Unexplainable colour shift when shooting almost the same scene

Michael Fritzen wrote:

Enders Shadow wrote:

... But even the best AWB systems have their limits.

.... Photography is as much science as art. Today's cameras automate much of the complex exposure process. But it's still up to the photographer to recognize complex lighting situations....

And there's an additional two fold challenge which is "real" colour on one side and essentially subjective perception of colours in the human vision.

An example for the latter is a scene on a sunny day under dense foliage of a tree: the human eye hardly notices the green cast (on the skin) but a camera does with the AWB almost going crazy producing more or less a weird looking photo.

As such I've noticed that almost every time when a scene is dominated by one colour the AWB is likely to get it wrong. Have seen this with the shown wooden floor (yellow-brown) as well as for example strange AWB compensations on a rising moon under yelllowish-red light of a sundown. The way to go is shooting RAW and getting the desired WB at home on the computer.

This is absolutely true and has to do with the way your brain interprets color. There is a tendency for the brain to adjust what you see to what you expect to see. Color perception varies from person to person and for this reason what camera has the "best" color output is just as variable. If an individual is picky about color output I believe they should shoot RAW and take advantage of the fine-tuning not available with JPEGs.