Exposure - what has gone wrong here?
Discussion
I took a couple of pics in our garden this morning, but they seem to be washed out / over exposed.
Camera is an Olympus E500 and these were taken with an Olympus 17.5 - 45mm F1:3.5 - 5.6 lens.
Why I am losing so much detail? Is it just the camera not being good enough, or are there some steps I can take to improve this?
ISO:100 / F4.5 / 1/400s - there just seems to be a general loss of detail here.
ISO:100 / F5.6 / 1/400s - the bee is fairly clear, however the centre of the flower is lost in the colour (if that makes sense)
Camera is an Olympus E500 and these were taken with an Olympus 17.5 - 45mm F1:3.5 - 5.6 lens.
Why I am losing so much detail? Is it just the camera not being good enough, or are there some steps I can take to improve this?
ISO:100 / F4.5 / 1/400s - there just seems to be a general loss of detail here.
ISO:100 / F5.6 / 1/400s - the bee is fairly clear, however the centre of the flower is lost in the colour (if that makes sense)
Avantime said:
Are these photos taken in auto mode? Also are you using Photoshop (or similar), or are these straight off the camera?
They are in auto mode, but with aperture priority so I could set depth of field.The images are straight off the camera.
@Big_Dog - I had wondered about white balance, however under less bright / harsh conditions, the images are ok.
At a guess, it might be trying to meter for the green in your frame and dropping your shutter speed, thereby overexposing on the yellows / sky blue. Looks like fairly direct overhead sunlight as well which is going to blow lots of highlights anyway.
Load up the RAW and drop the exposure a few touches and drop the highlight levels.
Load up the RAW and drop the exposure a few touches and drop the highlight levels.
First shot does look over exposed, the second looks as expected to me.
The flower is super bright vs rest of image, expected behaviour really.
Try more spot/centre weighted metering (if your camera has the option) as then it will optimise exposire for what you're pointing at, it the bee case it would have sorted for you I think.
If metering is being a pain, just set EV compensation to make it right, generally metering assumes a mid grey scene and balances to that, if the scene is dark or light, you need to let it know by setting EV compensation.
The flower is super bright vs rest of image, expected behaviour really.
Try more spot/centre weighted metering (if your camera has the option) as then it will optimise exposire for what you're pointing at, it the bee case it would have sorted for you I think.
If metering is being a pain, just set EV compensation to make it right, generally metering assumes a mid grey scene and balances to that, if the scene is dark or light, you need to let it know by setting EV compensation.
Re some last posts, this isn't white balance, it's metering. You may be abke to extract more from Raw, but it's always best to check histogram and metering when you shoot, and compensate accordingly.
Ifr example, with the bee pic, I'd take a bunch of test shots first to tune metering and WB, before trting to capture the bumbles, then you can smash out rapid fire shots and they'll all be in the ballpark
Ifr example, with the bee pic, I'd take a bunch of test shots first to tune metering and WB, before trting to capture the bumbles, then you can smash out rapid fire shots and they'll all be in the ballpark
Edited by stuthe
on Sunday 5th August 19:57
on Sunday 5th August 19:57Might be worth looking at some photo editing software and / or shooting in RAW. With the RAW, there will be lots more flexibility for your edits.
There are some free photo editors available - I think Gimp is. Be careful when Googling that one!
I've adjusted the levels on your photo, and used the dodge / burn tool to bring out the bee a little bit. Obviously there's not much detail as the image is only 750 pixels wide or so.
There are some free photo editors available - I think Gimp is. Be careful when Googling that one!
I've adjusted the levels on your photo, and used the dodge / burn tool to bring out the bee a little bit. Obviously there's not much detail as the image is only 750 pixels wide or so.
singlecoil said:
Avantime said:
...Obviously there's not much detail as the image is only 750 pixels wide or so.
Good point. OP should post a decent sized version on Flickr so that we can better see the problem.Full sized images below, with a 3rd that I'm slightly happier with for comparison.
P.S. Thanks for the advice so far.
Image1
Image2
Image3
Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 7th August 17:58
TonyRPH said:
I took a couple of pics in our garden this morning, but they seem to be washed out / over exposed.
Camera is an Olympus E500 and these were taken with an Olympus 17.5 - 45mm F1:3.5 - 5.6 lens.
Why I am losing so much detail? Is it just the camera not being good enough, or are there some steps I can take to improve this?
ISO:100 / F4.5 / 1/400s - there just seems to be a general loss of detail here.
ISO:100 / F5.6 / 1/400s - the bee is fairly clear, however the centre of the flower is lost in the colour (if that makes sense)
The photos are over expose by about a stop,stop and a half..Camera is an Olympus E500 and these were taken with an Olympus 17.5 - 45mm F1:3.5 - 5.6 lens.
Why I am losing so much detail? Is it just the camera not being good enough, or are there some steps I can take to improve this?
ISO:100 / F4.5 / 1/400s - there just seems to be a general loss of detail here.
ISO:100 / F5.6 / 1/400s - the bee is fairly clear, however the centre of the flower is lost in the colour (if that makes sense)
Full sun exposure is EV 14 those photos are EV 13. With a digital camera depending on the make you can go to EV 15 to retain details in the highlights as digital has the effect of blowing out the highlights.
TonyRPH said:
@kestral Thanks, will experiment with aperture / shutter speeds.
@covboy, to be honest, I'd probably not understand what the histogram is telling me
Left end represents black, right end represents white. The midtones (usually what you want) make a pile in the middle. It instantly allows you to see whereabouts in the ballpark your exposure is, and unaffected by ambient light.@covboy, to be honest, I'd probably not understand what the histogram is telling me
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