Speed_Racer

I picked up the SD700 IS tonight. I took these 2 shots and couldn't believe what I was seeing. The only difference between the 2 is the first one is without a flash and the second one is with a flash. ISO 200 taken in M mode which is like P on the Canon DSLR's. What do you think happened?

Dan Martin

Woah that's weird. The fabric on the bags must be acting like a polarizer with the flash. The blue on the pillow turned out fine so it's just something to do with the fabric on the bags.

I know it's not what you're looking for but that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Try the same shot with your SLR and see if you can duplicate it.

Speed_Racer

Good point. The common theme there is the fabric seems to be the same in each of the items where the color got changed. I'll try to duplicate with my DSLR tonight.

Dan Martin

My guess is the fabric polarizes the light coming from the flash so it doesn't reflect the correct color. The flash on a P&S is so close to the lens wich means the reflected light angle is very small. It's the same reason you get red-eye in portraits.

If you use an off-camera flash or bounced flash with your SLR, I'm sure the colors will be fine. The built-in flash on the 30D might also open high enough to prevent the polarized effect you're seeing here. Unfortunately, there's not much you could do with your SD700, but just know that this is a highly unusual circumstance and won't affect many of your shots.

Congrats on the new cam by the way.

Speed_Racer

Thanks! But just so I understand, the first picture was taken without the flash. That is the picture with the color shift. Using the flash gives the correct color as in the second picture.

Can't wait to play with this camera.

Also just picked up a 17-55mm 2.8 IS for the 30D. Got it to replace my 17-40 for indoor shots. That's a great all around lens. Highly recommended.

Dan Martin

So you mean that the bags aren't blue, they're actually black??? If that's the case, there's definitely something wrong with the camera. I've never seen anything like that before.

Tempest811

i dont really understand physically why but it has to do with the temperature of the light, the reflectivity of the bags, and whatever temperature your camera auto white balanced to.

Dan Martin

I don't think this has anything to do with white balance. The walls, couch, and pillow look the same in both shots. White balance affects the entire scene, not just specific items.

Bdog

I don't understand how this can happen either. How can the camera tell the exact pieces to color blue if everything is black? Everything that is supposed to be black is, and everything that would be blue is, but the bag is solid black.

All the EXIF data is the same except these two and the pics were taken 10 seconds apart. It looks like the camera did it's own Photoshop.

The first pic was 1/2s at f3.5 w/ no flash
Second pic was 1/60s at f3.5 w/ flash auto mode

Speed_Racer

Weird huh? What's even weirder is it doesn't happen on anything but those bags. Strange.

I did set the WB from Tungsten to Daylight and it seemed a little better. I'll post those pictures later.

This camera does have some mode to isolate one color and leave the rest black and white, but that wasn't turned on. That's about as close as I can imagine to internal "Photoshopping" it has.