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Orange tint w/ flash

frank1492

Newbie
Jun 11, 2012
36
13
Pix without flash are fine. Of 5 photos taken in succession, only one is normal with flash. Others have severe yellow/orange tint. Probably indicating
IMG_20230124_223526359.jpg
low flash brightness???
Problem did not resolve with higher charge levels, charger attached or not. Did try restarting phone, no difference. Same for different camera apps. This is Moto G Power (2022) I think camera flash capability is cooked. Your thoughts? Thank you.
 
I have rarely used "flash on," using "auto" most of the time. Now I think you are correct about the white balance. I tried using "flash on" in a completely dark room and the result was fine.
The orange tone only seems to occur when "flash on" is used in a situation with "normal" lighting, such as a normally lit living room. Under those conditions either "no flash" or "auto" produces good results. Still, the orange puzzles me. Maybe it's because the white balance *does* go off under those conditions when flash is forced but not necessary, but I don't remember seeing this in the past. Have you seen this with other cameras? The easy answer is I guess to always use the "auto" setting.
 
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I did try a different app, same problem. Please read my probable explanation although I wouldn't expect the "flash on" when not needed to do this. This was more than just an "orange glow'" perhaps due to incandescent lighting. The photo was completely unusable. At least now there seems to be a strategy: keep the flash setting on "auto." ("flash on" useable only in extremely low light.) My sincere thanks to all of you for your help.
 
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The lighting in your photos will directly affect the overall 'color' tone in the pictures you take. That's a given going back centuries with film cameras too. With those old, conventional film cameras a photographer would use different ASA film and manually adjust the lens aperture among other things to compensate. But with our smartphones, where the goal is to automate everything with taking a picture now, most people are just relying upon whatever the most obvious settings that are predetermined in the camera app's coding. Very few of us will opt to use manual-only adjustments, that's the realm of old-school, photo hobbyists and professionals. Apparently the Camera app in your Moto G Power has a white balance/color tone settings in it that compensate for the blueish tint a camera flash adds, and different white balance/color tone settings when the flash option is not implemented.

When you start up the Camera app in your phone, is there an icon in an upper or lower menu bar to toggle between Automatic or Manual presets?
Or check in the app's Settings menu for options pertaining to 'auto or manual' or 'color balance'. But not everyone even wants to go back to manually adjusting those options to optimize picture taking, those automatic options are getting better and better. The thing is color temp differences are always an issue, it's just that our eyeballs automatically compensate for those inherent differences when we're in a room with old incandescent lighting, or those old fluorescent tubes, or newer LED bulbs, but film and camera sensors detect incoming light as is. Sunlight is a full-spectrum light, the light bulbs we rely upon all vary widely between kinda, sorta as balanced to not much at all.
So you might want to just stop leaving the Flash always-on when needed, it obviously affects the color tone. Instead of using it as a possible crutch, just enable it for probably situations (i.e. after sunset). Or if the Camera app that came with your phone does not have the options you now want, try this 'Open Camera' app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1
It has a very wide range of user-adjustable features and options, so be sure to dig into the app's Settings menu to take advantage of them. In this particular matter, there are white balance options that relate to your initial query.
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