Koenigsegg rolls in to town

[MatthewRoberts]

A major drawcard to the Australian Motor Show. It's a bargain $2.1M.

[gstark]

A major drawcard to the Australian Motor Show.

The only such thing for me, for the Sydney event, is its closure. The moves to combine it with Melbourne's event are long overdue, and as a general rule, the Melbourne event usually has far better items to view than the Sydney one.

For me, there would be just two vehicles worth seeing at this year's event, those being the egg (rolled up nicely in these images) and the California, but I hardly see much value in paying $18 plus parking to look at two cars.

Matthew,

What wb settings did you have in place for these images? Please look at the colour in these images: you have four images of the one car, but that one car is represented with three different shades of orange in just those four images. As it's highly unlikely that somebody wandered along with a spraygun while you rearranged yourself between shots, the only other explanation for this occurrence would be something within your settings has caused this to occur, and the primary culprit seems, to me, to be AWB.

Given that the lighting for each of these images is likely to be the same, I would have to ask (if AWB was indeed in place) why? If AWB was not in place, then why are we seeing such different hues in each of these images?

[ATJ]

I wonder where they got the specs for that spec sheet.

According to the Koenigsegg site it has a top speed of "over 395 km/h". Wikipedia lists it with a "top speed in excess of 250 mph (402 km/h), although this has not been officially verified".

I believe the only production car to have beaten the Bugatti Veyron's top speed of 408 km/h (and verified by Captain Slow) is the SSC Aero.

The CCX is also meant to be only 601 kW (806 bhp) and does 0-100km/h in 3.2s.

Edit: correct typo in speed.

[sirhc55]

Colour differences are easy to explain. The light hitting the vehicle, even though it’s from the same source, would in fact show the same colour in different perspectives of the vehicle itself. As this is not a controlled lighting situation I find the colour balances to be OK

[MatthewRoberts]

What wb settings did you have in place for these images?

Hi Gary, I'm bad . I was mucking around with diferent settings. Being an newbie, I left the settings on AWB (A3) and switched between P mode (with built-in falsh) and Auto so I could compare the images back home.

Do you think the flash washed the colour away in the last pic or AWB playing funny-buggers?

[MatthewRoberts]

Colour differences are easy to explain. The light hitting the vehicle, even though it’s from the same source, would in fact show the same colour in different perspectives of the vehicle itself. As this is not a controlled lighting situation I find the colour balances to be OK

After another look I noticed in the 2nd photo that the rear of the car is a different colour than the front and in the 3rd photo the raised door is also dimmer than the rest.

I think you are spot on - There are many different light sources on the subject and this might explain the differences in results.

[Jonesy]

$2.1m and the contact details look like they have been scribbled on the board

[sirhc55]

Actually, if you look at pic #1 it actually indicates what I was trying to say. The door has a different colour to both the bonnet and the rear quarter. The light falling on the door is from a different angle to that falling on the bonnet so there will be a difference in the reflectance. The rear quarter is even better as you have two perspectives - the side and the upper, both showing a difference in colour.

Just gotta save another $2M and I will buy the bugger

[MatthewRoberts]

$2.1m and the contact details look like they have been scribbled on the board

Most probably hasn't done much distibributing yet

[surenj]

Nice car.. Frankly I thought the line up was a bit dissapointing for this show. Some of the big names were missing...

[MatthewRoberts]

Nice car.. Frankly I thought the line up was a bit dissapointing for this show. Some of the big names were missing...

Namely Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Mini, Saab which have all made appearances in the past.

Audi had an impressive stand last year - apparently it costs them about 1 million for a stand and fit-out so they will probably show up every 2nd year. As a consolation, they did have an R8 displayed outside in Darling Harbour. You'd think these guys would have stacks of money to come every year - but maybe this is a sign of the current economic times.

[gstark]

As this is not a controlled lighting situation I find the colour balances to be OK

It's not controlled, as we might encounter within a studio, but as a general rule, I think it's fair to suggest it could be regarded as constant.

AWB would take into account all colours being encountered within the scene, and in these images, some have more of the car, and thus more orange, while others have less, and this can and will have an effect on the wb assessments being made within the camera.

Certainly, reflectance will play some part, but the variation in colours that I'm seeing seem to be too great to be so simply explained away, and especially when we know that awb was in play. However, also please see my final comment below.

Do you think the flash washed the colour away in the last pic or AWB playing funny-buggers?

I suspect it's the wb here, despite Chris's quite valid observations. In the last pic, there's a small section of the car's colour visible forward of the engine bay, and it, too shows a lighter hue than what we see in the other images; I would not be expecting your flash to be causing this effect at that distance from the camera, when it is causing it on that rear bumper. I would be expecting light fall-off from the flash to cause that forward section to be darker, but it is not.

The one other (final) point surrounds the actual paint job on the car, and it's not clear to me from these images as to the answer to this question: was the paint job metallic or mica? If so, that would certainly provide the answer to what we're seeing, whereas if this were a solid colour, then I think that the colour variations are too great to be explained solely by light sources and angles.

[MatthewRoberts]

AWB would take into account all colours being encountered within the scene, and in these images, some have more of the car, and thus more orange, while others have less, and this can and will have an effect on the wb assessments being made within the camera.

Gary, does this mean if I set WB to a setting other than AWB then this will correct the problem?

[ATJ]

Matthew,

When you use auto white balance, the camera determines the white balance by assuming the scene has equal amounts of all colours (or more accurately, assumes the scene averages to a neutral grey). When the scene is predominately one colour and the camera assumes the whole scene is grey, that colour will be toned down and other colours are way out.

White balance needs to be set based on the colour of the prevailing light. Under some circumstances (Sunlight, cloud, etc.) the camera has some preset white balance estimates which generally work quite well. Under artificial light, however, it is not so simple. Ideally, you could carry a neutral grey card and use that under the current lighting conditions to allow the camera to work out what it should be and then use that for the rest of the shots.

Not sure what camera you have, but most cameras have a Preset function within white balance which lets you take a shot of a grey card or something equivalent and then use that setting for the rest of the shots. Another alternative, if you are shooting raw is to ignore white balance altogether, take a shot of your grey card under the conditions for the rest of the shoot and then when you do your post processing, determine what is required to make they grey card truly grey (i.e. equal red, blue and green) and apply those settings to all the images.

[gstark]

AWB would take into account all colours being encountered within the scene, and in these images, some have more of the car, and thus more orange, while others have less, and this can and will have an effect on the wb assessments being made within the camera.

Gary, does this mean if I set WB to a setting other than AWB then this will correct the problem?

Well, it depends upon what the problem actually is.

But it will certainly give your images a stable base from which they are being staged. At the moment, it's a bit like trying to juggle four balls during an earthquake. My expectation is that each of your images, as they are now, will have a different underlying wb, which translates to a different colour temperature. If you shot in raw, your raw processing engine may even show you this value.

If you had shot each image using a known wb setting - let's say tungsten - then the camera would have started each image with a known colour temperature value, and it would have been the same value for each image. This means that there is one less variable in the image; one less variable clouding what we're seeing, one less variable to perhaps deal with in our PP.

Now, if you're shooting raw, and you screw up really badly (forget to change your wb from bright sunlight to whatever before you begin shooting) this becomes less critical for a number of reasons. As noted above, as all of your images were created using the same baseline wb, and even if it was an incorrect setting, it is now a trivial batch process to just go ahead, in your raw processing, to reset this to the correct value.

I am not advocating this as a general shooting procedure: you should be aiming to get it right, in the camera. But it's a screw up than be easily corrected, with little impact upon the rest of your PP workflow.

By way of contrast, if each image has a different colour temperature as its starting point, each image needs to be individually reviewed, and adjusted as appropriate.

Individually.

One

at

a

time.


If

you

get

my

drift.


And of course, if you shot straight to jpg, with no raw, then you have serious issues if your wb is screwed, because it's more difficult to go back and adjust the underlying parameters.

As a final diversion, I think you also said that you shot some images with flash, and some without? With AWB in place, I suspect that your camera will have automagically set the camera to something akin to flash wb with the flash engaged, and god-knows-what with it disengaged.

And finally, I would like to know, if you can recall, about the paint finish on the car - was it a metallic of some sort, in which case, the reflectance from it does assume a much greater role in this process?

[gstark]

Matthew,

Andrew has put this better than I have.

When you use auto white balance, the camera determines the white balance by assuming .... the scene averages to a neutral grey

However,

White balance needs to be set based on the colour of the prevailing light.

In any situation, you need to always ask yourself some questions about the light source - the prevailing light. Is it constant and consistent? What it actually is is usually of less importance.

Consider, for instance, you are outside and you are trying to shoot ... two people in a park. One is dressed in white, the other in ... green! You are going to be shooting portraits, so their attire will form a substantial part of the image, as may the green background.

The weather is cloudy, with periods of bright sunlight interspersed with cloud obscuring the sun, perhaps a bit of a breeze. One minute they are bathed in sunlight, the next they are in the shadow of a cloud; I'm sure you get the idea. The prevailing light is quite obviously a moving target, and this is problematic for you when you shoot.

Contrast that with a lightly overcast day: no bright sunlight, but just constant cloud cover. Not dark, but the conditions are constant. Your lighting - the prevailing light - is constant; the conditions may not be under your control, but they are constant.

And contrast those scenarios with a day when there is bright sunlight in abundance: not a cloud to be seen. Again, the conditions are constant, not under your control, but still constant.

Let's now return to our underlying premise for setting the wb: it needs to be based upon the prevailing light conditions. If we examine the first scenario, we can see that not only are the lighting conditions a moving target, but the content contained within the images varies greatly. All of these factors will have a bearing upon any awb setting that the camera tries to implement.

If we examine either of the latter two scenarios, we can establish the although the content contained within the images still varies greatly, this has no effect (or should have no effect) upon the prevailing light that is being used for this shoot.

It is true that the prevailing light will be different under each of those two scenarios, and that is the point: you choose your wb settings for the prevailing light, with no regard to the content. The same is largely true for exposure, btw.

So, you use a cloudy wb setting for the overcast scenario, and a sunny wb setting for the bright sunlight scenario, and thus you eliminate the variables that the content contained within the images imparts upon the settings the camera wishes to make.

To get back to the images you posted ... it's my contention that the lighting within the hall was constant. Not within your control, but nonetheless, constant. There may be issues of reflectance, but that doesn't alter the fact that the prevailing light, when you were not using your flash, was constant.

Now (extra credit) in the first scenario I have described above (the variable sunlight) what wb settings might you choose, and why?

[Biggzie]

Its a nice looking car.
The last time I took some photos of 1 of these it as on fire at the Clipsal 500

[Big V]

The lighting conditions are not as controlled as you may think due to the changing colours of the big cube lights at the Suziki stand just next to it - one minute pink, the next minute blue..something to take into consideration. Still nice pics of a super car