DSLR Photography Forum

Is there such a thing?

I had quite a hard time photographing some roses - was using a tripod, 2s timer, under household incandescent light, and shutter speed around 0.8 seconds...

Some just looked totally washed or blown out, or oversaturated with the red colour... I didn't think it was the focus, because of the tripod. Any ideas?

exposure.

One of the guys I work with is a Nikon user and he mentioned having problem with red. I have had some problem with it but not majorly. Some colours tend to blow out easier, shoot it as a NEF and adjust it!

You totally clipped the red channel. As Christian said, this is primarily an exposure issue, but as J states, some cameras may be very sensitive to red. If your camera histogram shows only luminosity clipping and not color-channel clipping, then you are sort of flying blind. Best to underexpose and bring up the levels in post.

There's also another possible reason: the color gamut. When your camera (or you) converts to sRGB, many hues (especially cyans) get cut. Remember, cyan offsets red, so by reducing cyan you actually increase red and the reds get blocky.

Try this: shoot in RAW and convert to Prophoto RGB working space (and 16-bit TIFF format!) There should be much better tonality. Then do a conversion to sRGB using perceptual rendering intent. These colors should be preserved much better than before. (Reference my current comments in Kombi's thread for more info. This is the opposite of what I normally do, but for deep reds it may be necessary.)

Jules:

The D50 has multiple color modes which can be set via in-camera menus (from memory I think it is Optimize Image -> Custom -> Color Mode). The default on the D50 is IIIa sRGB - which is punchier and more saturated. You may want to experiment with other color modes to see which one you prefer.

...or as Mitch says - shoot RAW and never worry about this stufff again. It is a more complicated workflow to be sure, but I have saved many many shots with issues like this in the RAW converter.

I just changed the color mode in my camera I have now

White Balance : Auto -2,
Saturation : Enhanced,
Color Mode : IIIa (sRGB)
Hue: -3

and it is an explotion of colors... fantastic!! I shoot RAW and convert to TIFF 16 bit... I have very nice colors...

When I saw your picture I took a picture of a red flower I have at home, in similar conditions as you explained... I took my picture with manual texting my exposure to see which one worked best... I took one that it was a bit dark and change the settings in exposure compensation in the RAW file and the picture looks fine...

Good suggestions everyone... thanks - really appreciate it. I'll try RAW next time...

In the little LCD screen the photos looked totally blown out (not the exposure, but more the sharpness and definition), but thankfully about half of the photos were ok on the computer.

Red has always been a chemistry issue for cameras. There was always contraversy, Ektachrome was too blue, Kodachrome too yellow. I think digital media are also confused by red. The human eye is confused by red. There are visual instincts marking red as an alarm color. We panic in its presence. Those roses are very dramatically red all right.

I used some of my curve tricks and line emphasis. Don't be mad.