Supermarket Sweep - Warp Speed Grocery Shopping

[mwatson]

Camera Pentax K10D
Exposure 1 sec
Aperture f/22.0
Focal Length 10 mm
ISO Speed 200

Regrettably, I was instructed to turn off my camera or leave the store and I still had grocery shopping to do so I opted for option two. Because of this, I was unable to really get a variety of shots, this was the best.

As I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be doing this, I decided to set the camera to auto white balance so I could just adjust in post. I did the best I could to turn down the yellows but I think the Mott’s applesauce is really throwing the eye off.

I have been keeping my wide angle lens on the camera to force myself to not rely on a zoom. I decided to do this with a wide angle before I saw what I was dealing with. Because of the black plaque on the buggy, I had wanted to take the shots with some groceries in there to distract from it. But I think I just added more distractions on the bottom of the photo that took away from the affect.

On to the questions…

How could I get rid of the yellows more or is it fine?
If I were to go to a different grocery store and try it again, should I leave the wide angle at home or just leave items out of the buggy?

[zona5101]

Correct the yellow in post but it's really minor compared to the zoom effect. Items in the cart give the viewer a reference point...as seen in this earlier post of the same concept:
Flying through the Super Market

[Doug Sundseth]

I think that wide angle works well for the shot you're going for here. I don't know that I'd leave the shopping cart empty, but you might want to choose the items as you would for a still life.

The yellowness looks like you need to go somewhere near a tungsten white balance in that store. (That will vary depending on the lights used by the store, so you can't just set to tungsten and assume it will work wherever.) There are quite a few ways to fix it in post:

1) Use Adobe Camera Raw (or Lightroom, which uses the same engine) and directly adjust the white balance. (If this was shot in RAW, you'll probably want to be somewhere in the 2500 - 3500 K range).

2) Add a color adjustment layer in Photoshop and push away from yellow and a bit away from green.

3) In Photoshop, add a blue layer (0, 0, 255) above the photo layer, change the blend mode to "Color", and reduce the opacity to about 10%.

I'm sure there are other ways, too.

[mwatson]

Well, so much for an original idea, I guess there really isn't anything new under the sun.

For what it is worth, I like Jason's set a lot better and I see what you're talking about with the still products giving the viewer a reference point. I also like Doug's idea of using objects that would look good as still life.

Even though it has been done, I think I will try it again but this time take my camera a little lower in the buggy.