Am using a Canon XT with an 18-55mm zoom lens. My question is this. When taking a picture of either a petty sunset or a red sun, the resulting pictures never represent the true colors. Photos just show a rather yellow image. Do I need to use a filter, and if so, which one?

Here are some suggestions that you can choose from. Most of all it is going to depend on the "look" you are trying to get.


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Your white balance might be incorrect as well. Get a finely calibrated white balance and you're going to have very accurate colors in your pictures.

Also, a graduated ND filter will probably work wonders for sun/landscape shots.

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Originally Posted by hauntinghelper

Your white balance might be incorrect as well. Get a finely calibrated white balance and you're going to have very accurate colors in your pictures.

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Actually it may not be white balance as the holy grail for this one. Most good cameras are calibrated to a 28 percent grey scale. In balancing to the 28% then your accuracy will come into play. What you really need to watch is the speed that you are taking the pictures at. A slower speed could be washing out colors in favor of lighting the scene. Also if you have subject matter in the scene try using fill in flash to light the subject.

Don't shoot on Auto. Always on Manual. Set you White Balance and Exposure ( time / f-stop) manually.

BTW: with digital, we don't use filters anymore. All filters are applied digitally in post-processing software, like Photoshop or Lightroom. The only filter you would use with digital today would be Neutral Density to get your f-stop down to your desired DOF, or to adjust your shutter speed so it syncs with your flash - but unless you are a very serious about photography - you will probably never find a use for ND filters.

Milo