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What did I do wrong?

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pierce107360

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I took these pictures at Leeds Castle, England.
It was a very bright sunny day. I took these pictures in P mode,
Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation: -2, 0, 0.
AutoFocus
iESP metering
Noise Reduction on

The pictures look washed out, in strange color.
What did I do wrong? Are these pictures out of focus, or the bright
part are out of the dynamic range? Or just noise?

http://www.pbase.com/image/14667578
http://www.pbase.com/image/14667677

Any opinion would be highly appreciated
 
Thank you for your comments.

But when I look at the original size of the picture, the castle is lack of details. And there seems to be quite some CA on the bright side of the castle.
Lucy said:
....and they are quite beautiful, too. But they don't look washed
out or strangely colored to me. They are in sharp focus, too.

--
Lucy
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
Click to expand...
 
I looked at the original. It seems the front part of the castle is slightly more in focus than the side part behind. I see the magenta. Is that what you think is the CA? I have found that this camera renders colors pretty well and there have been times when I've thought the color was off and looked again and it was right on. There is nothing wrong with these photos. As Lucy said they're beautiful. I would be proud of them.

Karen
pierce said:
Lucy said:
....and they are quite beautiful, too. But they don't look washed
out or strangely colored to me. They are in sharp focus, too.

--
Lucy
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
In modern cameras metering is done by taking several readings of the image then using programs built into the camera decides on the proper exposure. It is difficult or imposible for any camera, digital or film to obtain a perfect exposure with a wide range of lighting such as you presented it.

I would suggest you play around with spot metering. Spot meter on the bright spots of the scene and you generally loose shadow detail, Spotting on the shadow detail and you blow out highlights. Play around shooting shots with both methods and realize you can also make small exposure corrections to specific areas of your image by using the burning and dodging tools in your photo editor.

BTW I think the camera did a great job at averaging the scene. I do see CA on both shots but that’s the nature of 5050 in a scene like this.
pierce said:
I took these pictures at Leeds Castle, England.
It was a very bright sunny day. I took these pictures in P mode,
Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation: -2, 0, 0.
AutoFocus
iESP metering
Noise Reduction on

The pictures look washed out, in strange color.
What did I do wrong? Are these pictures out of focus, or the bright
part are out of the dynamic range? Or just noise?

http://www.pbase.com/image/14667578
http://www.pbase.com/image/14667677

Any opinion would be highly appreciated
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/delbert
Delbert...just hangin around
 
Karen,

Thanks for your encouragement. Would you take time to look at these pictures as well? It seems that there are significant noise on the face. Is there any way to reduce this? I've already turned on the noise reduction.
The face looks so coarse-grained.

http://www.pbase.com/image/14669770
http://www.pbase.com/image/14669806
Karen Stuebing said:
Karen
pierce said:
Lucy said:
....and they are quite beautiful, too. But they don't look washed
out or strangely colored to me. They are in sharp focus, too.

--
Lucy
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, Delbert,

I should try to play around with different metering methods.

Can you recommend some good "burning and dodging tools"? Does Photoshop have this?

Pierce
Delbert said:
pierce said:
I took these pictures at Leeds Castle, England.
It was a very bright sunny day. I took these pictures in P mode,
Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation: -2, 0, 0.
AutoFocus
iESP metering
Noise Reduction on

The pictures look washed out, in strange color.
What did I do wrong? Are these pictures out of focus, or the bright
part are out of the dynamic range? Or just noise?

http://www.pbase.com/image/14667578
http://www.pbase.com/image/14667677

Any opinion would be highly appreciated
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/delbert
Delbert...just hangin around
Click to expand...
 
I blurred it in my editor. Gets rid of the coraseness but makes it look slightly out of focus. It wasn't an unacceptable effect, IMO and when I resized it, it was unnoticeable. There is a program for noise called Neat Image with a free download from neatimage.com.

Very pretty subject, incidentally.

Karen
pierce said:
Thanks for your encouragement. Would you take time to look at these
pictures as well? It seems that there are significant noise on the
face. Is there any way to reduce this? I've already turned on the
noise reduction.
The face looks so coarse-grained.

http://www.pbase.com/image/14669770
http://www.pbase.com/image/14669806
Karen Stuebing said:
Karen
pierce said:
Lucy said:
....and they are quite beautiful, too. But they don't look washed
out or strangely colored to me. They are in sharp focus, too.

--
Lucy
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I see nothing at all wrong with these images. The colors are very good and don't appear washed out to me. Out of focus? Hardly. That's the effect you get when you turn the sharpness down, and it's precisely why I leave my sharpness at 0.

You could improve on the "washed out" effect by increasing the saturation to +2. You could also improve on the exposure by using spot metering instead of iESP.

BTW, turning on the Noise Reduction has no effect on normal images. It is only effective when the shutter speed is very low, like less than 2 seconds I believe.

pipur
C-5050Z
pierce said:
I took these pictures at Leeds Castle, England.
It was a very bright sunny day. I took these pictures in P mode,
Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation: -2, 0, 0.
AutoFocus
iESP metering
Noise Reduction on

The pictures look washed out, in strange color.
What did I do wrong? Are these pictures out of focus, or the bright
part are out of the dynamic range? Or just noise?
Click to expand...
 
Some of the CA might be eliminated by reducing the glare off of the castle with a polarizing filter. I would try it along with taking mulitple shots with spot metering on different points in the scene.

Excellent photo...

--
Mike Kelly
Houston, Texas
http://www.pbase.com/mikelly (PBase Supporter)
Uzi, A200, HP C500, Oly Pen FT's w/several lens, Oly XA
 
Karen Stuebing said:
I blurred it in my editor. Gets rid of the coraseness but makes it
look slightly out of focus. It wasn't an unacceptable effect, IMO
and when I resized it, it was unnoticeable. There is a program for
noise called Neat Image with a free download from neatimage.com.
Click to expand...
What editor are you using? Photoshop?

I tried neat image. The strange thing is, it seems that the noise is only on the face, the noise in the sky area is insignificant. Thus Neat Image doesn't work at all coz it tries to collect the noise information on the sky area.
Karen Stuebing said:
Very pretty subject, incidentally.
Click to expand...
Thank you. ;-)
Karen Stuebing said:
Karen
pierce said:
Thanks for your encouragement. Would you take time to look at these
pictures as well? It seems that there are significant noise on the
face. Is there any way to reduce this? I've already turned on the
noise reduction.
The face looks so coarse-grained.

http://www.pbase.com/image/14669770
http://www.pbase.com/image/14669806
Karen Stuebing said:
Karen
pierce said:
Lucy said:
....and they are quite beautiful, too. But they don't look washed
out or strangely colored to me. They are in sharp focus, too.

--
Lucy
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I notice the camera has chosen 1/800 sec for this shot and a fairly large aperture of f4.0.

Switching to a smaller aperture (higher f-number) with a slower shutter speed will both reduce any purple fringing and give a greater depth of field (more of the picture will be in sharp focus)
Try somewhere around 1/250 sec for the shutter speed.
 
Yes, how could I have forgot that. In such a bright sunny day, smaller aperture would still leave ample space for a faily quick shutter speed without worrying about camera shaking. Thanks for the advice!
Skaliwag said:
I notice the camera has chosen 1/800 sec for this shot and a fairly
large aperture of f4.0.
Switching to a smaller aperture (higher f-number) with a slower
shutter speed will both reduce any purple fringing and give a
greater depth of field (more of the picture will be in sharp focus)
Try somewhere around 1/250 sec for the shutter speed.
Click to expand...
 
pierce said:
Thanks, Delbert,

I should try to play around with different metering methods.
Can you recommend some good "burning and dodging tools"? Does
Photoshop have this?
Click to expand...
Yes, photoshop has pretty good dodging and burning tools. They take some getting used to, but they are functional.
 
Skaliwag said:
I notice the camera has chosen 1/800 sec for this shot and a fairly
large aperture of f4.0.
Switching to a smaller aperture (higher f-number) with a slower
shutter speed will both reduce any purple fringing and give a
greater depth of field (more of the picture will be in sharp focus)
Try somewhere around 1/250 sec for the shutter speed.
Click to expand...
I am with skaliwag......I noticed on all the photos the fstop was at f4.....with all that sunlight I would think it would be closer to f8. f8 would probably give you a better dof and the photos would be a little bit more in focus across the whole photo.
--
Shanley
http://www.pbase.com/shanley
http://www.photosig.com/userphotos.php?id=24108
 
If you are evaluating these images on your computer, most computer monitors are ill equiped to provide a true representation of most photographies. They are simply not equiped to do so. This may also play a part on what you are seeing on your screen.
pierce said:
I took these pictures at Leeds Castle, England.
It was a very bright sunny day. I took these pictures in P mode,
Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation: -2, 0, 0.
AutoFocus
iESP metering
Noise Reduction on

The pictures look washed out, in strange color.
What did I do wrong? Are these pictures out of focus, or the bright
part are out of the dynamic range? Or just noise?

http://www.pbase.com/image/14667578
http://www.pbase.com/image/14667677

Any opinion would be highly appreciated
Click to expand...
--
Rick B
C-4000Z
 
Hi,

I browsed thru some of your msgs.... I read that you used Neat image but couldn't get what you want and mentioned something about it not working.

The MAIN problem is this :

I don't have my EXIF reader here with me but the image of your C5050 is 1.1MB. I guess you have been using HQ mode. Turn it to 2560x1920 SHQ, the files are big at 2.5-3MB, BIG quality difference too. HQ doesn't cut it buddy. The coarseness is actually JPEG artifacts rather than noise.
Anyway, the EXIF data on Pbase shows "Normal" for jpg quality. :)

Anyway, you said that the highlights seem washed out. Maybe next time you'd like to try manual mode and iESP metering, shoot when the metering at -0.3. For digicams, once you overexpose a big area of the shot just by a wee bit, you can't get the details back. Turn down the contrast to -1 or -2, full sunlight shots are contrasty by itself due to the sun being an ultra-bright small source of light. It gets worse at midday position of the sun, there is nothing you can do about this as it is a natural "phenomenon". But contrasty pictures look "dramatic" and stand out much more if you can stomach them.

Another tip, since there is so much abundance of light, try to shoot in F8 and lower speeds. You will get lower CA and possibly even sharper images. You are shooting in 1/400s, not necessary as they are not action shots.

Don't worry about playing with the settings in manual mode, the camera and post-processing are powerful tools if managed well. My advice, go out on a whole day shooting pics. Shoot trees, people, buildings, ants, whatever. You will find that you will be improve and be able to instantly deduce what settings to take for a particular scene/subject. Also, don't be shy to bracket the shots (take some shots over and under exposing, differerent WB, shutter, aperture etc). Digital film is free (hope you got a 512MB CF, heh heh).

I have taken the liberty to run Neat image through your friend's face, hope you don't mind. Neat Image works, no?
http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100130/100221/test13481.jpg

Anyway, with HQ mode, you are already losing a lot of information in the first place, neat image can only do that much.
pierce said:
Karen,

Thanks for your encouragement. Would you take time to look at these
pictures as well? It seems that there are significant noise on the
face. Is there any way to reduce this? I've already turned on the
noise reduction.
The face looks so coarse-grained.
Click to expand...
 
Any lens would have its own sweet spot. DOF is one thing, sharpness is another. I read that going too low an aperture one would suffer from flare or something like that due to light hitting the brim of the lens going into the sensor. Too small an aperture would mean light hitting the edge of the metal aperture (eg f11-22). Of course, you don't get that with the C5050, but just FYI. The sweet spot is usually around f5.6-11.
pierce said:
Skaliwag said:
I notice the camera has chosen 1/800 sec for this shot and a fairly
large aperture of f4.0.
Switching to a smaller aperture (higher f-number) with a slower
shutter speed will both reduce any purple fringing and give a
greater depth of field (more of the picture will be in sharp focus)
Try somewhere around 1/250 sec for the shutter speed.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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