A question of Hue

[Geoff Chandler]

I have a D80 - but I am sure this is something that can be addressed to on other models as well.
In the menus there is available a Hue adjustment
As I understand it this enables the operator to move the colour range
plus or minus up to 9 degrees - so Plus makes reds more orange, minus makes reds more purple.. and similarly with all the other colours.
Originally I tried this out and saw virtually no difference - but I will run another test sometime soon.
The reason i raise this is because in some conditions the D80 seems slightly off - most of the time is is superb. I wondered if anyone has played with the Hue settings and if so what results they got???

I often find indoors and usually with flash - reds and browns are too intense - IE too red - but pure red is a tad orange (so a minus setting could maybe help here??) also Blues are too blue ~ a minus would apparently make them more green..
Auto WB maybe overides this? - I don't know - but in my example below I took a photo of a delicate yellow daisy
The Top left is taken on the D80 with AWB - the top right is how it should look (after a small amount of colour correction. The bottom image is from my KM A-200 (AWB) which actually gets closer to correct straight out of the camera - but is actually a touch too strong in the yellow.
Admitidly these were taken on different occasions - but the results are true to my findings at other times - certain yellows and reds
prove tricky for the D80

[faisal]

I've rarely played around with any White balance on my Camera...I usually keep on Auto or the pre-sets and leave the adjusting for PP....in that also I rarely touch the Hue option always sticking with colours, levels and curves...
I too often find the the yellows/browns are too intense with flash but I always fix that in PP . So it's not restricted to the D80....atleast as per my experience...

[Geoff Chandler]

Cheers faisal
were it merely intensity I think I would leave it - but certain colours seem adrift quite often.
Anyway - I will experiment and see if it makes a difference.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

My colours are adrift a lot too from leaving WB on A.

I'm pretty certain it varies with my lens more than any other variable but I could be wrong. One lens looks a lot bluer.

I like fixing in post, sure it means any shot I like that I have to tweak in raw (NX) but I feel like I can pull the best from the image doing it on each shot individually.

[Geoff Chandler]

Well - I have played extensively with different WB modes.
For day to day use, and bearing in mind the available temp range,
I stick with AWB and fine adjust + or - which works well generally.
If I use the Kelvin range it is only working the Blue-Red and not the
Green-Magenta - which AWB seems to do a bit of.
(This does seem to matter which is why I went back to AWB.)
Similarly the other WB's
Despite all this - whichever WB I am using the same proportional shift seems
to manifest - worst of all if I use the flash. Certain reference items (the Cat for one!)
consistantly come out wrong.
Now I know I can do all sorts in post processing, and I do enjoy dabbling a little -
but how is it my reasonable P&S can do SOOO much better in terms of colours and contrast?
Kind of makes me wonder if I chose the wrong brand. !!!
My aim is always to get as many as possible close to OK straight out of the camera -
and I have got pretty close to that after much hard work and experimentation, leaving
the remaining fewer pics to be tweaked.
As I have already said - I will experiment - maybe next week - but I am doing a series of
night shifts at the moment.
I have a bit of a grasp as to what the hue adjustments should do - I just need to
see if they actually have the desired effects in practice.

I am sort of encouraged (if that is the right word) that the D300 suffers a similar sort
of problem.
Looking at the colour charts for several cameras is quite usefull - the D90 might be a
slightly better choice for me in the long run - though I have no saved money for one just now..

edit: yes I do think the lens plays a ig part in things too - my Tamron 28 - 200 (fast becoming a fav)
is much better in terms of colours. Maybe I will phase out the much liked Sigmas in time...