Question about lighting, digital cameras, and color of armor

Hey all. Quick question for you. Maybe you can help me with these questions. I finally got home for Thanksgiving break so I could see all my awesome Fett gear that I've been wanting to see . I laid it all out and took some pics of it with my mother's digital camera... this is what it looks like.



It made the armor look blueish. The difference in color between the bucket and armor is very large.

I was talking to Andy and decided to take some pics with my cell phone, so I got some of it out and took pics and this is what my cell phone pics look like...





It looks a lot more accurate... I was like "woah wait... what is going on?" Is it lighting? Camera settings? Reflectivity? *shrugs* In person the armor is a little darker than the helmet, moreso than what you see in the cellphone pics, but not nearly as extreme as the first pic linked... Should I go outside and take some pics in the natural light? The first pic makes me nervous as to wether ill look goofy or not, but then the 2nd two pics make me feel better heh... The armor does look a lot more like the 2nd pics in color... i just dont know whats up with the first. Any input? Thanks guys!

El1te

Does your cell phone use a flash when it takes pictures?

Photography isn't my forte, but it looks like the flash in your first pic altered the tint of the green in your armor.

When I take pics, I've found that not using the flash makes a big difference in the color perception.

Just my cents.

GG

Yeah, i asked my mother that and she didn't remember. It's just strange how drastic the difference is between the them heh.

El1te

Flash photography can really change the colours and hue of paints... the one guy I know who really knows all about the subject is ART? he da man when it comes to that?

ARTANDREWS? He's the guy that made my avatar all cool-like heh. I'll send a PM his way. I think you guys are right, its the flash.

El1te

I've found that it is a waste of time for me to take pics indoors if I want to gauge the colors of anything. If I can, I try to take pics of all my stuff outside without flash. Just looks better to me!!
D

Thanks Jango's kid. I'll try that out

El1te

the biggest thing that impacts that is the temperature of the lighting in the room and the white balance setting on the camera.

it is 100% possible to get accurate color indoors, with a flash, whatever... you just have to set everything up right.

at our house, i put "pure white" bulbs in every light fixture we own. these are as close to natural sun temperature as one can get. and at $7 a bulb, they ought to be

but barring that, your camera should be able to help.

most cameras are set to auto white balance, which is only as good as the circuitry in the camera. my camera (canon rebel xt) is pretty good with auto, but sometimes needs help.

you can usually switch from auto to sunlight, shade, florescent, tungsten, flash etc...

if you have a flash white balance setting, that should make your pics much better.

some cameras also have manual white balance - shoot a picture of an all white card, then tell the camera to calculate based on that. this works really well, but your camera needs to support it.

last, you can color correct in software later. for example, take a pic of your stuff with a white item in the shot, then go into your photo editor and tell it to use that as the white point. that's similar to using the camera manual white balance.

do some web research on white balance and check your camera manual. there's a lot out there if you know what to look for.