[Auzzie-Phoenix]

I have discovered what is possibly the closest wb and color mode settings for actual color under bright moonlit night conditions (at least on my K-3II using the Samyang 10mm f/2.8).

I wanted to emulate the pale lighting and subdued/washed out colors at night under a bright moon. I don't want to hear about RAW processing blah blah. This is for jpeg output only, for those of us who are too lazy, or for whom run XP where newer software doesn't support (or for anyone who just simply wants close colors without having to go through the headache of RAW for a simple image to look at).

The end result settings for white balance/color mode:

1. WB- set to CTE
2. Color mode- set to Muted

This combination seems to give the best results. Other modes have too much red, orange, blue, or yellow tint in white balance, and color modes other than muted tend to make things like grass, etc... more vibrant than they should be. I will post pictures of my results later, once I've sorted them, since I just dumped the images to hdd from the sd card. I will warn you, however, that these settings do boost the brightness level of the image, so choosing settings that are a few stops down from what you are used to is a good idea.

Now that I've had time to sort the images... I have 3 example images. Two of them are nice and dark... it's a moonlit night, it's not supposed to be bright as daytime. Though I did provide one that is stopped up for those who will complain about underexposure (whether it was intentional or not). I am looking forward to trying out these settings this winter (provided we get any clear moonlit nights... last year it was mostly cloudcover).



Image 1- Normally if I were to use daytime or auto WB, the dock would have a yellowish brown or reddish tint to it and would stand out like a sore thumb with any of the other jpeg color modes. Choosing one of the fluorescent WB settings would give it an unnatural reddish or bluish tint. Kelvin settings are too finicky to play with when you don't know how long you can effectively capture the image you want to get will be (in this case the longer I stayed out, the more clouds rolled in).



Image 2- Second example, pretty much same as the first, but the clouds moved a bit so I got more light. As mentioned previously, these settings tend to keep the colors realistic at night.



Image 3- For the ones who would complain about underexposure on the last 2... Note how the planks of the dock retain their faded, weathered coloration under the moonlight. Usually the other settings I've used in the past have lead to the color being "off" in hue and saturation during nighttime shooting (I also have to make sure to turn off the lanterns to prevent color contamination from the lighting).

All in all using these 2 settings for jpeg shooting at night under the moon results in better coloration, and a better chance to capture the scene closer to "how you see it".

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Last edited by Auzzie-Phoenix; 09-19-2016 at 09:22 PM.