NX1100 in the Peak District

CMurdock wrote:

marks123 wrote:

I have the NX1000 and use it mainly for landscape and have also noticed the water colour effect, however only ever on JPEGs and when processing the Raw file of the same photo I have never seen it.

I've now taken about 170 photos (JPG's only) and I haven't seen one photo that has the water-color effect. However, the optics aren't particularly good (meaning that even sharp areas of the image are somewhat soft). One of the first things I did when I got the camera was I set the JPG quality to super-fine.

What I am finding that disturbs me is that both metering and color balance are somewhat unreliable. Metering seems to be better in Program mode than Smart mode. As for color balance, even when I specify what it should be (meaning that I don't let the camera select it), some pictures will come out warmer than others. It's quite annoying.

My problem is: Do I accept the flaws of the camera because I paid a low price for it, or do I return it? I can't decide.

Honestly, you're just having some personal high expectations for a product you paid $300 for. You just said in this thread that you don't want to spend $700-1200. Many cameras and lenses have pluses and minuses, and frequently price is a factor.

I feel that you should keep learning photography and take more photographs and experiment instead of posting every bit that "disturbs" (you use that word so much) and "worries" you. If you really need very accurate images, its' already been suggested to you that you could invest into proper monitor calibration/proper monitors, white balance calibration on your camera, etc. As well as high quality prime lenses and proper lighting--along with a lightbox. Shooting JPEG only is not a good idea if you're serious about the best outcome for any camera--very significantly for the Sigmas you've mentioned too (they require a fair bit of post-processing).

And as I've said before, color accuracy is debatable for multiple reasons and is a function of camera output, post processing, your monitor, web processing, and monitors your viewers will see your photos on.  It's frequently necessary to tweak colors in post-processing, as, for example, LED light colors are very difficult to represent accurately--try photographing turquoise LEDs--they have a high chance looking blue or light blue and lacking any green, or at least looking significantly less green than in person.  Etc.