When I first started 365 I was using an oldish point and shoot. A few weeks into it I started doing basic tweaks of exposure and found that I always had to do this to make the photo look any good. There was always a kind of haze over the photo and I always had to up the contrast and shadows in processing. I thought it was probably to do with the basic camera so looked forward to getting my DSLR. Well I have the same issue with my Canon EOS550D. I always have to up the contrast and shadows, or the photo looks washed out. Example, which isn't a great shot but it demonstrates what I'm talking about: First shot SOOC, second one upped contrast and shadows.
I'd really like to improve my in-camera settings or something so that my shots look better. How can I take the shot on the right? (yes I know everything can be improved by processing and I'll still do this, so I'm not talking about whether we should process or not, I want to improve my skills).
So, if you saw the first shot above, what would you think about that haze? Is there something wrong with my settings? I'm happy to be majorly criticised here :-)
Settings were f5.6 1/320 ISO-100 Exp bias 0. I was probably shooting in Aperture priority mode.
Or is there some other setting I need to fiddle with in the menu of the camera? Exposure compensation for example? Or something else I've never heard of?
I'd appreciate any suggestions on this as it's been something I've been wondering about for a while.
i haven't a clue, but i often tweak for exactly the same reason... so i will be following this discussion thread with interest to see what suggestions come out of it!
I have the same issue. Sometimes light is just flat. Also, are you shooting with a kit lens? I discovered that my Nikon's kit lens, the 18-55 really does not have handle light well at the 5.6. The sweet spot for that lens is 11-16. Once I learned that, my photos started improving. Of course, sometimes you will want that shallow depth of field, but with some lenses you have to compromise on quality of light.
So find what your lense's sweet spot is.
Also, I've heard that shooting in RAW will desaturate colors, so you have to add that back post-processing no matter what.
I am no camera expert but I wonder if sometimes the monitor doesn't display accurately. Have you tried to download your pictures on different computers? My husband's monitor makes images look washed out compared to mine. If that is the case, I think you can adjust the profile of your monitor.
I usually underexpose my brighter shots by 1/3 stop or so, and the shadows come out a little deeper. Don't know if that will fix your issue, but try bracketing (there's probably an auto-bracket function in your camera) and see if it makes a difference.
Your "before" photo is really fairly realistic; the camera is doing an OK job of reproducing the colours of the scene (there really isn't any haze) - but we tend to generally prefer things a bit more contrasty, saturated, and usually warmer too.
The camera should have settings for contrast, saturation, and white balance - you might want to experiment with them all. Better lenses will definitely give more vivid colour and increased contrast but your easiest option is to adjust in-camera JPEG settings and/or keep processing the shots the way you like them.
There are two issues here, exposure and dynamic range, which are linked but different.
Your camera has a certain dynamic range -- this is the difference in light levels between the blackest black the camera will record, and the whitest white.
A typical DSLR these days has around 11 stops of dynamic range. In order to take a photograph, light is reflected off our subject (or in some cases, emitted by our subject) and enters the camera. If you imagine taking a photograph of two lightbulbs on dimmers (in the same frame), you could make one lightbulb 11 times brighter than the other, and (if exposed correctly), the camera would pick out details from both. If you make one lightbulb 12 times brighter than the other, you either have the choice of overexposing the bright bulb, or underexposing the dim bulb.
What does this mean for general photography? Dynamic range is fixed, and cannot be altered by the user. You can move it around by adjusting the exposure, but that will affect both how the camera sees black and how the camera sees white.
This means that, if we photograph a scene with too much dynamic range (e.g. a sunset), the scene will appear very constrasty. We can adjust the exposure to either expose for the darker sections of the scene, or for the lighter sections of the scene, but we can't get a photograph that captures both -- we will either have deep shadows, or washed-out highlights.
Similarly, what happens if our scene has less dynamic range than our camera can cope with? In this case, we will typically end up with a shot that has no true black sections, and no true white sections. All of the levels of brightness in our scene can be captured in just a section of the camera's dynamic range, and while we can adjust the exposure to get the blacks black, or the whites white, we can't get both.
This is why post-processing is so important for serious photography. There's a lot of people who believe that shots need to be correct 'straight out of camera' -- but in a lot of cases that's simply not possible. The exact same was true with film, by the way, which has even more dynamic range than digital cameras -- it's simply that this correction was done when developing the film.
Thus, the simple answer to your question is, no, it's not possible to get your shot on the left to look like the shot on the right, by changing aperture, iso, shutter speed, etc. on the camera. The only way to make the scene have more contrast would be to wait for different light, or provide different light (e.g. flashguns). It's perfectly acceptable and required to adjust the levels in post-processing to ensure that your photo has true blacks and true whites (assuming that's how you want to display the photo).
What you can do is play with the custom settings of the camera to increase the contrast applied to the image by the camera's own processing. All cameras do some degree of internal processing to the image (unless you shoot in RAW), and on DSLRs this is typically alterable. You can choose to boost the contrast of the photos you take, which will lessen this effect. However, I would recommend against this -- unless you remember to alter this setting, this will be applied to all your photos, even ones that don't need it. It's much easier to apply this in post-processing (to the exact degree you want) than use the camera's heavy-handed built-in processing to 'fix' these issues.
The camera should be viewed as a device for capturing data -- you want to capture as much data as possible with it, which means, ideally, not overexposing anything, and not underexposing anything. The results might appear flat in the camera, but that gives you the most flexibility to produce the image you want when processed correctly. Taking that view, your image on the left appears to be an excellent example of how to do this correctly -- even though the image on the right is how you would choose to portray the scene.
Everyone's mentioned some really good points, and so I might sound a bit dumb coming in here with my suggestion - but have you been using a lens hood? Might help your images look a bit less washed out from the sunlight (although it's not that bad to begin with! :) )
I have the same issue. Ended up keeping the "vivid" filter option switched on all the time and seems to have fixed it (but I know I should be messing with other things though?)
Thanks for asking this Alicia @tulipgirl and thanks for your explanation Alexis @abirkill as I have wondered the same thing and whether the tweaking was somehow "cheating"
I have fiddled a bit with white balance and got a bit more depth but its good to know this happens with most cameras, even the expensive ones.
These discussion boards should start being called 'Ask Alexis' he knows his shit.
Whilst all the above is true, I often use SLR film lenses from the 80s and 70s with ring adaptors on my DSLR, you have to have good eyes for focusing, but they're super cheap, like £10 for a food 50mm and £3 for a ring adaptor to fit your DSLR for example. and they always bring out a nice range of darks and smooth tones in my opinion, but its only a cheat really like Alexis says you just gotta tweek it afterwards. ;)
Thanks so much to those of you who've given us suggestions about this. I'm interested and surprised I guess that this is something others find also. Well actually I'm relieved it's not just me ;-)
@abirkill Thank you so much Alexis for taking the time to give us such a detailed explanation. I understand what you mean by the large dynamic range (found this while shooting the sunset tonight). I haven't got a problem post processing, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something else I could do to help in camera.
@pizzaboy Thanks Mick. Glad you think it's not too bad ;-) I've been working with adjusting white balance, which has good, but will look at playing with the others.
@ronah I wondered about this. Did a little experiment today with auto-bracket function so I know what this does now. I do think I need to think about purposely underexposing but I've yet to totally master the stop-reduction thing. I get it, I just need use it so I remember it!
@pocketmouse Thank you so much for suggesting this! I recall a friend telling me I needed to get one, just had forgotten about them. It's on the immediate list ;-)
@inara Kim I'll have a play with this too and see if it helps. Thank you.
@chewyteeth I'll think about this. I'm all for whatever cheat you can get! I'm certainly not going to be a purist about anything. I just want to improve whatever techniques are improvable!
well the quality of the glass is important I think when it comes to the smoothness of tones and stuff, like I say the focus is manual so it becomes tougher. If you need any tips ask, you could get a cheapo f1.8 50mm lens with a PB, PK or M42 fitting off ebay and a ring adaptor and see what you think, I guess if you don't like you can sell them for roughly the same price again.
I found the "Standard" setting on my DSLR had settings that were a little lower than I wanted them. You can probably choose a User Defined Set that gives you what you want - I work with that now and feel happier about my photos, though it's not a catch-all for every situation and some tweaking can still be necessary. It has reduced the amount of time spent doing so in Photoshop, though.
@pizzaboy
what lenses do you use Mick? I don't know about focus peaking, I use Canon and am constantly straining my eyes. I shoot a lot in film too so the lenses are all interchangable between my cameras. I have Leica M39 fit adaptors, Praktica bayonet and Pentax bayonet.
@tulipgirl Im not a profeesional, but your examples given above are exactly my examples of shooting without(left shot) / with (right one) a polirizing filter! :)
@chewyteeth Dave, I've currently got a Konica Hexanon AR mount 50mm/f1.4 and a Konica AR-mount Tokina 70-100mm zoom. Waiting for my birthday for my "surprise" Yashica ML 28mm/f2.8 (CY mount) and the very exciting Jupiter 85mm/f2 (M39 mount). Focus peaking shows a coloured highlight around high-contrast edges on the liveview display - which lets you quickly nail focus. It's amazing! Someone I work with gets it on his Canon 60d using an aftermarket firmware on his SD card, but I don't know much about how it works as it obviously won't display in the optical viewfinder. Sony has the feature on both mirrorless and SLT cameras.
@pizzaboy
I just got the jupiter 50mm 3.5 with the adaptor, because I also bought the Zorki 4 rangefinder, the Leica copy. That sounds great, no such look with Canon I reckon but I've just invested in some proper Canon AF lenses anyway so my eyes can have a rest.
@pizzaboy@chewyteeth The aftermarket firmware that enables focus peaking/zebra stripes on Canon cameras is called Magic Lantern.
It's an extremely impressive and powerful project that enables all kinds of neat tricks, but it's very definitely not for either beginner photographers, or non-technically minded people. It's extremely complicated to use -- I've fiddled around with it but I've never used it in anger when out and about, because I can't get it to do what I want without constantly reading the instructions!
The zebra stripes work on Live View mode, and cause the edges of in-focus areas to flash. Because it's monitoring the image in full resolution, it means that the flashing is extremely accurate.
Personally when focusing in manual mode, I also use live view, but zoom into the image ten times (by pressing the zoom button you use in playback mode). You can then move around the area of the image you're looking at with the arrow buttons. While you don't get the flashy bits on standard Canon cameras, this zoomed in level of detail allows me to adjust the focus very accurately and get pin-sharp images. Obviously this is only really an option when the camera is on a tripod and the subject is stationary.
You say you shoot in aperture priority mode. That means that you set the aperture to use and the camera decides the shutter speed.
Now, how does the camera do that? Well, the camera makes a decision about shutter speed based on what the camera light meter says. Your camera will measure light at the same time as you focus (half press the shutter). Your camera is most likely set to use some sort of "multi-segment" light measuring and it is natural to think that this is nearly fool proof. It is not. Especially if you are using a wide angle lens and shoot landscapes.
Try this experiment:
On a sunny day find something to photograph. Focus on your motif and take the shot. Now point your camera up at the blue sky and half press the shutter, then press the AEL button (Auto Exposure Lock button - it may be labeled on your camea or you may need to refer to the user manual to find it) and release the shutter again. Point your camera back at the same motif you took the first picture of and take another shot. Most likely this second shot will be a lot darker (probably too dark) than the first shot.
The trick i to get to know your camera's light meter and try to predict what it will do in any given situation. And even after doing all that I find that most of my shots needs to have the levels adjusted... ;-)
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
So find what your lense's sweet spot is.
Also, I've heard that shooting in RAW will desaturate colors, so you have to add that back post-processing no matter what.
The camera should have settings for contrast, saturation, and white balance - you might want to experiment with them all. Better lenses will definitely give more vivid colour and increased contrast but your easiest option is to adjust in-camera JPEG settings and/or keep processing the shots the way you like them.
Your camera has a certain dynamic range -- this is the difference in light levels between the blackest black the camera will record, and the whitest white.
A typical DSLR these days has around 11 stops of dynamic range. In order to take a photograph, light is reflected off our subject (or in some cases, emitted by our subject) and enters the camera. If you imagine taking a photograph of two lightbulbs on dimmers (in the same frame), you could make one lightbulb 11 times brighter than the other, and (if exposed correctly), the camera would pick out details from both. If you make one lightbulb 12 times brighter than the other, you either have the choice of overexposing the bright bulb, or underexposing the dim bulb.
What does this mean for general photography? Dynamic range is fixed, and cannot be altered by the user. You can move it around by adjusting the exposure, but that will affect both how the camera sees black and how the camera sees white.
This means that, if we photograph a scene with too much dynamic range (e.g. a sunset), the scene will appear very constrasty. We can adjust the exposure to either expose for the darker sections of the scene, or for the lighter sections of the scene, but we can't get a photograph that captures both -- we will either have deep shadows, or washed-out highlights.
Similarly, what happens if our scene has less dynamic range than our camera can cope with? In this case, we will typically end up with a shot that has no true black sections, and no true white sections. All of the levels of brightness in our scene can be captured in just a section of the camera's dynamic range, and while we can adjust the exposure to get the blacks black, or the whites white, we can't get both.
This is why post-processing is so important for serious photography. There's a lot of people who believe that shots need to be correct 'straight out of camera' -- but in a lot of cases that's simply not possible. The exact same was true with film, by the way, which has even more dynamic range than digital cameras -- it's simply that this correction was done when developing the film.
Thus, the simple answer to your question is, no, it's not possible to get your shot on the left to look like the shot on the right, by changing aperture, iso, shutter speed, etc. on the camera. The only way to make the scene have more contrast would be to wait for different light, or provide different light (e.g. flashguns). It's perfectly acceptable and required to adjust the levels in post-processing to ensure that your photo has true blacks and true whites (assuming that's how you want to display the photo).
What you can do is play with the custom settings of the camera to increase the contrast applied to the image by the camera's own processing. All cameras do some degree of internal processing to the image (unless you shoot in RAW), and on DSLRs this is typically alterable. You can choose to boost the contrast of the photos you take, which will lessen this effect. However, I would recommend against this -- unless you remember to alter this setting, this will be applied to all your photos, even ones that don't need it. It's much easier to apply this in post-processing (to the exact degree you want) than use the camera's heavy-handed built-in processing to 'fix' these issues.
The camera should be viewed as a device for capturing data -- you want to capture as much data as possible with it, which means, ideally, not overexposing anything, and not underexposing anything. The results might appear flat in the camera, but that gives you the most flexibility to produce the image you want when processed correctly. Taking that view, your image on the left appears to be an excellent example of how to do this correctly -- even though the image on the right is how you would choose to portray the scene.
Questions, as always, welcomed :)
I have fiddled a bit with white balance and got a bit more depth but its good to know this happens with most cameras, even the expensive ones.
Whilst all the above is true, I often use SLR film lenses from the 80s and 70s with ring adaptors on my DSLR, you have to have good eyes for focusing, but they're super cheap, like £10 for a food 50mm and £3 for a ring adaptor to fit your DSLR for example. and they always bring out a nice range of darks and smooth tones in my opinion, but its only a cheat really like Alexis says you just gotta tweek it afterwards. ;)
@abirkill Thank you so much Alexis for taking the time to give us such a detailed explanation. I understand what you mean by the large dynamic range (found this while shooting the sunset tonight). I haven't got a problem post processing, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something else I could do to help in camera.
@pizzaboy Thanks Mick. Glad you think it's not too bad ;-) I've been working with adjusting white balance, which has good, but will look at playing with the others.
@ronah I wondered about this. Did a little experiment today with auto-bracket function so I know what this does now. I do think I need to think about purposely underexposing but I've yet to totally master the stop-reduction thing. I get it, I just need use it so I remember it!
@pocketmouse Thank you so much for suggesting this! I recall a friend telling me I needed to get one, just had forgotten about them. It's on the immediate list ;-)
@inara Kim I'll have a play with this too and see if it helps. Thank you.
@chewyteeth I'll think about this. I'm all for whatever cheat you can get! I'm certainly not going to be a purist about anything. I just want to improve whatever techniques are improvable!
what lenses do you use Mick? I don't know about focus peaking, I use Canon and am constantly straining my eyes. I shoot a lot in film too so the lenses are all interchangable between my cameras. I have Leica M39 fit adaptors, Praktica bayonet and Pentax bayonet.
I just got the jupiter 50mm 3.5 with the adaptor, because I also bought the Zorki 4 rangefinder, the Leica copy. That sounds great, no such look with Canon I reckon but I've just invested in some proper Canon AF lenses anyway so my eyes can have a rest.
It's an extremely impressive and powerful project that enables all kinds of neat tricks, but it's very definitely not for either beginner photographers, or non-technically minded people. It's extremely complicated to use -- I've fiddled around with it but I've never used it in anger when out and about, because I can't get it to do what I want without constantly reading the instructions!
The zebra stripes work on Live View mode, and cause the edges of in-focus areas to flash. Because it's monitoring the image in full resolution, it means that the flashing is extremely accurate.
Personally when focusing in manual mode, I also use live view, but zoom into the image ten times (by pressing the zoom button you use in playback mode). You can then move around the area of the image you're looking at with the arrow buttons. While you don't get the flashy bits on standard Canon cameras, this zoomed in level of detail allows me to adjust the focus very accurately and get pin-sharp images. Obviously this is only really an option when the camera is on a tripod and the subject is stationary.
Now, how does the camera do that? Well, the camera makes a decision about shutter speed based on what the camera light meter says. Your camera will measure light at the same time as you focus (half press the shutter). Your camera is most likely set to use some sort of "multi-segment" light measuring and it is natural to think that this is nearly fool proof. It is not. Especially if you are using a wide angle lens and shoot landscapes.
Try this experiment:
On a sunny day find something to photograph. Focus on your motif and take the shot. Now point your camera up at the blue sky and half press the shutter, then press the AEL button (Auto Exposure Lock button - it may be labeled on your camea or you may need to refer to the user manual to find it) and release the shutter again. Point your camera back at the same motif you took the first picture of and take another shot. Most likely this second shot will be a lot darker (probably too dark) than the first shot.
The trick i to get to know your camera's light meter and try to predict what it will do in any given situation. And even after doing all that I find that most of my shots needs to have the levels adjusted... ;-)