First shot in manual mode using gray card

[buzzrk]

I have been trying to shoot better pictures.
I joined a class at community college to learn everything correctly.
The instructor taught us how to shoot and we went out to shoot pictures around 8PM.
I shoot several shots taking metering from gray card and looking at the output today I am extremely disappointed.


Many of my shots are coming out similar and I am getting frustrated that I am not improving in spite of all the work I put into learning. I know it is probably irrational but I am very close to blaming canon and my camera and my kit lens for the lack of pop in my photographs.

Please help me by answering some of my questions below.

1. Is the image overexposed?
2. Why is there no color in the image? Is it because of overexposure or some other reason?
3. I did take gray card picture for white balancing. Will that help and bring back color?
I do not have photoshop and hence I am sure how to use gray card image to do white balancing.


No post processing - shot in RAW and converted to JPEG using Canon Digital Professional.

EXIF data is below (more data available on picasa exif):
Canon T2i
Manual Mode
18-55mm IS F 3.5-5.6 kit lens
Shutter Speed: 1.6 second (metering on gray card)
Aperture: F 22
ISO: 100
Focal length: 18mm

From Jun 17, 2011

Link to album - this also has another image I shot with same settings except faster shutter speed by one stop to lower exposure. I also included gray card image taken while metering.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by buzzrk

Please help me by answering some of my questions below.

1. Is the image overexposed?

Looks like it to me.

2. Why is there no color in the image? Is it because of overexposure or some other reason?

Yes, and also that a) you didn't post-process, and b) things being backlit. Shooting with the sun behind you tends to give you better contrast and color than shooting into the sun.

3. I did take gray card picture for white balancing. Will that help and bring back color?

No. Color balancing is about shifting color values, not about saturation.

No post processing - shot in RAW and converted to JPEG using Canon Digital Professional.

That's probably your biggest issue. The RAW data may have more information in it that will let you increase saturation and lower the exposure. Simply converting, in this case, wasn't enough to get you what you wanted.

Using f/22 is all fine and well, but when you go down that small you can encounter some diffraction fuzziness. And it's also forcing you to use a very long shutter speed. You can meter off a grey card, but you can also check your histogram. Low light/dark scenes tend to cause overexposure, which is why you a) shoot in manual mode, and want to bias towards underexposure for night shooting. Mostly white scenes will bias towards underexposure.

Remember how metering works: Every light/dark value that you want to look at (center-weighted, matrix/average, or spot) is "averaged" to a specific value. The camera's auto-exposure/metering system then tries to place that value as a "middle grey" in the middle of the spectrum. If your scene is mostly black, that system is trying to make "mostly black" middle gray: result, overexposure.

And before you blame Canon, the camera and the kit lens:


Canon XT (350D), EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 II kit lens (the softer non-IS version of the kit lens).
iso 100, f/3.5, 1/800s, handheld. Shot RAW, processed in Lightroom.

It's all about the light, the angle, and post-processing. This early on, I'd say take a look at your technique before blaming your gear. There's a lot to learn with SLR photography. Keep learning from your mistakes.

[buzzrk]

Originally Posted by inkista

Looks like it to me.


Yes, and also that a) you didn't post-process, and b) things being backlit. Shooting with the sun behind you tends to give you better contrast and color than shooting into the sun.


No. Color balancing is about shifting color values, not about saturation.


That's probably your biggest issue. The RAW data may have more information in it that will let you increase saturation and lower the exposure. Simply converting, in this case, wasn't enough to get you what you wanted.

Using f/22 is all fine and well, but when you go down that small you can encounter some diffraction fuzziness. And it's also forcing you to use a very long shutter speed. You can meter off a grey card, but you can also check your histogram. Low light/dark scenes tend to cause overexposure, which is why you a) shoot in manual mode, and want to bias towards underexposure for night shooting. Mostly white scenes will bias towards underexposure.

Remember how metering works: Every light/dark value that you want to look at (center-weighted, matrix/average, or spot) is "averaged" to a specific value. The camera's auto-exposure/metering system then tries to place that value as a "middle grey" in the middle of the spectrum. If your scene is mostly black, that system is trying to make "mostly black" middle gray: result, overexposure.

And before you blame Canon, the camera and the kit lens:


Canon XT (350D), EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 II kit lens (the softer non-IS version of the kit lens).
iso 100, f/3.5, 1/800s, handheld. Shot RAW, processed in Lightroom.

It's all about the light, the angle, and post-processing. This early on, I'd say take a look at your technique before blaming your gear. There's a lot to learn with SLR photography. Keep learning from your mistakes.

I agree with your analysis on using auto metering causing overexposure but I used gray card metering so I was not expecting overexposure.
I cannot believe I have to post process a simple outdoor picture for getting better exposure and saturation.

Is saturation always this low before post-processing? I guess it is probably because of the scene.
But most outdoor scenes are like this and I have seen other SLR owners just click their cameras in Auto mode and get better pictures than what got.

[JFSanders]

1. Is the image overexposed?
2. Why is there no color in the image? Is it because of overexposure or some other reason?
3. I did take gray card picture for white balancing. Will that help and bring back color?
I do not have photoshop and hence I am sure how to use gray card image to do white balancing.


No post processing - shot in RAW and converted to JPEG using Canon Digital Professional.

1. yes
2. The color is there it is just skewed to the high end of the histogram. Look at the histogram that is given in your post processing software CDP.
3. Yes, the gray card picture will help you to set WB in CDP but you have to know how to interpret that histogram and apply the setting in CDP.

4. Photoshop is not needed for this photograph.

This is a basic edit of your original. All that was done was to correct exposure levels. Due to the fact that this edit was done on a jpeg there is some combing in the histogram. It isn't readily seen at this size but if blown up it may become evident.

The original first and the edit on the right. When you are making a landscape photograph you have to take into account the overall light of the scene and expose for the brightest values (the sky in this case) this will lead to the shadows being underexposed but as they are a relatively small part of the overall scene and cannot compete with the sky for prominence it is not of any consequence. Although you can make some adjustment to compensate it would take a pretty good understanding of Ansel Adam's zone system to do so.

As to your no post processing and just a conversion to jpeg. By definition you have post processed your image by converting to jpeg. That is what a jpeg is. The settings in CDP have given you the finished jpeg. Alter the settings in CDP and it will produce the edited version you see below. ALL RAW images have to be processed otherwise all you would see is a table of numbers. RAW is a unprocessed data set produced by the sensor in your camera. When you have your camera set to Auto mode the camera's processing engine makes the conversion to jpeg. When you are in Manual mode the camera exposes for the values set by the photogapher and dumps the RAW data to the memory card without ANY processing.

Jim