[Jaybotics]

Hey everyone!

First off, I love the 920, and I'm on my 2nd device. (Bought it on launch day, but was hesitant and returned it to go back to my iPhone 5, and now I'm back.) I'm just curious as to why my photos are coming out like this.

Both of these photos are using the night mode program, one with the focus assist, and one without.

Focus Assist:

WP_20121211_055.jpg

Focus Assist off:

WP_20121211_056.jpg

Both images have been sharpened and cropped in Photoshop. Photos that I've taken with the focus assist option turned off seem to have a yellow hue or something added to them, is that normal? Should I be taking photos with that option off? The one without the option on seemed to turn out better of the two.

I'm just curious if I have the wrong settings or what. I got the phone again because I want to be able to take great pictures, with the fix that Nokia is suppose to be releasing, this phone is going to be my favorite, but I want to learn how to better use the camera.

EDIT:

I took this last night as well with the FA option on, and it came out perfect.

WP_20121211_031.jpg

I don't get it.

[Lawrence Crecy]

You said you have FA on? Did you make sure to turn the flash off? It fixed a lot of my problems when taking night photos since the flash would cause a hue like you said.

[david90531]

I think it just depends on the lighting of the place. I usually have focus assist light off. But sometimes it works better that way.

[Jaybotics]

Most of the time when FA is on, I have my flash off. I'm going to start paying attention more to the settings that I am using.

[Jaybotics]

This is another example with FA on, but flash off. The yellow is present there too.

WP_20121211_032.jpg

[Lawrence Crecy]

Yea that's intresting.. The only thing I can think of is if the street light is lighting the place and the camera is just picking way too much of it up.

[CSI Guy]

Those street lights are not daylight color balanced. The auto color temp function can only correct so much. If you want totally neutral color balance you have to white balance with a white piece of paper first. I dont know if the 920 will allow you to color balance to be perfect. Hope that helps.

[Jaybotics]

FA on, flash off:

WP_20121211_045.jpg

Maybe it is the street lighting?

[CSI Guy]

You can always color correct your photos with software. Daylight is about 5500 degrees kelvin and unless you white balance under artificial light, you will take on the color cast of the source light.

[Jaybotics]

You can always color correct your photos with software. Daylight is about 5500 degrees kelvin and unless you white balance under artificial light, you will take on the color cast of the source light.

I don't really understand what you're saying. :( How do I adjust it with software? Are you referring to Photoshop?

[TheZuneLune]

Just change the white balance in the menu. Try each until you get the result you want.

[TK2011]

First of all, it's perfectly normal. Mine behaves the same. So don't worry.

AF assist light turns off auto color adjustment on the fly. Why? The AF assist light is true white light meaning reflected objects are supposed to show true color. So when camera with AF assist light on sees the yellow street scene due to street lamps, it assumes it's true color and leave it at that.

With AF assist light off, it WILL perform auto color balance (unless you manually changed it in the camera setting). In your case, the yellow cast due to street lighting is properly removed for the most part. In practice, even high end DSLR will leave behind small amount of color cast if it was very strong to begin with.

AF assist light should only be used when your subject is pretty close to the camera such as when taking a photo of nearby person. The street scene above is not one of those because the AF assist light is too weak to illuminate all those distant objects. Here the camera gets misinformation and the end result is that you get undesirable color balance.

Like others said, you can do some color adjustment afterwards using apps like Nokia's Creative Studio. In my experience, Lumia 920 is VERY GOOD in terms of auto white balance. Yesterday this site had a comparison of three cameras and I thought L920 was just as good as the Olympus in terms of color balance.

[Gken]

WHITE BALANCE, all you need to do is manually change it. I have done it a lot of times and the photo came out better, night and day better. Once Nokia releases or allows devs to access the camera settings. Game over man, game over.

[Lawrence Crecy]

Once Nokia releases or allows devs to access the camera settings. Game over man, game over.

Cannot stop laughing

[VisceralMonkey]

I'm lost when it comes to camera settings, are there specific ones I should tinker with for normal picture taking?

[TK2011]

I'm lost when it comes to camera settings, are there specific ones I should tinker with for normal picture taking?

Just use auto everything and you should be fine 90+% of time. But turn off AF assist light if you are taking a night time scenery shot like the one above.

[George Ponder]

Spot on. The AF is throwing off your white balance. No biggie... go into Creative Studio and it can be corrected quickly and painlessly.

[congusano]

Or when shooting outdoors, just don't use Auto focus assist. It's really pointless for any distance beyond, what, 10 feet or so anyway.