Car LED lights are pink/purple, not red

[VektorCRO]

I have a problem where lights (taillights and even inside on car gauge dials, the light is not red but purple. Anyone have any idea what could be the problem? I am using 5d MkII with 17-40, white balance is automatic. I am shooting hundrets of cars and editing one by one is a big job. Thanks for your anwsers in advance.

[kvbarkley]

Look at the pixel numbers for those areas. Are you blowing out the red channel? Try with various negative exposure compensations until you are not at 255 in the red channel.

The other thing could be that there is some flickering going on that the camera is picking up. Try a movie to see if you can catch it,

[VektorCRO]

Yeah, the lights are blown. Thing is, I dont do a lot of editing on those pics. I edit 200-500 pics daily. If i underexpose them, it is a lot of work in edit. I am currently thinking of buying an R, maybe with new gereration of processor, this is no longer a problem?

[kvbarkley]

No, It is all dynamic range, but not dynamic range from the peak to the shadows, but dynamic range from the peak to the proper exposure. I don't think the R has that much more range that would help you. I think that the only thing that can help you automagically is HDR.

Are you shooting in RAW? Then you could create a preset that lowers the highlights a bit, and boosts the exposure, allowing you to underexpose and fix it automatically.

[VektorCRO]

I shoot in JPEG at 13 mpx because of the ammount of pics, it makes it easier and faster for export and edit. I will try RAW but think it would slow down even more my workflow. It happens only on these newer cars, older ones dont make these problems. They get blown because they are a lot stronger then before...probably.

[VektorCRO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y970AMAEua4

Here is an exaple of video. 0:24. The reds are blown also but still red...

[kvbarkley]

It would not matter if they are blown if they were pure red, it appears they have a lot of blue, which is not blown out, but disproportionally increased. The video must add a lot more compression, implying that they are not blown out at the sensor, but during the JPEG processing.

[VektorCRO]

Thanks for your help. I will try a few different settings next time.

[Ray-uk]

I don't think it is blown out reds. The red body areas of the car body look alright, what doesn't look right are the dashboard and the lights, bearing in mind that the red parts of the dashboard are not actually direct lighting but fluorescence from the plastic indicators and to get things to show fluorescence you need lighting that is nearer to the violet end of the spectrum.

I think it is just that the lighting in both cases is coming from LEDs that have a high content of near UV lighting in their spectrum and although our eyes cannot see it your camera sensor can.

[kvbarkley]

Then why did the video not have the problem?

Most Red LED's do not have much ultraviolet, it is the white LED's that use phosphers.