Freaking out a little bit...

thebeatles · Jan 6, 2010

Sorry if there is an obvious answer here. I recently received my T1i and everything has been fine up until today. Every photo I have taken has a tanish gradient which randomly changes locations. At first I thought it was the lighting and then I thought it had to do with settings on the camera. Then I thought maybe it was the SD card and after formatting and still getting nowhere I figured I would turn here for some advice. Here are some sample pics that kind of show whats happening here. I did not change any settings between these photos and these were taken after formatting the card.

top

bottom

top

middle - wall (a white wall at that, and yes I set the white balance appropriately)

I am at a loss folks :sad anim: I can take 10 consecutive photos of the same subject on a tripod and that damn gradient is in a different location every shot.

If I lived within 1 hour of a photo shop I would have already stopped by one and I do not have a phone to contact Canon. Should I just contact them online? I have a feeling that they will shrug it off and tell me to read the manual or that it is "user error." I suppose that is because I have had similar hopeless experiences with customer support in the past. Any info or advice is very much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Derrel · Jan 6, 2010

Fluorescent lighting, cyclical color variations due to electrical current's AC cycling rate is my guess.

thebeatles · Jan 7, 2010

Derrel said:
Fluorescent lighting, cyclical color variations due to electrical current's AC cycling rate is my guess.

Interesting. Now and days it seems that fluorescent lighting is the standard, as incandescent bulbs are inefficient, so I will have to try to find an incandescent source and take outdoor shots as well tomorrow. Lets say that this is the issue, is this common with all cameras and is it something I will have to live with? I have never noticed this before with previous cameras. That would stink to know that I might end up with crappy, unusable photos anytime I shot indoors under fluorescents. :meh: Have you had this issue before?

CSR Studio · Jan 7, 2010

Shoot a white wall or piece of foamcore outside away from any fluorescents and see if you get the same thing.

Keith Lambert · Jan 7, 2010

Make sure your WB is set for Fluorescent lighting.

thebeatles · Jan 7, 2010

Keith Lambert said:
Make sure your WB is set for Fluorescent lighting.

I set my white balance manually with a piece of computer paper for accuracy.

Keith Lambert · Jan 7, 2010

You may want to consider going to your menu and returning to default settings on WB, then taking a shot with the T1i in Creative mode (Av priority) with the WB on Florescent, no flash. See if you get the same results?.

thebeatles · Jan 7, 2010

Keith Lambert said:
You may want to consider going to your menu and returning to default settings on WB, then taking a shot with the T1i in Creative mode (Av priority) with the WB on Florescent, no flash. See if you get the same results?.

I will try that. Thanks for the info everyone :thumbup:

I will let you know what I found out tonight.

Garbz · Jan 7, 2010

Keith Lambert said:
Make sure your WB is set for Fluorescent lighting.

WB is a picture wide setting. Whatever colour temperature / tint the camera chooses would affect the image in an overall sense. A change of the white balance setting won't fix this issue unless there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the camera is processing images.

thebeatles · Jan 8, 2010

Well folks, it seems as though derrel nailed it. I have not been able to reproduce that effect, even in the same lighting. Must have been a temporary issue. Now I won't freak out when this happens again :lol:

Thanks for the help everyone :thumbup:

Dao · Jan 8, 2010

Try to take the photo with (shutter priority) 1/60, 1/120 and 1/180 shutter speed and see if you see any issue. Then try it with 1/30 and see if the problem comes back. (with fluorescent light as the light source)

Edit: Since US AC frequency is 60Hz, for other countries, it could be 50Hz, so choose the shutter speed close to 1/(freq x N where N is an integer other than 0) so that the light can complete the cycle.