Frustrated with Lumia 1020 yellow tint!

[blue1k]

Yellow tint is very little on Cyan on my 1020. Don't trust the 1020 amoled screen-the tint is way off.

 

[ssjmec]

Yellow tint is very little on Cyan on my 1020. Don't trust the 1020 amoled screen-the tint is way off.

Yeah I believe the AMOLED screen is one of the factors.

But additionally, using auto settings really ruins the photo (depending, more evident on a not so well-lit area)

I tested capturing using Microsoft Camera (Auto), Microsoft Camera (Burst, low reso), Nokia Camera (Auto) and Nokia Camera (Manual, just set WB and ISO to 100) As expected, all those with auto settings produced greenish/yellowish tint. But surprisingly, the burst shots are almost accurate on color reproduction (whites, etc) I find it has significantly less tinting but of course the details are not so good... On nokia camera using manual, I get better than those two with auto, and just little to almost no tint compared to burst shots.

So those who are experiencing tinting, try to capture using burst shot to compare your results too(in where you are getting tint) And also try to manually set (correct) WB and iso to 100 to see if there are improvements

 

[salmanahmad]

I've had the 1020 for about a year (amber)and it had the yellow tint then and now with (cyan) it's the same thing. I thought it might be my phone since many of you say you have no yellow tint issue so I sent it in to Nokia for warranty repairs. I got the phone back today with paper work saying everything had passed their quality tests. So the first thing I did was take a couple of pictures on full auto. Everything that's white comes out yellow and I know there's a lot of settings I can tweak get the colors semi decent but because you can't save profiles it's no help because I don't want to mess with the settings for 5mins each time I want to take a picture. As no one wants to stand around and pose for more than 10secs. I'm just so frustrated with this phone. If anyone has any advice or a way to fix the yellow tint I would really appreciate it. Thanks!!

Could you please upload some examples shots?

Yeah I believe the AMOLED screen is one of the factors.

But additionally, using auto settings really ruins the photo (depending, more evident on a not so well-lit area)

I tested capturing using Microsoft Camera (Auto), Microsoft Camera (Burst, low reso), Nokia Camera (Auto) and Nokia Camera (Manual, just set WB and ISO to 100) As expected, all those with auto settings produced greenish/yellowish tint. But surprisingly, the burst shots are almost accurate on color reproduction (whites, etc) I find it has significantly less tinting but of course the details are not so good... On nokia camera using manual, I get better than those two with auto, and just little to almost no tint compared to burst shots.

So those who are experiencing tinting, try to capture using burst shot to compare your results too(in where you are getting tint) And also try to manually set (correct) WB and iso to 100 to see if there are improvements

IMO using burst mode is no solution to this issue, because burst mode uses around 0.9 megapixels which is very very low, especially considering that the 1020 has a 41 MP sensor.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[ssjmec]

IMO using burst mode is no solution to this issue, because burst mode uses around 0.9 megapixels which is very very low, especially considering that the 1020 has a 41 MP sensor.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Well I'm not saying that burst mode is the solution. Im just saying that there is indeed tinting problem that a few here denies, and that comparing burst shots and shots by the main microsoft camera or nokia camera will show the difference (color).

I also said that using the Nokia Camera and manually adjusting the WB and ISO will reduce the tinting compared on auto settings, but still not as great as the (color) burst mode (sometimes).

But yeah, I'm not suggesting to use burst mode just to avoid tinting. Use it to see the difference of color reproduction between those two.

 

[buxz777]

right for anyone who has yellow tint when using the flash in auto there is a very simple fix and a very simple explanation

with the 1020 in auto when firing the flash it becomes very obvious why your pictures are slightly orange/yellow and not as good quality as they should be , most flash photos will show exif data of 1/30 second and iso of 400+

what this does is keep the shutter open for longer then it should , xenon flash fires so fast that the shutter really doesn't need to be open for 1/30sec , couple this with the high iso which enables more noise into the photo it is obvious that nokia wanted to light as much as the scene as possible when really a xenon flash on a phone is only going to be usefull for close up shots and portraits

with the 808 xenon flash shots were much different and of better quality and with the 1020 they do become more orange and yellow and also have more noise and details lost which is apparent when you zoom into the photo

now what you want to do is lower the iso to 100 and then override the shutter speed to at least double of auto mode ..... so 1/60second and even up to 1/100second can be used with iso 100

what will happened is the background will become darker but the subject will be much better quality with better tone and better detail

trust me it works so well you will question why nokia went the way they did ..... I can only guess they were trying to maximise how illuminated the scene is ..... keeping the shutter open for that long lets in more ambient light which is why your pictures are orange and yellow , the shutter is absorbing the white xenon flash but also the orange and yellow light of surrounding light sources like lamps and over head lights ;-)

does this make sense?? I will try to summarise ;-)

nokia 1020 auto settings try to illuminate the whole scene -- it chooses high iso like iso 400 and shutter speed that is to slow for xenon photography meaning the sensor/shutter is letting in surrounding lights which make the image more yellow and orange it should be , the high iso also looses details at the expense of lighting more of the scene

for better shots -- set the iso to 100 and the shutter speed to something much faster like 1/60sec - 1/100sec this will preserve detail and also limit how much light is lit in from surrounding sources ie the sensor will pick up more white light from the xenon flash rather then lamps and other light sources that pollute the image when the shutter is open to long

you will also find the shots are frozen more due to the faster shutter speed

hope this helps you all be a little more happy and understand what is going on , exif data tells you evefrything you need to know as to what the camera is doing ;-)

to anyone who has orange/yellow tint without flash --- check your image on a screen that isn't an amoled 720p mobile phone screen with bad colour reproduction and over saturated colours ;-) a decent tv with 1080p should suffice or a decent laptop monitor I think you will be very surprised ;-)

here is one shot on auto , look how orange it is , how blurred the details are and how much lighter the image is and how much of the scene is illuminated

here is one with the settings tweaked like I mention above , notice how much less orange the picture is , how much more detail has been preserved

the difference is clear to see , look at how orange my friend is in the 1st picture , look at the noise in the background and on things like the chair arm he is sitting on

now look at the second picture , look at how much better his skin tone is , much less orange , look at the fine details and you can see how much difference iso 100 has made to the picture capturing much more detail and much less noise

tweaking thses settings before am xenon shot takes 2 seconds etc once you have practised to what needs to be done to get a better xenon shot result ;-)

 

[rumpelst]

If you mean overall yellow tint of Photo than I have It sometimes. Especially when flashe is set to on not auto. On auto even with flash switched by system it seems to take better white balance. This fault is easy to correct in some basic photo editor.

 

[supershi80]

I've had the 1020 for about a year (amber)and it had the yellow tint then and now with (cyan) it's the same thing. I thought it might be my phone since many of you say you have no yellow tint issue so I sent it in to Nokia for warranty repairs. I got the phone back today with paper work saying everything had passed their quality tests. So the first thing I did was take a couple of pictures on full auto. Everything that's white comes out yellow and I know there's a lot of settings I can tweak get the colors semi decent but because you can't save profiles it's no help because I don't want to mess with the settings for 5mins each time I want to take a picture. As no one wants to stand around and pose for more than 10secs. I'm just so frustrated with this phone. If anyone has any advice or a way to fix the yellow tint I would really appreciate it. Thanks!!

There is only one real fix: downgrade to Portico

 

[chezm]

Can someone explain when i use flash why these bright yellow spots show? Note, theres no light in these pictures and nothing reflecting this light back. These are examples i have even if theres some light in an area. Without flash its fine, with flash its a problem.

 

[ssapre]

Can someone explain when i use flash why these bright yellow spots show? Note, theres no light in these pictures and nothing reflecting this light back. These are examples i have even if theres some light in an area. Without flash its fine, with flash its a problem.

That seems something like back cover coming near the flash. If I accidentally keep my hand or any object near flash, I see similar yellow spots.

 

[chezm]

That seems something like back cover coming near the flash. If I accidentally keep my hand or any object near flash, I see similar yellow spots.

Hmmm, ok ill retest without my case (leaves a lot of room for flash, doesnt get in the way).

 

[jojoe42]

I only get the yellow tint of an obvious nature indoors, and occasionally outside if I point it at a white sign or something it's not as cool as it should be. But really I don't notice, I think personally they've gotten slightly better with the white balance since Amber tbh. Viewing these photos on my calibrated external monitor btw, not the phone. That screen is such a letdown given the camera

 

[chernee99]

right for anyone who has yellow tint when using the flash in auto there is a very simple fix and a very simple explanation

with the 1020 in auto when firing the flash it becomes very obvious why your pictures are slightly orange/yellow and not as good quality as they should be , most flash photos will show exif data of 1/30 second and iso of 400+

what this does is keep the shutter open for longer then it should , xenon flash fires so fast that the shutter really doesn't need to be open for 1/30sec , couple this with the high iso which enables more noise into the photo it is obvious that nokia wanted to light as much as the scene as possible when really a xenon flash on a phone is only going to be usefull for close up shots and portraits

with the 808 xenon flash shots were much different and of better quality and with the 1020 they do become more orange and yellow and also have more noise and details lost which is apparent when you zoom into the photo

now what you want to do is lower the iso to 100 and then override the shutter speed to at least double of auto mode ..... so 1/60second and even up to 1/100second can be used with iso 100

what will happened is the background will become darker but the subject will be much better quality with better tone and better detail

trust me it works so well you will question why nokia went the way they did ..... I can only guess they were trying to maximise how illuminated the scene is ..... keeping the shutter open for that long lets in more ambient light which is why your pictures are orange and yellow , the shutter is absorbing the white xenon flash but also the orange and yellow light of surrounding light sources like lamps and over head lights ;-)

does this make sense?? I will try to summarise ;-)

nokia 1020 auto settings try to illuminate the whole scene -- it chooses high iso like iso 400 and shutter speed that is to slow for xenon photography meaning the sensor/shutter is letting in surrounding lights which make the image more yellow and orange it should be , the high iso also looses details at the expense of lighting more of the scene

for better shots -- set the iso to 100 and the shutter speed to something much faster like 1/60sec - 1/100sec this will preserve detail and also limit how much light is lit in from surrounding sources ie the sensor will pick up more white light from the xenon flash rather then lamps and other light sources that pollute the image when the shutter is open to long

you will also find the shots are frozen more due to the faster shutter speed

hope this helps you all be a little more happy and understand what is going on , exif data tells you evefrything you need to know as to what the camera is doing ;-)

to anyone who has orange/yellow tint without flash --- check your image on a screen that isn't an amoled 720p mobile phone screen with bad colour reproduction and over saturated colours ;-) a decent tv with 1080p should suffice or a decent laptop monitor I think you will be very surprised ;-)

here is one shot on auto , look how orange it is , how blurred the details are and how much lighter the image is and how much of the scene is illuminated

here is one with the settings tweaked like I mention above , notice how much less orange the picture is , how much more detail has been preserved

the difference is clear to see , look at how orange my friend is in the 1st picture , look at the noise in the background and on things like the chair arm he is sitting on

now look at the second picture , look at how much better his skin tone is , much less orange , look at the fine details and you can see how much difference iso 100 has made to the picture capturing much more detail and much less noise

tweaking thses settings before am xenon shot takes 2 seconds etc once you have practised to what needs to be done to get a better xenon shot result ;-)

Great write-up. The Lumia camera takes a rather unique approach when it comes to xenon flash - rather than choosing the lowest ISO and fastest shutter speed, it tones down the intensity of the flash in order to maintain a more balanced exposure between foreground and background, resulting in higher ISO being used with possible impact on colour accuracy or the white balance.

For me the yellow tint issue has more or less disappeared after the Black update. I do agree the colour accuracy is better when flash is not used though, but that is not much an issue for me since I seldom use flash.

 

[se7en20]

Just pick the right white balance setting. Cloudy adds yellow tint and incandescent adds blue tint the most.

 

[dezzilakk]

Just pick the right white balance setting. Cloudy adds yellow tint and incandescent adds blue tint the most.

If you would have read the thread, you would have seen this is not the issue.

 

[se7en20]

If you would have read the thread, you would have seen this is not the issue.

Just so you know, I've read the thread. The guy who started it is asking for advice on yellow tint problems and I gave what I think could help.

If you have something to say that could help too that would be better.

 

[jojoe42]

If you would have read the thread, you would have seen this is not the issue.

Se7en20 is right - there are probably a few solutions to the yellow tint. The flash solution mentioned earlier works (I tested it, but IMHO the lighting looks weird) - I just run it through DxO Optics Pro 9 to fix the white balance