XTI settings

[markovwgti 0]

I just got the new digital xti yesterday...been taking lots of pictures of my car in the outdoors and one thin is bothering me...i know how to change all the settings on the manual mode like shutter speed, f stops, and iso and all that good stuff...now when i take the picture on my camera and it seems perfect...i put it on my computer and it looks a tad bit too dark..dark enough to ruin the picture...what am i doing wrong or what should i do to fix this?

[millertime24 8]

Have you tried playing around with your white balance at all? Also your iso setting may have something to do with it. DSE could probably tell you more about it than I could.

Muff #5048

[markovwgti 0]

what should i change the white balance too...im happy that i actually understand what you guys are talking about now with all of these terms haha

[millertime24 8]

It should have different preset-type settings for different conditions. Also (on my K10D at least) you can manually set the WB to whatever your liking. In the pics you posted it appeared to be a cloudy day? try setting the WB to the cloudy day setting (or whatever the hell it is). Sometimes using auto WB doesnt alway yield the best pics (at least in my experiance).

Muff #5048

[DSE 5]

First question: Is your monitor calibrated? If your monitor is gamma adjusted, it can really change what you think you're seeing.
As far as white balance, you know how to change that? For the time being, I'd shoot AWB, but that's just me. Personally, I like to balance on a pastel green card to warm up the shot a bit.

[markovwgti 0]

well its not the white balance i believe...its the way it comes out on my computer screen..picture looks bright on my camera screen but then when i upload it to my computer its very dark...its wierd

[markovwgti 0]

i left it on AWB

[millertime24 8]

Did those not look a little dark on your monitor DSE? Im stuck using cheap shit.

Muff #5048

[DSE 5]

my first instinct would be to suggest you calibrate your computer monitor. Different profiles may/should help match the computer monitor to what the camera is displaying.
Do you have any Adobe products? If so, look in your Control Panel for Adobe Gamma. That's a starting point.
Because we're so image-heavy here, we use GretagMacBeth products to calibrate.

[markovwgti 0]

first picture was fine...the second one wsa a bit tooo dark

[markovwgti 0]

how do i go about calibrating my moniter?

[DSE 5]

The second one is particularly dark, but I don't know how the photo was processed. I don't know what I'm looking at.

[DSE 5]

Quote

how do i go about calibrating my moniter?

GOOGLE can be your friend

[pilotdave 0]

Can't really go by how they look on the camera's screen. In bright light you won't see much of anything on the screen.
You can use the histogram view to get a better idea of how your exposure is. You'll have to do some reading to make that useful though. For now, snap a lot of pictures and then go back and look at the pictures and the settings you used (it's all embedded in the jpeg files). Look at what worked and what didn't work, and you'll start to get a better idea of what settings you want to change. I wouldn't start off with M mode... too many variables to try to get right all at the same time. I'd leave it on auto white balance for now. If you start noticing that colors are off a little, then learn about using custom white balance.

If you're in Tv or Av mode and you find your pictures are generally too dark, you can use exposure compensation to tell the camera brighten them up a bit. It'll choose either a slower shutter speed (Av mode) or a wider aperture (Tv mode). If you're in M mode, well, you can read the meter and adjust on your own.

Dave

[DSE 5]

Quote

Can't really go by how they look on the camera's screen. In bright light you won't see much of anything on the screen.

I may be making a bad assumption that if Mark knows about aperture, shutter speed, white balance, etc, then he likely knows as well that the LCD brightness can be changed/off/inaccurate. both images have been modified and had the data stripped out, so can't tell how each was taken.
Mark, Dave's right; if you're judging ONLY by the screen on your camera, and you're not really familiar with exposure, shoot a few in auto modes, get the feel of it, and see how close those shots match what your computer screen is. From there, you should easily know if you need to calibrate or not.

[BMFin 0]

Quote

First question: Is your monitor calibrated? If your monitor is gamma adjusted, it can really change what you think you're seeing.
As far as white balance, you know how to change that? For the time being, I'd shoot AWB, but that's just me. Personally, I like to balance on a pastel green card to warm up the shot a bit.

Appart from calibrating the monitor, another option is to shoot raw so you may set the WB in post processing..

This way you also have more possibilities to adjust the exposure value also in post prosessing.

[howardwhite 6]

The first one was fine on my calibrated Mac screen. The second was dark.
You didn't say what lens you have but both were f3.5; the first at 1/200 and the second at 1/1000th. That could help explain why the second was so much darker.

HW

[DSE 5]

Howard, how did you grab the cam settings? File info wasn't showing up on my PShop or Aperture?

[PharmerPhil 0]

All the above advice is good, but here's another take. It is always difficult for a camera's auto exposure to get things right when things are unusually bright (like a white car and an overcast sky) or unusually dark (outdoors shots at night).

The camera wants to see an "average" amount of brightness throughout the frame. When it sees lots of white, it turns down the exposure to try to compensate. Basically, it doesn't know your car is white, and it is trying to make everything average out to gray. (This is why many amateur snow scenes look like the snow is gray.) Assuming you didn't crop the images you posted, the second image is closer and hence, more of the frame is filled with the white car.

Here is a way to cheat it. Get a cheap 18% gray lens cleaning cloth and keep it with you (available at any camera store). In the light you will be shooting, fill the image with this gray cloth on auto exposure, and lock the exposure down (i.e. if it say f8 at 160/sec, set it to manual using those settings). Re-frame your shot, shoot away, and white should appear white again. In a pinch, you can use a gray sweat shirt for setting exposure.

BTW, this is why good wedding photographers are hyper critical of exposure. Getting exposure right with white wedding gowns and black tuxedos can be difficult.

[pilotdave 0]

Good advice... but in this case he was shooting manual:

* Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 1/1000 second = 0.001 second
* Lens F-Number/F-Stop = 35/10 = F3.5
* Exposure Program = manual control (1)
* ISO Speed Ratings = 100

Just a matter of underexposing because of too high a shutter speed.

Marko... in M mode, the exposure compensation meter on the screen or in the viewfinder becomes an exposure meter. If it's pointing too far to the left, you're underexposing. But like Phil said, it's easy to confuse the meter when you're shooting something especially bright or dark.

Dave

[HSPScott 0]

Get a brighter car!!!

[drudchen 0]

Quote

Howard, how did you grab the cam settings? File info wasn't showing up on my PShop or Aperture?

At least in Windows XP - Save the jpg on your computer, right click on the file and go to properties, Summary tab, Advanced button. All the camera settings are there.

[howardwhite 6]

A Firefox add-on called Exif Viewer. When you right-click (Mac) as if to download, you get the additional option to look at Exif stuff. Saves opening in Photoshop or Aperture (which I've recently started using.)

HW

[DSE 5]

I don't have the EXIF plug, but it should show the file info properly in both Pshop and Aperture, and you guys are getting it...I can see it on the PC side of my MacBook, but can't see it on the Apple side.
Very strange.
Thanks for the point to EXIFViewer. Wasn't familiar with that one.

[howardwhite 6]

I just downloaded one of the images, opened it in Photoshop CS3/Mac, and could see the EXIF data with no problem. Same in Aperture (see screenie.)

I think you need to get that Windoze crap off your Mac.

HW