Help photographing flower (color issue)

[dbizzle]

Hello all,

Yesterday I spent a couple hours photographing a pink flower in front of a black background. I had great difficulty trying to capture the vivid pink color of the flower. In my photographs it appears closer to red.

I'm shooting with a Canon XSi, 50mm lense. I tried a variety of color balance modes, and the custom mode calibrated using a white sheet of paper. That got me closer, but still far from the real color.

I'm shooting indoors in a room with several and curtains so I'm getting a lot of diffused light. I would say somewhat blue light.

I bought a huey to calibrate my monitor to rule out that, but I'm not getting the result I'm after.

Any ideas? Do I need a warming filter? I'm not at home, I could post the photograph later if that would help.

Thanks.

 

[ANDS!]

Need an example.

 

[Alpha]

You need to adjust the color balance in post.

And not take any more photos of flowers unless you're a naturalist or intend to out-do Cunningham's vagina lillies....erm...I mean cala lillies.

 

[dbizzle]

After doing more research, I'm wondering the Canon picture style setting of standard could be part of the problem, resulting in a reduced contrast. Can any Canon experts chime in?

 

[ANDS!]

They can. But you're working off our ASSUMPTION of whats going on. It could be something entirely different. Do you not have the photo to show?

 

[tirediron]

White paper isn't an ideal WB reference (unless it's actually a white reference card) as it can contain a lot of "brighteners". Do a quick search, Helen B recently posted an excellent article on WB reference. Assuming you have a good reference, shoot your reference card, make your exposures (all in RAW) and tweak the WB in Lightroom, or whatever RAW handler you use. It sounds to me like you've not only got multiple light sources, but multiple temperatures as well.