[jon404]

So this butterfly came by today, and I took its picture. But it came out all blue. Now, some say that's because I left the camera White Balance on 'Tungsten', from indoors the night before. I guess. But it's actually Edison's fault, for trying, over and over and over, 985 tries, before he hit on tungsten for the filament of that first lightbulb. And to this day, all those nice warm lights in your home photograph just fine if you use the Tungsten white balance setting.

But in daylight, Tungsten WB makes everything blue. Great for simulating a moonlit night, as per those old Hollywood color movies where the film stock had a low, low ASA (ISO) 25 rating... and there was no way you'd get that shot of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly driving at night along a beach, waves breaking in the background. But blue is not so good for butterflies. Luckily for me, I wasn't the first photographer to make this mistake. Goes way back to film days, when the fix was to use an orange Kodak 22 filter if you had tungsten-light-balanced film -- indoor film -- in the camera... and you wanted to take a picture outdoors in daylight.

Found a small program, FilterSim by Mediachance, that immediately let me use a simulated orange filter on the butterfly picture (middle image, below). Not so bad. Then, in Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, I added some color to get it to look like what I saw this morning. FilterSim: FIlterSim - Glass Photo-Filter simulator

Attached Images

 

[elliott]

This is one reason many of us shoot RAW, white balance can be set with just a slider and it is non-destructive.

[Steve.Ledger]

Edison used Carbon filaments, he couldn't make tungsten work (according to the Franklin Institute).
On 13 December 1904, Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman were granted a Hungarian patent (No. 34541) for a tungsten filament lamp that lasted longer and gave brighter light than the carbon filament.
In 1906, the General Electric Company patented a method of making filaments from sintered tungsten and in 1911, used ductile tungsten wire for incandescent light bulbs.

[jon404]

Thanks for the correx on Edison -- I was remembering an old Hollywood movie about him.

Guess I'm stuck... not his fault, but mine for sure. Reading the K-5 IIs manual, I've learned that I can turn the last-taken JPG into a RAW file, by looking at it in Playback and then pressing the AE/L button.

But the Blue Butterfly is a great demonstration of how RAW can be a real help!

[Just1MoreDave]

Newer cameras allow you choose which settings are retained when the camera is powered off. White balance is one choice on my K-7. If I tell the camera to forget WB, it goes back to Auto White Balance every time the camera is turned off. Auto Witte balance isn't always perfect but probably better than the random setting from the night before. Look in the manual index under "Memory".

White balance knowledge also makes you an expert on buying light bulbs.

[mee]

The blue light looks interesting in that butterfly photo... there is so much blowout in the image mixed with the blue.. makes it look to me as if an alien spaceship has a tractor beam on the butterfly hehe

[wombat2go]

jon404,
With respect, I think your OP is drivel and also historically incorrect and you should correct it

[6BQ5]

I don't know one way or another about Edison but I will say that the butterfly shot is awesome!

I'm glad you had your camera up and ready!

[jon404]

@Just1MoreDave -- does our Pentax AWB work OK on the newer light bulbs they are selling now? Haven't bought any yet.
@mee -- in Southern California -- like around here in San Diego -- might have been a blue laser sweep from a General Atomics Predator... on a test mission looking for Rosy-Breasted Pushovers near the beach in the suburbs.
@Wombat2go -- well, you can't please all the folks all the time. I did correct my mistake about Edison, see above. But if you want to see a good movie, check out 'Edison, the Man' with Spencer Tracy, circa 1940. Inspiring!
@6BQ5 -- am too old now to stick a GoPro on my forehead and chase them. Was just sitting outside when it came by, and the autofocus on my Pentax 200mm lens worked perfectly. But you know, there ARE places that sell stuffed butterflies, if that's the right word for bug preservers-collectors... and maybe we could borrow a few to photograph in the sun against a dark background...

[wombat2go]

check out 'Edison, the Man' with Spencer Tracy, circa 1940. Inspiring!

Thanks !
I like old movies and will look out for this one.
I have read - Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson
And I like to visit the Menlo Park laboratory (now at The Henry Ford, Greenfield Village,).