What to do about green snow?

What to do about green snow?

Can you folks tell me what I am doing wrong?

I'm just getting started with digital photography using a Nikon Coolpix L4
camera. I took some pictures of a recent snowfall and the pictures all
showed greenish snow. Sky was very overcast but bright. I was using the
"scene" setting for snow.

So what is going on?

Thanks for listening.

--
Mike

Re: What to do about green snow?

mikedon@mc . net (Mike) wrote in
news:Xns9A44D91F5D924mikedonmcnet@216.168.3.44:

> Can you folks tell me what I am doing wrong?
>
> I'm just getting started with digital photography using a Nikon
> Coolpix L4 camera. I took some pictures of a recent snowfall and the
> pictures all showed greenish snow. Sky was very overcast but bright.
> I was using the "scene" setting for snow.
>
> So what is going on?

Sounds like a "white balance" problem. Your camera has no firm idea of
what color anything you're shooting actually is and makes assumptions
based on what it thinks the light source is. Light through clouds is a
different color from sunlight, which is different again from
incandescent, which is different again from fluorescent.

Sounds like whatever mode you had your camera in didn't work for the
light you had. Many cameras have a "cloudy" light balance setting in
addition to "automatic" and "daylight"; maybe that would work better.

Of course, since you know that snow is white even if your camera
doesn't, you could use that to "teach" your camera what setting to use
if it has that feature.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN | bert@iphouse . com

Re: What to do about green snow?

On 2008-02-14 22:20:12 -0500, Mike <mikedon@mc . net > said:

> Can you folks tell me what I am doing wrong?
>
> I'm just getting started with digital photography using a Nikon Coolpix L4
> camera. I took some pictures of a recent snowfall and the pictures all
> showed greenish snow. Sky was very overcast but bright. I was using the
> "scene" setting for snow.
>
> So what is going on?
>
> Thanks for listening.

I have a coolpix L14 which is probably not all that different. Instead
of the scene setting for snow use the auto setting and then go into the
menu and check the white balance setting. It's probably on "auto." Try
either "daylight" or "cloudy" and see what you get.
--
Michael

Re: What to do about green snow?

Mike <mikedon@mc . net > wrote in
news:Xns9A44D91F5D924mikedonmcnet@216.168.3.44:


Thanks folks.

I found the part about white balance in the camera manual. I guess, if all
else fails, READ THE FINE MANUAL. Mea culpa!