[nithin]

This is one of the first few pictures I randomly shot with my new K3+FA43, as you can see there is a strong red tinge on the background/wall. The actual color of the wall is beige/cream.
Can anyone help me understand what is going on here? This doesnt happen often, only a couple of times in low light situations.
I think color correction will fix it, but I'd like to know why this is happening at all? Is this completely natural? or any tweaking needed on camera settings?
Will appreciate any help!

https://plus.google.com/photos/117572362193066539211/albums/6093641665621648...62193066539211

[sergysergy]

My first guess is that the camera is trying to compensate somehow for the brightness of the screen. Probably related to the white balance?

[drypenn]

Did you set the correct WB before the shot?

[nithin]

It was on default Auto white balance. Is that not safe enough?

[drypenn]

It was on default Auto white balance. Is that not safe enough?

Ok, that's the culprit. . An AWB usually works, but under multiple light sources with different color temperature, and a TV that flickers, constantly changing colors, it's enough to confuse the system.

Set it manually especially when shooting indoors and with multiple light sources (e.g. TV, lamps, etc.).

As a quick and dirty way of setting the WB, I shoot over a white cloth never mind that it will not focus, while pointing primarily to the light source,

If you're shooting in raw, WB can be easily corrected, but for expediency, you may as well correct it before a shoot.

[nithin]

@drypenn, that was very helpful. Thank you!

[dms]

Likely you have a screen showing essentially daylight and a wall that is illuminated likely by a light bulb (at maybe 2800K). Mixed lighting and the AWB chooses the major part of the scene. You cannot get both!

[Edgar_in_Indy]

There's nothing wrong with the camera. You've just chosen one of the most difficult lighting situations you could imagine. dms is correct, and what you're seeing is normal. The color temperature of the TV screen and the ambient lighting are different. You have to choose to have one or the other look natural, but not both. Very interestingly, the way human vision works, our brain is good at compensiting for different colors of light, so we don't notice it too much. As good as cameras and lenses have gotten, in many ways they still don't come close to what nature is capable of.

One of my hobbies is home theater, and when I'm taking pictures of my projector screen, I have to correct WB in post-processing. I either do it by opening the same RAW image with two different WB settings, and then copying & pasting the screen, or else I use Adobe Camera Raw to apply different WB to different areas. Here's an example:



There is also the matter of dynamic range. Again, human vision is more sensitive to a wider dynamic range than cameras are, so when you take a picture of a bright screen, it will make the surrounding room look darker than it probably actually was. So in addition to combining two different WB in post processing, you will also need to expose differently for the screen, and the background. In the past, this would best be done with taking two different pictures with different exposure settings, but with how good DLSR sensors have gotten, you can usually just expose the same shot twice (assuming you shoot in RAW).

Here's an example from the above image. First, I exposed the RAW file for the screen:



And then I exposed the RAW file for the room by lifting the shadows, raising exposure, and adjusting WB to a cooler temperature:



And I end up with the final, composite image. In this case, I probably pushed shadows to be a bit brighter than they actually were in person, but I wanted the room to also be visible.

[nithin]

Great answers Edgar & Dms! I guess its possible to turn this phenomena into something creative, will play around. Thank you

[Edgar_in_Indy]

Great answers Edgar & Dms! I guess its possible to turn this phenomena into something creative, will play around. Thank you

That's the great thing about using a DSLR. It encourages you to keep learning and improving.