Red to orange.

[J.davis]

Photo related question. Bright reds on my small pocket camera seem to get blown out to orange. Shooting RAW and can get some parts of the pic ok, but the reds are a hassle.
Any ideas on 'camera settings' to try to stop this from happening?
Samsung EX1.
The bright reflection on the tank is what I am referring to in this pic.

[ameerat42]

John. A Q: Is the paint an iridescent type?

Another Q: Does it happen only with this camera?

[J.davis]

AM, Yes its an iridescent colour and seems only with this camera, which lives in my MC Jacket.
Have been thinking its too bright of a reflection for the sensor and maybe I should try underexposing a bit.

[Gazza]

Crazy question; are you using polarising filter?

[ameerat42]

John. I think there is the possibility that your camera may not be lying.
Gazza's Q about the pol filter is interesting. If the light being reflected from the
MC is in fact plane polarised (though the curved surfaces would affect its incidence
at the camera) then it might help. But I think you're seeing that camera's response
to progressively brightening red light. Note that next to the yellow it is white.

I don't know of any particular setting that would eliminate it (other than another camera).
Perhaps (this is basic) check that the color space the camera is set to is the same as
the program you are using to process the images (usually sRGB).

In addition, the samples shown here do not inspire confidence in the reproduction of
the reds. Yes, the raws look better than the jpegs. Also, check your color styles.
See further down the page in that link. And a worry: the article does not even
mention that glaring fact.

Maybe try some other (incl non-iridescent) red subjects for a better perspective of
this phenomenon.

[Gazza]

John. I think there is the possibility that your camera may not be lying.
Gazza's Q about the pol filter is interesting. If the light being reflected from the
MC is in fact plane polarised (though the curved surfaces would affect its incidence
at the camera) then it might help. But I think you're seeing that camera's response
to progressively brightening red light. Note that next to the yellow it is white.

I don't know of any particular setting that would eliminate it (other than another camera).
Perhaps (this is basic) check that the color space the camera is set to is the same as
the program you are using to process the images (usually sRGB).

In addition, the samples shown here do not inspire confidence in the reproduction of
the reds. Yes, the raws look better than the jpegs. Also, check your color styles.
See further down the page in that link. And a worry: the article does not even
mention that glaring fact.

Maybe try some other (incl non-iridescent) red subjects for a better perspective of
this phenomenon.

Actually, I was thinking if John was using one to take it off and try again.
Last night the blues and greens looked very Tasmanian and not so much Queenslandish which made me think he had one fitted.....Should've expanded on that I guess. Too many long days and short nights atm. Sorry. Yawn!


Btw, nice setup, John. Looks like many wonderful years of travelling coming up and my mild OCD thanks you for parking so well on that white line



Cheers -

[swifty]

Hi John, assuming it's not something to do with your motorcycle paint my suspicion is that this is a demosaicing artifact.
The area of concern is in the transition zone before the highlights blow out in the specular highlights region. I suspect there is some data recorded (but not full RGB, most likely some reds are blown) and the converter is just trying to "fill in" the data resulting in a colour shift.
You can try a different RAW converter to see if it produces a better result and don't try to highlight recover in the bike area. Specular highlights are suppose to be blown and it's ok not to have detail there. But if you need to recover highlights elsewhere, you can either mask the bike area or only selectively recover highlights eg. in the clouds.
If the above works, you can play around with the highlight setting for SOOC jpeg results. A lot of cameras have the high DR settings eg. D-lighting in Nikon speak which might be pulling in highlights and boosting shadows resulting in some unwanted artifacts. Unfortunately it's a global adjustment and can't be applied selectively to one area as far as I know.

[J.davis]

Thanks to everyone for your replies, all seem to have merit except for the polarizer (camera cant have one fitted).
I was thinking that the L/R has made up a colour for the not fully blown highlights.
Shadows seem OK so I think I will try underexposing for a while and see how I go.