Another question from the beginner!!

[kristen riley]

Hello again,

 

I posted last night regarding a lack of sharpness in my images. I

was given many suggestions which have helped already. I just wanted

to upload this test photo to get your input about the other major

problem I am having. I have a new Canon 20D with the lens kit and a

Canon 75-300 lens. I have always used a Canon Rebel (non digital)

with my pictures. Now that I have this camera the pictures have not

only lacked sharpness (the subject of my post last night--I think

this has been remedied), but have also been very dark. This test

shot was taken today in overcast conditions outside on a white sheet

of paper. On camera flash was used. All of my photos have been

really dark. Is there a setting I should change in my camera or is

this typical of a digital camera? I have had to really lighten my

pictures in Photoshop and it seems that this is affecting their

quality. Thank you!!<div></div>

[mendonphoto]

A few thoughts:

 

1. That picture actually looks close to being "properly" exposed - assuming you allowed the camera and flash to determine your exposure. It looks pretty close to 17% gray to me. If you want white paper to be white, you need to "overexpose" by about 2 stops.

 

2. I haven't used a 20D, but my Digital Rebel errs on the side of slight underexposure. This is fine with me since, with digital images, it is much easier to bring detail out of the darks that it is to recover it from blown out highlights.

 

3. Your film may have been improperly exposed, too, but you may have never noticed because there's so much latitude (assuming you shot negative film) that your photo lab easily corrected it without you ever knowing.

 

Do you know how to access (and understand) the histogram on your camera? While you are figureing out exposure with the new camera, the histogram will be invaluabe. It's SOOO easy to check it after a shot to see if the exposure is what you expected. In the case of the paper with text on it, you should try to get a histogram with about 80% of the levels to the far right (but not clipped), and the rest to the far left (mostly white paper with some black text).

[frank_dzambic]

Well, first of all, a more descriptive heading would help, such as "why are my 20D pictures all too dark" instead of "another question from a beginner".

 

You didn't say if what you posted was just a small crop or not. If that white piece of paper entirely filled your viewfinder when you composed, it's possible that the camera's meter was fooled by all the white, and underexposed to make it gray. Kind of like when you shoot bright snow in the sunlight. The camera will usually underexpose it to try and make it gray which is what it's designed to do.

 

Since you did it outside, try maybe maybe taking a meter reading off the grass (unless you're somewhere where it's snowing), and then use that same meter reading for the shot of the paper. Or, take the same shot of the paper, with it filling the frame, but turn the compensation dial to +1 or +1.5 to turn it back into white again.

[mendonphoto]

Here is a good excercise to familiarize yourself with the way your camera (with included meter) works.

 

Take a gray card (or even a white sheet of paper if you don't have a gray card) and set it up so that you can take pictures of it in even and unchanging light. Photograph the card at the exposure recommended by your camera and meter. Then, photograph it at 1, 2, and 3 stops under exposed, and then 1, 2, and 3 stops over exposed. Look at these pictures on your computer. You might even want to cut squares from each one and paste them in a single file, then take that to get printed. This will give you a really good idea of how exposures work with your camera.

 

A book I recently read described this situation very well when it said to not think about objects in terms of how light or dark they really are. Rather, think about how light or dark you want them to be in your photograph and adjust your exposure to make it happen.

[thomas_sullivan]

Kristen................read all of the info, even if it doesn't directly relate to the 20D, in <a href="http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/index.html">Canon's learning center website</a><br><br>all of your questions are answered in them, and then some

[phule]

Might I also recommend a basic photography course with your community college? It would be a good idea to get some of the fundamentals down.

[mendonphoto]

Here's a chart I made performing the test that I described. The histograms aren't single lumps because I actually used my livingroom wall which is off-white (slightly warm in tone). But, you get the idea.

 

You can see that 2 stops underexposed on my camera is a lot closer to black than 2 stops overexposed is to white.<div></div>

[beauh44]

Hi Kristen, I thought you might like a simple answer. ;-)

 

1) Take a picture

 

2) Press the info button on your 20D twice to bring up the histogram

 

3) If the histogram is bunched up to the left, your image will likely be underexposed (too dark) so you'll need to dial in plus exposure compensation

 

4) Shoot again. Look at the histogram again; it should have moved to the right. This means things are getting brighter.

 

It's usually not a good plan to rely on how the image looks in your LCD display; looking at the histogram however should be very reliable.

 

You might want to have a look at <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml">this tutorial</a> on understanding histograms.

 

Good luck!

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

One other thought. Was this paper so close to your lens that the flash shot right over it?

[eric_c1]

hi Kristen,

1. from the white paper, look like the meter in camera is working. The metering

system is base on a natural gray. Therefore, a piece of paper maybe not a very good

example of a exposure test.

 

2. I really can't tell the shapeness from that piece of paper. what kind of format you

are shooting? RAW or JPG? If RAW, it could be pretty flat before editing. For JPG, did

you try to adjust the shapeness, satuation, color space...in camera?

 

3. If you think most of your pictures come out too dark, you could add 1/2 or 1 stop

compensation when shooting but be careful of over exposure.