# Photography question...is it just me?



## Foxbat (Jul 28, 2008)

First, let me say, I'm a mere beginner in stills (although I have done a lot of work in cine to digital transfer over the last ten years).

I bought myself a Canon ESO 400D a few months ago and love it to bits. But there seems to be a slight quirk. Because I work almost exclusively in manual, I find myself deliberately under-exposing pictures to get my desired results. If I go with the built-in metering system, it seems to be a touch washed out whereas underexposing seems to enhance both colours and shadows. It doesn't seem to be a white balance problem but, as I said earlier, I'm no expert. 

My question: - is this just me and my particular aesthetic requirement forcing me down this path or is there any known exposure problem with this camera? 

There is a lot I'm still learning about this camera so it's posible that I'm not using it to its best potential.


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## The Ace (Jul 28, 2008)

The pros always tweaked film speeds back in the day.

A common problem is including too much sky or another light source, but fundamentally no lightmeter is foolproof, despite what the manufacturers tell you, there will always be reflective surfaces, UV and other wavelengths to which the meter is over-sensitive and the only way around this is hard experience.

On the bright side, at least you aren't wasting reams of film the way we had to.


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## Foxbat (Jul 28, 2008)

Aah. I see.

Definitely would be an expensive business with film instead of digital


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## Overread (Jul 28, 2008)

Nothing wrong with that at all Foxbat - I also do very much the same. I find that during the greater (and brighter) part of the day underexposing perserves the colours and helps prevent blowouts from intense light - which you can't recover in editing as the detail is not recorded by the camera (even in RAW shooting).
The only times I change my practice is when it gets to evening or on an overcast day - then the meter on the camera becomes a little more reliable. Best thing though is to view the shots after right after shooting and set the display to show the histogram. check that the bars are in the middle areas and not bunched up at any one end - all to the right and there are black, undexposed areas - all to the left and there are white overexposed areas - you can then compensate based on these readings. Of course there are times when you want a darker or brighter shot as well so don't limit yourself.

As for saving washed out colours when you edit the shots (in whatever program you use) perform an auto levels edit - its something I tend to do all the time and nearly every time it helps give photos that extra punch in colours -


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## Foxbat (Jul 28, 2008)

Thanks for the info. I must admit I don't use the histogram as much as I should on the camera. It's sometimes difficult to see the LCD screen in sunlight but I guess I should persevere. I wonder if you can get some kind of glare hood or polarising  attachment to make the screen easier to see in bright light?

I have found (as you say) that there are limitations even to RAW but the software I am using seems to help a lot (Photoshop Elements 6).


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## Overread (Jul 28, 2008)

I think there are some attachments you can get that will shade the LCD screen and there might also be some covers to attach over the top as well - though these might then cause night-time reading to be a little more tricky.
Also some links to help you with editing

A good series of articles which cover both editing and shooting aspects = good reading
Ron Bigelow Articles

a free and simple to add layermask for elements - a very important and versatil tool
Free Layer Mask Tool for Photoshop Elements (Win/Mac Any Version)


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## Foxbat (Jul 28, 2008)

Many thanks for the links


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## AE35Unit (Oct 13, 2008)

Modern cameras are fabulously efficient but they're not intelligent,and if there's a predominantly bright or dark area in the scene that going to influence the meter,either under or over exposing. Plus in many cameras when manual is selected it turns off the multi pattern matrix metering system and uses the old fashioned centre weighted instead-I know my panasonic does,not sure about the canon.


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