No, it’s not actually 50 shades, but three – though that’s still two too much. At least when Lego is concerned. The following is a translation of what I sent to their customer support via their contact form in German:

Color problems with yellow: In the new Technic crane 42009 (bought at intertoys.de), of which I started to build the rotating upper part yesterday, the yellow parts have three different shades – see photo, though the differences are even stronger in reality than what the camera was able to capture:

The angular liftarms/beams 4×2 (4141628, whose long sides are visible here) are too reddish, whereas the straight 5-long ones (4142133) as well as the curved no.4 panels (6005197) and the 2-long beams (4187122, not pictured) are much too greenish and too transparent. And that (also as far as can be seen through the bags for the as yet unbuilt parts 1 and 3) not just for a few speciman, but for all.

If something like this happens with one of the cheap copyists like Megabloks, Character Building (whose yellow in their Tardis set may come in 4 or 5 shade and transparency variations) etc. – not really a problem, they are cheap, and you don’t expect a lot from them. But you’re the premium brand with an according price, one can expect – in one of the current top products, no less – according constant quality and not such a, with respect, junk.

Now I’m curious what they reply…

Update: They sent me replacement parts multiple times (and quite fast) – but as expected, some of these still have the same wrong colors even after the third shipment. Nice though it is that the support reacts fast, but if the folks in storage who pick the parts and those in production (where parts with different color shades from different production runs get mixed in the same box) aren’t aware of these problems, one can’t expect a truly satisfying solution…