Sony A6500 Issue with colours with flowers

[Jörg]

Hello together,

 

I bought my A6500 3 weeks ago. I was on vacation with it, so i already have taken 4k photos with it.

And overall, i like the camera, especial the large number of setting options.

 

But i have a problem with taking photos from flowers. Especially pink and purple coloured flowers came out a lot to red on the photo.

I never saw this effect before, when i was taking pictures with my mobile phone. So i decided to do an comparison.

And this confirmed this problem. The mobile phone camera does not always match the color perfectly, but it is definitely much better than the A6500.

 

I also tried to do a manual white balance. But even the most extreme setting didn't come close to producing the right colour. But all the other colors were wrong.

Here are a few sample images:

 

My Camera:

- Sony Alpha 6500 (firmware 1.04.)

- Sony Emount E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS (Firmware v04)

 

A1: mobile phone: nearly perfect colour

A2: A6500: much to red

A3: A6500: manual white balance - absolutly impossible to tweak the colour in the right way, background getting much to blue

A4: A6500: shot an picture from the display of my mobile. The colour looks good.

 

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Because it isn't possible to tweak the white balace in the right way, and there is no isse with the pink colour, when taking a picture from the phones display, i decided, that it's not an issue withe the white balace at all. I took some more pictures:

 

And some other examples:

B1: mobile phone: perfect colour

B2: A6500: much to red

C1: mobile phone: good colour

C2: A6500: Even this is a very similar colour, in this case, ther is no problem, the coloures are right?!

D1: mobile phone: good coloures

D2: A6500: the pink markers are much to red

E1: mobile phone: colour is OK

E2: A6500: again much to red

 

 

Then i thought about ultra violet light. Perhapps the objective is filtering it to much? I looked through it with my eyes, but the colours of the flower were correct.

So perhapps, there is an UV-filter on top of the sensor.

So i did some comparisons with an UV-Laser and green laser:

F: green and ultraviolet laser beam

F1: mobile phone: looks like i see it

F2: A6500: UV-Laser appears to dark

G: unfocused UV-Laser beam and white LED flashlight

G1: mobile phone: to blue, but brightness comparison is correct

G2: A6500: the UV-laser disappears totally

H1: mobile phone: colours are good

H2: A6500: pink markers are much to red

I1: mobile phone: looks a bit to bluish

I2: A6500: Colour looks better then on the phone, but it's to dark

J1: mobile phone: Colours are good

J2: A6500: again much to red

K1: mobile phone: colour looks OK

K2: A6500: again much to red.

 

So, is it an UV-filter problem? Is the filter to strong.

Or am I wrong, and there's another reason?
Has anyone else made similar observations with the A6500.

Or is something wrong with my camera. Or is it even a normal thing with some cameras?

Is there a workaround?

 

Thank you for your help

Jörg

 

 

[Jeffreykmd]

Would shoot in RAW and process in software of your choice on computer such as Lightroom. Would avoid JPEG straight from camera.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Username]

Would shoot in RAW and process in software of your choice on computer

such as Lightroom. Would avoid JPEG straight from camera.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

  

That advice would assume the jpeg engine is running red, which 

is unlikely ... but "unlikely" is no reason not to try it anyway. But I 

suspect it's a combination of saturation setting and WB setting.  

   

Saturation can be adjusted in the effect editor. WB should be 

adjusted in the dual axis A-B/M-G chart, and by the wording of 

the opening post, I suspect that "manual white balance" does 

NOT mean adjustment what done at the base level on the dual 

axis chart. On the chart, I estimate a minus 5 A [amber] and a 

minus 3 M [magenta] would be a good starting point to try.

[Jörg]

Hey together,

 

thank You for your reply.

Year, i forgot to try RAW. I will do that on weekend. But i don't expect any diferences.

And it also looks wrong at the finder/display before shot.
 

But I  suspect it's a combination of saturation setting and WB setting.

Saturation can be adjusted in the effect editor. WB should be 

adjusted in the dual axis A-B/M-G chart, and by the wording of 

the opening post, I suspect that "manual white balance" does 

NOT mean adjustment what done at the base level on the dual 

axis chart. On the chart, I estimate a minus 5 A [amber] and a 

minus 3 M [magenta] would be a good starting point to try.

 

Thank You for Your good explanation.

But, if i get You right, than this can not be the reason, because:

- i shot in P-Mode

- i do not use the creative style, or Picture Effect, or Picture Profile

- i tried to adjust WB in Picture A3. And Yes, i mean in the settings

         Photo1/Page11/White Balance/Custom 1

         There is an Colour-Field, i think, thats what You mean, but i tried every possible setting (Picture A3 is : B(lue?) to 7 and M(agenta) to 7--> maximum

         And it's easy to see at the background in Picture A3, that the WB is terrible, but the flower is not even close to look right.

 

I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with white balance, firstly because the colour difference is so extreme, and secondly so specific only for one colour.

But I don't wan't to stop you. Please give me some more ideas. Does not anyone have similar issues, i mean, it's very noticeable.

 

Thank You again,

Jörg

[Guest Jaf-Photo]

Quick answer. Camera white balance gets flowers wrong 95% of the time. Normal methods for equalising grey in post processing only works 30% of the time on flowers.

 

So, if you want accurate reproduction of flower colours, the only option is a colour chart. I use X-Rite colorchecker passport. It's a fast and effective way of controlling colours.

 

PS: mobile phones don't have more accurate colours. They're just programmed to look more appealing without processing. A camera is built on the idea that you will do your own processing.

[michelb]

When outside in normal daylight, did you try Daylight WB as a starting point ?

 

When taking pics of flowers, i often need to go to that setting to get more realistic colours

[Username]

...........

 

Thank You for Your good explanation.

But, if i get You right, than this can not be the reason, because:

- i shot in P-Mode

- i do not use the creative style, or Picture Effect, or Picture Profile

- i tried to adjust WB in Picture A3. And Yes, i mean in the settings

         Photo1/Page11/White Balance/Custom 1

         There is an Colour-Field, i think, thats what You mean, but i   

tried every possible setting ...............

    

As Jaf has mentioned, flowers can defy the imaging system, 

so you may hafta select areas to edit independently for WB 

adjustment.   

  

As for your "P-mode" comment, how you meter and how you 

juggle aperture vs shutter speed is toadally unrelated. Thaz 

all P,A, and S modes do ... exposure metering and juggle the 

speed vs aperture.  

   

As to creative style, do NOT say your not using one. Check 

your image data and you'll find your ALWAYS using one. So 

make sure you're using Neutral, Faithful, or Standard, then  

open up the "options" for it where you can reduce saturation.  

   

It's good that you use the 2-axis "Color Field" ... but possibly 

pushing magenta to "7" might be the opposite of a fix. The 

"Color Field" is a global adjustment. The everything else is 

affected and the adjustment remains until you go back and 

re-do the 2-axis settings. 

[Jörg]

Hello together,

 

thanks again for your replies.

 

I made some tests, and now it's looking better.

 

But first i wan't to answer Your questions:

 

 

When outside in normal daylight, did you try Daylight WB as a starting point ?

 

When taking pics of flowers, i often need to go to that setting to get more realistic colours

Yes, of course, that was the first i tried. I also tried to do an manual WB like "Username" asked me. The issue was, like you see in the background, the WB is not that bad. And when i tried to do a manual WB, i could not get even close to the right colour of the flower, but lost my correct white balance in the background.

 

 

 

 

As to creative style, do NOT say your not using one. Check 

your image data and you'll find your ALWAYS using one. So 

make sure you're using Neutral, Faithful, or Standard, then  

open up the "options" for it where you can reduce saturation. 

That's true, i'm sory not to be clear in this point.
I just wanted to make the explanation short.
I'm using the standard effect.

 

 

It's good that you use the 2-axis "Color Field" ... but possibly 

pushing magenta to "7" might be the opposite of a fix. The 

"Color Field" is a global adjustment. The everything else is 

affected and the adjustment remains until you go back and 

re-do the 2-axis settings.

Like i said, i tried all possible points on the 2-axis colour field live in front of the flower, but i was not getting even close.

 

 

Now, what i tried:

 

- I saved pictures not only in Jpeg, but also in ARW (Sony RAW)

- I experimented with Creative Style and Picture Profile. And i was overwhelmed by the amount of settings you have with the Picture Profile.

 

Here are the results:

 

 

Left Pictures: converted ARW with Adobe DNG Converter and viewed in Adobe Photoshop

Middle Pictures: Viewed ARW with Windows 10 Microsoft.Photos.exe after installing Sony RAW Driver - I think it's just a thumbnail of the JPEG file, what we can see here, because the colours always looks similar, but the resolution is bad.

Right Pictures: Viewed Jpeg with Windows 10 Microsoft.Photos.exe.

 

All pictures are just screenshots and later compressed JPEG-Files, because i can't upload more than 1MB. But i always checked the colours, and nothing changed.

 

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What I saw in the finder: Background: green a litel to less green, blue, a lite to blue
Pink marker: to red
Quality:        RAW & JPEG
Color Space:        sRGB (AdobeRGB makes no visible difference)
Exposure Comp.        +-0.0
White Balance        Auto
DRO/AUTO HDR        Off
Creative Style        Standard
Picture Effect        Off
Picture Profile        Off
Soft Skin Effect    Off

 

What I saw in the finder: Background: green a litel to much green, blue, a lite to blue
Pink marker: to red, but better
Quality:        RAW & JPEG
Color Space:        sRGB (AdobeRGB makes no visible difference)
Exposure Comp.        +-0.0
White Balance        Auto
DRO/AUTO HDR        Off
Creative Style        Vivid
Picture Effect        Off
Picture Profile        Off
Soft Skin Effect    Off

 

What I saw in the finder: Background: green good, blue, a lite to blue, but better
Pink marker: to red, but even better
Quality:        RAW & JPEG
Color Space:        sRGB (AdobeRGB makes no visible difference)
Exposure Comp.        +-0.0
White Balance        Auto
DRO/AUTO HDR        Off
Creative Style        Standard
Picture Effect        Off
Picture Profile        PP1 (with no changes)
Soft Skin Effect    Off

 

What I saw in the finder: Background: green very good, blue (now turquise), perfect
Pink marker: nearly perfect
Quality:        RAW & JPEG
Color Space:        sRGB (AdobeRGB makes no visible difference)
Exposure Comp.        +-0.0
White Balance        Auto
DRO/AUTO HDR        Off
Creative Style        Standard
Picture Effect        Off
Picture Profile        PP1:
                Color Mode: From Movie to ITU709 Matrix
                Color Phase: +2
Soft Skin Effect    Off

 

 

So, if you look at the right picture of the last series, this is matching very good, what it really looks like.

 

I'm very happy to have found the possibilities of Picture Profile, thank You "Username" to point me on this.

But i already determined, that this last setting is not the solution for every case. With other light ect. it does not look correct.

But because i have a number of programable Picture Modes, i can adjust a few, so that hopefully i have one for each situation. Picture Mode is already liked to my first custom button :-).

By the way, the most important change, to get the colour right, was the Color Phase option.

 

Now, there is just one more issue: The colours in the finder do not match perfectly to the display colours, and viewing it on my laptop gives me even another colour.

So, how do I calibrate my colours now. The world is not perfect

 

Greetings

Jörg