Flashed photos all yellow with D300

[SenorNikonMan]

Lately whenever I use the pop-up flash on my D300, the photos are coming out with a bright yellow cast to them. I have the WB set to flash and it is happening under different types of lighting so I don't know what's going on. I can post photos as examples if that will help, but believe me when I say that they are bright yellow. What can I do to correct this?

[Franglais]

Post some examples. It sounds like the on-camera flash is not powerful enough to overpower the ambient lighting and the camera is actually taking the shot by room lighting (incandescent) which is much yellower than the flash white balance you've told it to use. Flourescent lights would look greener or redder.

However you said you got the same effect under different lightings? Might be your flash has a problem.

[Axle]

Set your WB to A(uto). And yes, post some examples.

[SenorNikonMan]

Here are three examples of what I am talking about. This is something that just recently started happening.

[SmartWombat]

Looks like the flash power has been turned down.
You can see where the flash is directly reflected from the blue rosette and the bars of the pen, the flash is coming back as white.

[SenorNikonMan]

Flash power has been turned down? I didn't even know I could do that. How do I turn it back up?

[Franglais]

You've left the EXIF data in the JPG which makes it really easy to diagnose. You've set the camera to use 800 ISO which is about enough to use ambient light. You're using Aperture priority mode at just about maximum aperture on your 18-200 which is a strange choice. It must be bright in there because the camera has set a pretty high shutter speed (1/160-1/250) which is a lot considering you're using a wide-angle setting (18-20mm). I would leave it on program mode and let the camera choose the best compromise between shutter speed and aperture.

Concerning the flash - it says you're asking the flash to go off regardless in i-TTL mode. I'm not quite sure what that is going to do. I calculate that the guide number of on built-in flash is 112 (feet) at 800 ISO which should give you a range of 24 feet at about f4.5. In theory the built-in flash had enough power to reach your subjects. It actually looks like the camera has decided that the ambient light is enough and has actually cut off the flash before using up full power. I've had this happen to me even with my SB800. The camera is metering 1005 zones and it will do perfect fill-in flash - if it decides it's necessary.

So you have a picture that you thought was going to be done by flash so you set white balance for that and in fact it's done by ambient light, probably flourescent, and the colour balance is way out. Go back to your RAW file and correct the colour balance.

I don't know how to get the flash to overpower the ambient lighting with the built-in flash, except by reducing the ISO. On the SB800 you set the camera to underexpose by two stops and set the flash to overexpose by two stops and it's perfect.

Let me know if that's not clear. It's rather complex.

BTW - whatever way you do it you've got two lighting sources one flash and one ambient and the result is going to look off-coulour unless you filter your flash to match the ambient light
BTW2 - If you set the white balance to Auto the camera will set the light balance to flourescent to suit the ambient lighting and your flash will come out very blue. Done that, too..

[SenorNikonMan]

I had the high ISO setting and wide open aperture set on my camera because I was shooting in much less light the night before I took these shots. I must've forgotten to go back what I normally use in better lighting conditions. I'll adjust the ISO and aperture and try taking similar shots to see if that corrects the problem.

Now I have another question. I was photographing a rodeo at night under lights recently and the color would shift from shot to shot. These were photos that were taken in CH or CL mode with the exact same camera settings and out of a series of multiple shots taken within seconds of each other, there was quite a difference in color from one shot to the next (examples below).

Is this a problem with my camera, the settings I have it set to or is it a matter of the lights' color shifting as I'm taking the pictures?

[Franglais]

Weird. It says you have tungsten light balance set so the camera should be applying the same settings all the time. You've set 2/3 stop underexposure at 3200 ISO al the time but that shouldn't affect the colour balance.

All four shots were taken inside 2 seconds. Is it possible that the stadium lights were flickering on and off the whole time?

[Frog]

Not sure but the red ones are the ones that look most off.
This is another good reason to shoot using raw format so white balance can be changed easily.

[Franglais]

Not sure but the red ones are the ones that look most off.
This is another good reason to shoot using raw format so white balance can be changed easily.

Looking at the image numbers and the EXIF data I figure he shot 884 pictures between 9pm and 9.30am the next morning. That's an awful lot of RAW data to treat...

[dhyravy]

The issue in the second set of shots is due to the lights cycling at 60 Hz. You can't see this with the naked eye, but those of us who shoot sports regularly are well acquainted with this. It will be most prevalent when using continuous shutter with fast fps. Really no good way to deal with it other than to use strobes.

[SenorNikonMan]

The issue in the second set of shots is due to the lights cycling at 60 Hz. You can't see this with the naked eye, but those of us who shoot sports regularly are well acquainted with this. It will be most prevalent when using continuous shutter with fast fps. Really no good way to deal with it other than to use strobes.

That's what I suspected. I've had this happen when I'm shooting night football games too. At least now I know that it's not something I'm doing wrong or that there's something wrong with my camera.

Thanks to everybody for your help.

[SenorNikonMan]

Weird. It says you have tungsten light balance set so the camera should be applying the same settings all the time. You've set 2/3 stop underexposure at 3200 ISO al the time but that shouldn't affect the colour balance.

I intentionally set it to underexpose by 2/3 of a stop to give me a little faster shutter speed. I figured that I could correct the exposure later but I couldn't correct the added blur that a slower shutter speed would cause.

[Franglais]

I intentionally set it to underexpose by 2/3 of a stop to give me a little faster shutter speed. I figured that I could correct the exposure later but I couldn't correct the added blur that a slower shutter speed would cause.

Have you tried using Hi ISO. The D300 will go all the way up to 6400 ISO. I've only just started using it but I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

Lights cycling at 60Hz? Well I've learnt something. At least it's not the camera.

[SenorNikonMan]

No, I've only gone up to 3200. I'll have to give 6400 a try next time I need a faster shutter speed.

Is H + 1.0 3200 or 6400?

[Ultra Magnus]

I intentionally set it to underexpose by 2/3 of a stop to give me a little faster shutter speed. I figured that I could correct the exposure later but I couldn't correct the added blur that a slower shutter speed would cause.

You should never underexpose when shooting at high iso's. When you try to boost it in post, you will only magnify the noise.

though I've never tried it personally, I've read about high iso noise reduction techniques where they shoot at a higher iso, like 6400 +1 ev, instead of 3200 +0 ev, and bring the exposure down in post. Supposedly surpresses the noise, but I'm too lazy to try it out and see if it's any better than just shooting at the correct exposure.

BM

[Franglais]

No, I've only gone up to 3200. I'll have to give 6400 a try next time I need a faster shutter speed.

Is H + 1.0 3200 or 6400?

H+1 is 6400 ISO. It looks a little soft compared with 3200 ISO and you can see some noise in an 8x10 print but it's still very presentable. When I use NX2 to correct an underexposed RAW file at 3200 ISO there is quite a lot more noise.

[jetrim]

SenorNikonMan,
Nothing to add but thanks for posting this, as I've learned a lot from all the responses