Quote Originally Posted by piiooo


Quote Originally Posted by Gina Franco
These images are straight out of the camera, no post-processing. I feel as though the first one should have been "pushable" in post-processing, that the blues and greens should have been easy to achieve. But this is a good example of an image that didn't change much before looking overdone. The other two are examples of over exposed images I made with the 5DII on Good Friday. You can see that the reds are still really vibrant. Red ain't a problem.

Dear Gina,


Based on the three pictures of yours I do not find anything wrong with your new 5DII.


It looks like you took these photos when the sun was still fairly high, especially numbers 2 and 3 (short shadows).This time of the daydoes not give you optimal light.The sunmust have beentoo bright and too high.As aresultthe skywasmuch brighter than the ground. Your camera exposed the ground and the friars properlybutthe sky is washed off.Human eye's dynamic range is much higher and we are able to appreciate blue sky at midday, but our cameras not so much.


Photo #1, came out best of all three, I do agree. The shadows on it are longer and oriented away(the sun is lower,not as bright and somewhere behind you).Because the sun is not as bright and the ground is front lit,thesky/ground contrast is lesser and therefore easier to record by a camera.


The nuanses of exposure in relation to direction of light are written nicely in Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" and "Understanding Digital Photography", the latter being a newer, "digitalized" version of the first one.


I am afraid, if you took your XSI with you on that day, the photos would have come out similar, if not worse.


Also, if you have to take photos at around midday, a circular polarizer may useful.


I hope I did not confuse you,


Pete
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Hi everyone!


I want to thank you all for supporting me through my panic and helping me learn how to use my new camera. You're all so knowledgeable and generous.


Here's an update: I found that indeed the Auto Lighting Optimizer default was set on "strong." Who knows how or why. For several of my images turning it off made a significant difference. For others, almost none at all. So it's not likely the real problem, but it certainly contributed. Thank you to John and Jan for pointing out that setting.


I think Peter is absolutely right about the hard light that day--absolutely--which is why the sky is blown out--but I also think the Brothers and the grass are overexposed. I've photographed the monks on sunny days at high noon before, and without so much color being bleached out, so I still think I'm doing something wrong with the 5DII that I learned from shooting the Rebel. But it was very sweet of you, Peter, to suggest at first that the problem might be with the instrument and not the operator. I especially appreciate your followup explanation about hard light and exposure. I've been looking into a circular polarizer filter for the 24-70, actually, ever since Easter weekend with the Brothers, but they're a bit pricey considering that I probably don't need one, not just yet. Maybe this summer when I head to the Arizona desert for a couple of months.


Since I was shooting on aperture preferred all of Easter weekend, today I took the camera out for a quick try at the auto-mode, as Jan suggested, and then to experiment with full manual. Exposure in auto-mode worked perfectly, as I expected, (ignore the composition--I was just pointing skywards and towards white flowers, since it's easy to overexpose either and both).


As you can see, the blue skies are back! All of these were taken around 11:30 this morning in good old-fashioned hard light with the sun not quite directly above. This image is straight out of camera: auto-mode.









So then I experimented and found that if I metered for the highlights and underexposed just a hair in full manual mode, the colors and contrast came back in, and the RAW files were malleable and fun again! (I don't really know how to photograph flowers, so though C&amp;C is welcome, keep in mind I was mostly trying to get good exposures in these images and was shooting wide open to force challenging light conditions.) I've tinkered a bit with these images. They are not straight out of camera, but their colors and contrast were great before post-processing.


50mm, f1.8, 1/8000, ISO 100









50mm, f1.6, 1/8000, ISO 100









50mm, f1.4, 1/6400, ISO 100






So: I'm thinking that until I can figure out what I'm doing wrong in aperture preferred mode, I'll stick to manual, which is easy and fun on the 5DII (not so easy and fun on the Rebel).


By the way, I was so frustrated with the minimum focusing distance of the 50mm 1.4 today, I kept thinking: if only I had a macro lens that also does portraits...


Peter: I'm going to get that latest book. It gets referenced a lot. --And you did not confuse me. You helped a bunch.


Thank you all so much!


Gina