What causes sunlight in photo to be blue?

[donawalt]

Hi all, I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Frequently when I take a picture where sunlight is coming in a window, it shows up blue - see the attached crop of a larger picture. You can see the hardwood floor. I am pretty sure my photos are just all the standard settings. Checking my settings:

Camera Capture - High Efficiency
Photo mode 24MP
ProRAW & Resolution Control Off
Apple ProRes Off
Main Camera 24 & 28 & 35 mm Default to 24mm - 1x
Portraits in Photo Mode On
Prioritize Faster Shooting On
Lens Correction On
Macro Control On

Is there a setting I should change to minimize/eliminate this, or should I choose one of the Photographic Styles (which I haven't used)?

Thanks for your help!

 

[now i see it]

If the lens is pointed towards the sun, then it might be (really bad) lens flare.
If not / I have no idea.

Try taking some pictures at different angles. If there’s one angle that’s much worse, see what the sunlight is doing. Is it in the lens?

 

[donawalt]

I'll check it out thanks @now i see it . Today happens to be super cloudy so I will test it in the sun when it's out! 😎

 

[Slartibart]

Isn’t that simply the reflection of the blue sky from the ground floor surface? That would result in a blue tint, wouldn’t it?

 

[donawalt]

I don't think so, the window down the hall is not that large., I'll check for that though.

 

[bunnspecial]

Looks to me like the effect of mixed color temperature lighting.

Full sunlight usually has a color temperature of around 5000K, and overcast or shaded light can head up toward 5500 or even 6000K.

A 100W tungsten bulb is around 3000K, or a lot more yellow/red than sunlight. We tend to find this color light fairly comfortable, so a lot of modern LEDs tend to be somewhere in this range.

If your camera is set so that whites are actually white in the photo under 3000K light, sunlight will look blue. If adjusted for sunlight, anything lit by 3000K lights will look yellow. This setting, BTW, is often called white balance. Somewhat paradoxically, higher color temperatures are often called “cooler.”

Unfortunately there’s no setting fix-you have to make the lights match.

 

[donawalt]

That makes sense @bunnspecial, thanks for the explanation! I happen to know all our lamp bulbs are 2700K, close to what you said. And there was a lit lamp down the hall. Sounds like the solution would have been turn the lamp off! Thanks again.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Looks to me like the effect of mixed color temperature lighting.

Full sunlight usually has a color temperature of around 5000K, and overcast or shaded light can head up toward 5500 or even 6000K.

A 100W tungsten bulb is around 3000K, or a lot more yellow/red than sunlight. We tend to find this color light fairly comfortable, so a lot of modern LEDs tend to be somewhere in this range.

If your camera is set so that whites are actually white in the photo under 3000K light, sunlight will look blue. If adjusted for sunlight, anything lit by 3000K lights will look yellow. This setting, BTW, is often called white balance. Somewhat paradoxically, higher color temperatures are often called “cooler.”

Unfortunately there’s no setting fix-you have to make the lights match.

At moderate to high elevations you can see the temp difference just in sunlight with uncorrected shadows often biasing into the blue-cyan range when highlights are properly balanced.