I took photos a few days ago with the same settings and that's nice and blue. What the hell went wrong? An example is included below (same one I posted yesterday):

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Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

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My guess would be light pollution due to long exposure times.

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Quote: from Bzoink at 1:48 am on June 26, 2008

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My guess would be light pollution due to long exposure times.

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Yeah, that could be it, but I took photos literally of the same area a few days ago and they were fine. What could have happened in two or so days?

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Quote: from marshmellowman at 8:52 pm on June 25, 2008

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Quote: from Bzoink at 1:48 am on June 26, 2008

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My guess would be light pollution due to long exposure times.

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Yeah, that could be it, but I took photos literally of the same area a few days ago and they were fine. What could have happened in two or so days?

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Someone turned more lights on? Haha.

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Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

Adjust the white balance to whatever looks right. Write down the number that is in the thousands - this is the Kelvin Degree of your white balance.

Manually set your White Balance to whatever that is.

If you don't know how to do that, you'll have to ask someone else because you use a nikon and I don't.

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Life is a breeze, we live it for fun!
No apologies, to anyone!
We live on the seas,
We do as we please!

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Have you changed your Character settings, if Nikons have that?

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I know how to set the white balance, and I thought that's what caused the red tinge, but it's just weird as to why it was fine days before, but not now. I also shot the same scene in RAW to see whether the WB had a different effect and I didn't see much of a difference at all.

Post edited at 8:29 pm on June 25, 2008 by marshmellowman

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Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

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Quote: from 4est at 4:19 am on June 26, 2008

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Have you changed your Character settings, if Nikons have that?

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What's a character setting?

I know how to set the white balance, and I thought that's what caused the red tinge, but it's just weird as to why it was fine days before, but not now. I also shot the same scene in RAW to see whether the WB had a different effect and I didn't see much of a difference at all.

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Yes, it is weird, but this is what we call troubleshooting.

Wait, did you just take it in raw? or did you take it in raw and then play with the whitebalance in lightroom or equivalent? Simply taking it in RAW won't do anything.

I don't think (forgive me if I'm wrong) that you REALLY know how to set the whitebalance. There is a difference between really setting the whitebalance and selecting a preset like nighttime, shade, or auto. There are thousands of degrees Kelvin you can take a picture in on most cameras, and you only have 8 or them built in. For instance flash is 5600K and daylight is 5200K, but sometimes daylight is 5250 etc... it varies. It's not always perfect. Some flash tubes are UV coated, some aren't... it all changes things from the presets. Again, if you are indeed setting a true custom white balance, forgive me. I do not, however, think that such a variation would cause this much of a hue, but since I don't take a lot of pictures at two in the morning without strobes, aside from the occasional eclipse or meteor shower, I'm just trying to troubleshoot it.

As a ghetto way to set a custom whitebalance, take a picture of piece of newsprint that is all black and white text. The challenge with this is that you have to do it in the dark, and you can't use flash. You also have to expose it very near perfectly. Then look up in your manual how to set a custom white balance, and do that using the photograph of the newsprint. You can also use your hand if you don't read, but it's harder to focus on your hand when you have to fill the entire frame. After you set it up correctly, try taking a picture using your custom WB. If you want to spend a few dollars, get an 18% grey card and set your WB using that. Some people recommend a Griffin Color chart or equivalent, but that's expensive and really not needed IMO.

Have you looked around in the paper or phoned the local college and asked if there is anything odd going on in the sky lately? Perhaps it's just something with astrology.

Look around your neighborhood. Does there happen to be one of those red motion detector lights near you, maybe that wasn't on the first few nights? It seems silly, but I've heard of weirder things.

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Life is a breeze, we live it for fun!
No apologies, to anyone!
We live on the seas,
We do as we please!

(Note your target is the newsprint, your hand, or your 18% grey card) Now that you have settled on your target, go to the Shooting menu on the LCD display on the back of the camera. Scroll up or down by using the multi-Selector until you get to the White Balance option. Press the "right" button on the multi-selector to display the sub-choices for White Balance. Scroll up or down within these choices to find "White Balance Preset" (labeled "WB Preset" or similar on some Nikon models). Press "right" again.

Older models such as my original D100 only had one white balance memory so this step gets skipped on it. Instead, some models want you to select the exposure mode you will use for setting white balance. You can use any exposure mode you want, but since you really want to end up with a medium toned image, my recommendation would be to use Aperture Priority (A). Press right one more time to return to the previous screen.

Now make sure your chosen white balance target is positioned under the light you will be shooting in and point your camera at it.

If you have a camera such as the D70 or D100 with a function dial, use it to select "WB." If you have a D2x or similar with a "WB" button on the back panel, press it instead. The word "PrE" will begin flashing on one of the LCD displays on the camera. Exactly where varies somewhat by model since not all models have the same number or placement of displays. If you have a small LCD below the main menu display on the camera back, it will likely be there. Otherwise check the top LCD panel near the shutter release.

Confirm that your exposure is properly set to record a medium toned shot and press the shutter release. If you've done everything correctly, you should see the word "Good" displayed on the top LCD and in the viewfinder. If not, you will be scolded with "no Gd" instead. Once you get the hang of using preset white balance, you probably won't have any problems, but don't be disappointed if your first few attempts fail. Just reread this or consult your camera manual and you'll soon figure out what you did.

You can now go ahead and shoot as normal. If you are shooting jpeg, your custom white balance will be used in camera. If you are shooting raw, the NEF files will be tagged with your custom white balance which will get applied when they are converted later on your computer.

Wow, that is quite long, however the basics of it are a lot easier than setting custom WB on a canon.

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Life is a breeze, we live it for fun!
No apologies, to anyone!
We live on the seas,
We do as we please!