[TYOsborn]

Hi... Just wondering if anyone else is having an issue with their K200 when taking indoor pics on AutoPic. I purchased this camera so I could use it as a point and shoot as well as learn. I tried taking many indoor pics at my mom's house in Alabama using the flash and not using the flash. All of the pics came out with an orange tint to them. Outside pics are great. The lens I used was the DA 18-250. I wouldn't think it was something I was doing since it was set on auto, but could be??

[melander]

Shot in Raw and adjust your WB afterwards, seems like your WB is off

[hut234]

This is a white balance issue. Are you referring to auto exposure and shutter (and ISO)? I'm not sure what "Autopic" encompasses, but does it include white balance? I find the auto white balance not reliable, anyway. But if not, you need to switch it between the proper kind of light (indoor bulbs probably and flash) in the white balance settings.

[PentaxPZ]

I have the same problem with my K100D Super....

auto white balance indoors for pentax is not great...
Sorry to say for indoor shots im using a samsung or fujifilm. They cope much better on auto.

Sorry but this is the ONLY let down I have found on the pentax DSLRs my ME never has this problem,

yes I know that film wont have this problem, so do moan at me!

[pschlute]

Now I don't usually like replies that start off "read the manual", but I have to say that in this cas it would help you both.

Pentax makes it quite clear that auto white balance works within a certain colour temperature range. Indoors under normal lighting is outside of that range.

Set the white balance for the scene, or shoot raw and adjust WB in processing. Or use flash.

[TYOsborn]

Now I don't usually like replies that start off "read the manual", but I have to say that in this cas it would help you both.

Pentax makes it quite clear that auto white balance works within a certain colour temperature range. Indoors under normal lighting is outside of that range.

Set the white balance for the scene, or shoot raw and adjust WB in processing. Or use flash.

I'm sure it's me since I'm new to DSLR, but I assumed with it being in the auto pict mode it would choose the best settings for me. There are times when one just wants to point and shoot. I did try portrait mode, which was no help either. I love the camera other than what I have discovered with the trying to take pics indoors with little to no sunlight (auto mode anyway). I tried with the built in flash and without. Either way was not acceptable.

[Clicker]

[Marc Sabatella]

I have the same problem with my K100D Super....
on the pentax DSLRs my ME never has this problem,

yes I know that film wont have this problem, so do moan at me!

Huh? If anything, film has it worse - you have to buy special "tungsten balanced" film to get rid of the orange cast when shooting under incandescent light. Although I suppose most photo developing places will try to correct for this automatically, hjust as they try to correct for for exposure problems automatically. Take the film to a professional photo finisher that does *not* do automatic corrections, and you'll suddenly realize your old film camera was not as magic as you thought!

[Marc Sabatella]

I'm sure it's me since I'm new to DSLR, but I assumed with it being in the auto pict mode it would choose the best settings for me.

It tries, but white balance is a tricky thing. The defualt setting is Auto White Balance, in which the camera tries to adjust for what it thinks the color of the light is. But the camera really has no idea what color the light is - it just guesses that if everything seems to look orange, it's probably due to orange light, and therefore tries to reduce this effect somewhat. But it doesn't go all the way, because if it did, it would never be able to take a picture of an orange object - it would always assume it was orange light making it *look* orange, and turn it into grey!

It's just a fact of life when using most digital cameras - and Pentax digital SLR's especially - that if you are shooting in incandescent light without flash, you'll need to set the white balance appropriately. It has nothing to do with the "Portrait" or other "Scene" modes - the WB control is accessed via the Fn button, left arrow. Third from bottom is the setting you need indoors.

Or, you could shoot RAW, and know that you can change the WB very simply in post processing.

If it's any consolation, the K200D auto WB actually works considerably better than previous Pentax DSLR's in incandescent light.

I tried with the built in flash and without. Either way was not acceptable.

You got an orange picture with flash? That should be next to impossible. Could you post a sample picture?

[sewebster]

Just a comment: I believe that if you turn on the flash then the WB is automatically set to "flash."

I don't think this really addresses this particular problem, but you might want to try the "P" mode when you want to just point and shoot. It does less "thinking" about things automatically, but it's possible that it could be easier to figure out what the camera is doing.

Although, indoors, with a slow lens, probably you're just going to be on a wide open aperture the whole time, with the only thing changing being the shutter speed (and/or iso).

[TYOsborn]

You got an orange picture with flash? That should be next to impossible. Could you post a sample picture?

Yes, that's why I'm so frustrated with the indoor pics.

Here's the example. (Not the best pic of my mom by the way. )





Here's one shot it raw.

[séamuis]

those were shot using the flash?

if all else fails you can manually adjust the white balance, before shooting.

I do all of my work in B&W both film and digital, so lucky me I dont really have to worry about WB.

[sinus007]

Hi,
I have k200d and shooting w/fa50 1.4 lately. Indoors everything looks OK, though I don't use AUTO PIC. Couple things: as many before me mentioned - use RAW. Also, I found that the CFL bulbs that I use in my house give better temperature than incandescent ones.
Good luck,

[PentaxPZ]

Why can the fujifilm finepix range of cameras cope and pentax struggles?

Ok , in pentax's defence the fujis are fixed lense SRL and can do video too.
So I suspose the fuji sensor must get the colour right for video...

[Marc Sabatella]

FWIW, those shots don't look very orange on my monitor - they look almsot exactly how I'd *want* a shot taken under incandescent light to look. Just orange enough near the light source so you can tell it's lit by lamp rather than close-range nuclear explosion (which is how many flash shot look), but the faces - aside from being on the underexposed side - aren't really particularly unnatural looking. In fact, if anything, your mother's skin looks a little bluish on my monitor. Is your monitor calibrated using a good hardware calibration tool?

Anyhow, it's too bad the EXIF has been removed from those shots, as I can't tell what settings you were using. However, it sure likes like the flash fired at *extremely* low power in most of those shots. I'm basing this not just on the color but also on the shadows, which seem to be mostly cast by the lamps in the picture. A flash picture taken from that range with "normal" settings should have had very bright faces with very hard shadows behind the subjects, and basically very little evidence the lamp was even on.

So, I am guessing you either had flash compensation dialed down to next to nothing, or you were shooting at such a wide aperture and/or high ISO and/or slow shutter speed that there was already enough light without flash, so it barely fired at all. Can you repost with EXIF intact?

Note regarding the color, there *is* a custom setting to control the WB when using flash. It's option 17. Set to 1, it should change WB to "Flash", yielding pretty natural colors in cases where the flash is the main light source. Set to 2, it should leave the WB at auto. Depending on how you are trying to balance the flash with the ambient light, playing with this setting might help. But again, realistcally, by far the easiest solution to WB issues is to shoot RAW and worry about it later.