White balance and Colour
Colours in the standard colour mode are bright and punchy. Some may prefer the more muted colours in the natural colour setting, while the vivid setting goes too far for me. In a landscape image, a blue sky is typically punchy. In fact, in the Gretag Macbeth colour chart, the blues in particular are vivid, and colour bit depth is strong (24 bits, according to www.dxomark.com).
There are several picture effects that manipulate colour for a certain look. Partial colour offers the option of a monochrome image while maintaining one colour in the scene (blue, red, yellow or green). This is effective when the chosen colour is a flat tone but, where it has a wide range of tone, on inspection the effect can be patchy.
Sony Alpha users will recognise that auto white balance is accurate in virtually all scenes, yet typically warm in tungsten light. As before, taking a custom white balance reading is a simple process.
