Help Needed - Dull Red

[lewis_sharman]

First time on this forum, but i search for help and guidance!

I have just bought myself a new camera (Fujifilm Finepix S5700) and promptly went out to take some pics of my newly cleaned car, only to find that the camera makes the paint look very faded. The only photo i have unfortunately only shows a small amount of what i mean (top left)



This is very annoying as my sisters camera has no such problems (see profile pic)

And i was hoping that in your wisdom you may have an answer for me, is it just the settings are wrong (i have no idea about photography, this is my first attempt)

So can it be fixed?

Thanks in advance

[Zad]

In a word. Lighting. When my black car is polished properly, and you look on the bonnet, all you can see is sky. The wing of your car is reflecting you and the sky, which are comparatively bright. The light received by the camera has been bounced off the shiny surface rather than being filtered by the pigment (this is called specular reflection). You will notice that on your profile photo, the car is in the shade, near dark surfaces. Looking closely at the top of the wing etc, and it too is reflecting the sky, which makes it look lighter. That's physics I'm afraid. Your car is too shiny

Happily, physics also has some solutions. A polarising filter can often help reduce reflections. Or, if you don't want to buy one of those, wait until later and the sky darkens. This should also mean a thin film of condensation forms on the car "matting" the paintwork too.

Some people cleverer than me will be along shortly with more ideas

[VxDuncan]

Yup. It's exposed (correctly) for the dark areas under the car, leaving the reds overexposed and a bit pink. Take a block of red colour in a paint program and brighten the image-goes pink. Unfortunately the human eye can resolve these things and cope with a massive range of light and dark, auotmatically adjusting to correct. A single image from a camera sensitive cannot. You might find your reds are a bit orange or violet in some cases, due to the white (colour) balance changing for different lighting, but that's a different game.