Fuji Fuji X-T1 - Strong shift to yellow in reds when shooting at night

khuxley

New Member
Hi folks,

I'm having a strange problem getting reds to show up properly when shooting at night, especially when other objects, which are yellow, are present. All photos were shot using latest Fuji X-T1 4.0 firmware, Fujinon lenses with UV filter only.

I've tried white balance bracketing, white balance presets for different types of lights (tungsten, manual adjustment of Kelvin.), color compensation +2, exposure compensation. Nothing seems to work.

Here's an example. A series of 3 horizontal images of Chinese lanterns using white balance bracketing.
DSCF1379.jpg
DSCF1380.jpg
DSCF1381.jpg


EXIF
Fujinon XF23mmF1.4 R
Exposure mode: auto
Focal length: 23.0 mm
f/ 1.4
Shutter speed: 1/30
White balance: bracket +-2
iso: 500
sRGB
Color compensation +2
Brightness value: 0.68
Sensitivity type: SOS

The lantern on the left is the correct yellow, but the lantern on the right should be a rich, luminous red. Instead it's just a slightly darker yellow.

For comparison, here is a second series, a vertical image also using white balance bracketing, is closer to what the red should look like in the first photo.

DSCF0385.jpg
DSCF0386.jpg
DSCF0387.jpg


EXIF:

Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS
Exposure mode: auto
Focal length: 23.2
f/ 9.0
Shutter speed: 1/30
White balance: bracket +-2
iso: 4000
sRGB
Color compensation +2
Brightness value: 0.86
Sensitivity type: SOS

In the vertical image, BOTH lanterns were red and there was no other yellow present in the composition. I got decent results, the lanterns are a glowing red, as they should be. Still a little on the warm side but okay.

So I re-shot the first horizontal composition using these same settings and lens but the red lantern on the right was still yellow. It was then that I shot the horizontal composition using the 23mm f1.4 lens to see if that would help. No luck.

Has anyone experienced the same problem with this "yellow shift" and found any solution?

Thanks for any advice. Kind regards,

Ken
 
No is the short answer... However, I would be wary of the bulb type in use. These days high efficiency bulbs can look like ordinary tungsten filament or even fluorescent lightingbut their colour balance is all over the place.
 
Simply use either custom white balance or change the WB after the fact with a RAW converter. It's a quick fix in Lightroom, for example. As Bill pointed out, color temperatures are all over the place at night, so a manual adjustment (before or after the fact) is more useful than relying on Auto-WB. Plus, the camera can hardly guess the mood you want.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi guys,

Thank you both for your help. I'll do some more experimentation with custom white balance and post-production tweaks on RAW files.

Cheers,

Ken
 
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