Benton Collins
Camera aimer
Been creating still images for the ad world for some time now.
Never use a microfiber cloth on a lens unless your planning on throwing the cloth away which sort of misses the point of using a cloth in the first place. The cloth will trap dirt particles that you don't want to reintroduce to other lenses or back onto the same lens. Instead use disposable Kimwipes from Kimtech. The Zeiss lens cleaner cheap and is OKish, but Pancro $$ is absolutely the best for perfect results every time.
All it takes is to white balance the scene and the blue cast in the direct light goes away. But yes, some blue is always present in the shadows in natural outdoor sunlit shots. I'm actually surprised that proper white balancing was not done in the sunlit control sample. It's dramatic when it's done and the skin tones look so much better.
The sunlit sample as shown above does not show neutral whites. This shot has a significant blue cast. The whites and the overall color balance is at least 10 points higher in the blue channel than the red or green channel (as measured in Photoshop). Once this sunlit shot is neutralized, it looks dramatically much closer to the daylight LED samples. The sun still looks better with much cleaner whites, but once this sunlit shot is white balanced for neutral whites, the LED's are not as dramatically off as it appears when comparing them to this sunlit sample with a blue cast.
The sunlit sample as shown above does not show neutral whites. This shot has a significant blue cast. The whites and the overall color balance is about 15 points higher in the blue channel than the red or green channel (as measured in Photoshop). Once this sunlit shot is neutralized, it looks dramatically much closer to the daylight LED samples. The sun still looks better, but the LED's are not as dramatically off as is suggested when comparing them to this sunlit sample with a blue cast.
Never use a microfiber cloth on a lens unless your planning on throwing the cloth away which sort of misses the point of using a cloth in the first place. The cloth will trap dirt particles that you don't want to reintroduce to other lenses or back onto the same lens. Instead use disposable Kimwipes from Kimtech. The Zeiss lens cleaner cheap and is OKish, but Pancro $$ is absolutely the best for perfect results every time.