auto everything it will shoot just like a low end pocket P&S, in order to get the performance you paid for you MUST use the manual settings and other selectable settings and advanced settings and get away from the d!!!----768r54760w8-)&^%$U*(*&*%, auto everything settings, please.

Or, just do the same thing over and over and expect the same disappointing result over and over.

N
 
Does S-90 shoot RAW?
 
I was on a trip this past week and one of the people was very disappointed with her S-90 because it had a red cast on the images. I played around with the camera a little bit but didn't find anything that screamed out to me as to why.

Any ideas?

Setting -- Program
White Balance -- Auto
JPEG

Does S-90 shoot RAW?
just shoot raw & post-develop;
Canon JPEGs are extra-saturated
 
Hey wait--was she diving in the Red Sea :eyebrow: ?? Some samples would help but it's a color balance problem. More than likely it's due to mixed light sources; like an internal/external flash (which is essentially a daylight source w/ plenty of red) lighting parts of a scene but the camera has been white balanced (automatically in her case) to ambient light at depth (ie--bluer light). Anything nearby lit by flash would then look red, especially shadows. Nemrod has it right, why shoot a higher end camera that can control things like this quite accurately but then leave it in PhD (Push here Dummy) mode? I'm not insulting her but it only takes a small change user change (more knowledge) to fix.

Ultimately no camera can thwart color temperature problems due to mixed light sources. When shooting in close, use the strobe and set the white balance for a daylight mode. At further distances go with manual white balance and lose the flash. There are other ways to solve this but since it could be something else I’d have to see some examples to make any other suggestions. If she has post-processing skills, or a desire to learn even a modest amount to gain some skills, then shooting RAW is a definite asset. // ww
 
Does S-90 shoot RAW?

Yes, the S90 has the SAME processing engine, sensor and innards as the G11 along with a faster lens and a more compact body with a larger LCD screen. It shoots RAW and Jpeg and RAW+Jpeg.

N
 
If you shoot Raw, you get 'neutral' colors
If you shoot JPEG, the color is adjusted by the 'My Colors' setting (Func Set, 3rd down)
'Off' is really the default 'vibrant' mode and adds a red/orange cast
'Neutral' will disable color adjustment

For Underwater use, you should use RAW.
 
If you shoot Raw, you get 'neutral' colors
If you shoot JPEG, the color is adjusted by the 'My Colors' setting (Func Set, 3rd down)
'Off' is really the default 'vibrant' mode and adds a red/orange cast
'Neutral' will disable color adjustment

For Underwater use, you should use RAW.

Yes, you are on the right track with that. What people seem to largely fail to understand and I am beginning to fully comprehend is that the default mode is severely biased so that the average party pictures and kiddie birthday pics will have warm skin tones. Since we are not taking party pics or birthdays pics underwater or even mostly anywhere else (at least me) I don't use the default settings which I know will produce the dreaded Canon orange color cast.

N
 
I think the key here is for my friend to change to "neutral" rather than off (which is where it is). She was shooting in Program Mode and in Ap Priority using a strobe.

Thanks everyone.

BTW, it was fun to play with the camera and it just made me want to go out and get the new Oly Pen sooner!
 

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