Why does the moon look more orange at 1/400s than at 1/200s?
Asked 3/23/2016
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2 answers
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I photographed the moon at 200mm, f/8, ISO 100, using two shutter speeds: 1/400s and 1/200s. I expected the faster shutter speed to make the image darker, but in the 1/400s shot the moon also looks slightly more orange. Why would changing shutter speed affect the moon’s color?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
38
but why i can see little bit of orange color with shutter speed 1/400 ?
My best guess is that you had the camera set to automatic white balance (AWB). In the 1/200s shot, the moon was bright enough to easily be the brightest thing in the frame, and the white balance algorithm decided that that object was most likely to be white. In the 1/400s shot the algorithm chose differently. Maybe because the moon was only half as bright, it took a more evaluative approach and factored in all the blue light coming from the rest of the sky, setting the white balance more toward blue and turning the moon orange as a result.
Although the sky looks black in the photo, I bet it appeared more like a deep blue when you took these shots, right?
Originally by user4262. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4262
10y ago
0
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Shutter speed itself does not directly change the moon’s color; it mainly changes exposure. The color shift is most likely coming from processing in the camera or software, not from the moon.
Based on the answers, the most likely cause is auto white balance. In one exposure, the moon may have been bright enough for the camera to treat it as the key neutral subject. In the darker exposure, the camera may have taken more of the surrounding sky into account, shifting white balance and making the moon look warmer/oranger.
Tonal curves and saturation can also change slightly with brightness. A brighter moon may be rendered less saturated or closer to white, while a darker one can appear to have more color.
If you want consistent moon color, use a fixed white balance instead of AWB, and compare the images from the same RAW processing settings. That will help separate true exposure changes from automatic color adjustments.
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