photos washed out help

[shhbabymine]

Please tell me what I am doing wrong here.
(if I can figure how to load the photo).
the photos are on a cloudy day - and I shot on
AUTO - not sure what happened - they are washed
out and the grass is yellowish...

[dugarner]

do you have all the exif info? one thing i can think of, if you were on auto, is that you had metering set to spot instead of average, and it metered the boy and overblew the grass.

Waiting to see what the people who really know say . . . (I'm just bored, I needed something to do.)

[KerryMac]

Sarah,
It could be a lot of things! If you can find and post the exif info, that would be great. It does look overexposed, esp. the background.
However...if you shot in RAW, you should be able correct a lot of it.
I know that if I forget (grrrrr) to change my ISO from a night shoot where it might be set at 1600 or higher, to a daytime ISO, it can result in a look like this one.
But, it really could be lots of stuff!

[katrinak]

I think Sarah is right. He looks beautifully exposed

Share your exif data and we can talk more (or send me your original )

[msbrad]

Hi,
I agree with the above posters. As wonderful as the extif data can tell you what not to do next time, it won't help the present photo. I wish I had a nickel for everything, I should have done...

I fiddled a bit, and quickly came up with this. (about 3 min)

If you want any of the steps I did, happy to share, or even send the psd.
I just don't want to get in the way or post outloud what I shouldn't.
m

[dugarner]

i meant to preface my earlier post with . . .

by the way, this happens to me all the time. a lot of my pictures on auto "set to zero" (meaning ISO is auto, exposure compensation is zero) with my telephoto lens look like this.

[donitab]

the light on the trees looks absolutely beautiful btw - Michelle's work on your picture shows lots of improvement - so frustrating though - I shot a bunch of pictures with the wrong white balance (yes, I shoot in RAW now so don't worry about that) - took me forever to straighten them out, but thankfully we can do SO MUCH with photoshop! Good luck!

[Myra]

I'm interested in what you figure out Sarah. I've overblown photos before by forgetting to change my ISO settings back, but as Kerry said already, there are lots of possibilities. If you post it in Flickr, you could share the EXIF data pretty easily. That's a great shot, and I know you want to figure it out for next time!

[msbrad]

Originally Posted by dugarner

i meant to preface my earlier post with . . .

by the way, this happens to me all the time. a lot of my pictures on auto "set to zero" (meaning ISO is auto, exposure compensation is zero) with my telephoto lens look like this.

I highly suggest getting off auto, especially with the longer lens.
(son in law, has sony a100 and a700+ the lens you mention. older daughter has the a200, not your lens though).
I've shot with that lens on SIL's cameras with great results.
I'm guessing here, that the zoom and auto have some conflict going on with the sensor.
I have canon xti. (although, I still have my sony f828).
There are a lot of experts over at elements village in the camera dept. I've been there for years.
m

[katrinak]

Sarah sent me her original shot.

So, Sarah, can I post your exif data?

[bluelemur01]

It almost looks to me as if you have some lens flare going on to make the colors look so "cloudy", but I can see from the angle of the sun that you're NOT shooting straight into the sunlight. I've had some photos come out similar to this one when I have serious lens flare. I don't know if that's the problem here, though. I'd def. want to see the exif data too to see if that sheds some light.

[shhbabymine]

oops just checking back katrina and yes... feel free to! expecially since I have NO idea what is in the EXIF you are all so eager to see (oy, so much to learn!)

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by bluelemur01

It almost looks to me as if you have some lens flare going on to make the colors look so "cloudy", but I can see from the angle of the sun that you're NOT shooting straight into the sunlight. I've had some photos come out similar to this one when I have serious lens flare. I don't know if that's the problem here, though. I'd def. want to see the exif data too to see if that sheds some light.

Jennifer, this is very interesting to me, I never thought about lens flare---I'm used to looking for the "orbs" flare can produce, and never an overall effect from flare. Thank you for the tip! I do always use my lens hood on my telephoto, so that's a start. But it gives me something to think about---I'm still learning to remember to look for directionality of the light when I'm outside. I tend to think, "I'm outside, it's bright enough" and right now that's as far as my thought process sometimes goes. I was shooting yesterday outside and was amazed that I had to stop all the way down to f22 at 1/40 ISO 100 to have the photo still "overexposed" by 2 stops (though the histogram looked just about right). So I just need to practice!

One thing I'm not adept at yet is using my histogram---I know what it says, and I know what it means, but I'm not sure I know how to correct it. Does anyone have any good internet resources on understanding histograms and using them to adjust settings?

(The Other Sarah, or Sarah 2, or Hey you!!

[katrinak]

Sarah 2

Here is a little something on Histograms from digi photography school website. I use the rule of thumb that I want my data to stretch from one side to the other. Too shifted to the left, underexposed, too shifted to the right overexposed. Kerry mentioned in a post just adjusted exposure compensation based on your histogram which seems to be a brilliantly easy solution!

I'll be back with Sarah 1's exif data.

[patriciaz]

Here is another link about histograms, from my favorite photo magazine
histograms

[iUma]

Thanks for the link, Patricia. I could not get it to work but tracked to the magazine and I can see why it is a favorite. Been exploring the video's and now back to find out about histograms.
The other, or at least another, Patricia.

[Angel_Baby]

Originally Posted by KerryMac

Sarah,
It could be a lot of things! If you can find and post the exif info, that would be great. It does look overexposed, esp. the background.
However...if you shot in RAW, you should be able correct a lot of it.
I know that if I forget (grrrrr) to change my ISO from a night shoot where it might be set at 1600 or higher, to a daytime ISO, it can result in a look like this one.
But, it really could be lots of stuff!

Kerry, I just did the same thing. (Forgot to change my iso for daylight) The images were saved in raw, but some of them are totally blown out. I adjusted the exposure compensation, but they are still not right. How do you correct it?

[KerryMac]

Originally Posted by Angel_Baby

Kerry, I just did the same thing. (Forgot to change my iso for daylight) The images were saved in raw, but some of them are totally blown out. I adjusted the exposure compensation, but they are still not right. How do you correct it?

Well, if you take a look at Sarah's photo, you can see that most of the details are still there. There aren't a lot of completely blown out areas...things are just really light. She can fix a lot of that.
If you have an image where there is just a bunch of white where there should be something, then you've probably blown the details (clipped them) and you won't be able to bring them back.
If you've got some details, though, you can try using your levels control in your photo program. That's the one that looks like a little mountain and it has 3 slider arrows on it.
Exposure compensation is done on the camera before you click the shutter. I think you might be saying that you adjusted exposure in your program?
I hope this makes sense for you! I'm really better with showing and not so good with writing!

[Angel_Baby]

Originally Posted by KerryMac

Well, if you take a look at Sarah's photo, you can see that most of the details are still there. There aren't a lot of completely blown out areas...things are just really light. She can fix a lot of that.
If you have an image where there is just a bunch of white where there should be something, then you've probably blown the details (clipped them) and you won't be able to bring them back.
If you've got some details, though, you can try using your levels control in your photo program. That's the one that looks like a little mountain and it has 3 slider arrows on it.
Exposure compensation is done on the camera before you click the shutter. I think you might be saying that you adjusted exposure in your program?
I hope this makes sense for you! I'm really better with showing and not so good with writing!

I understand you. Thanks for your help. And, yes, I edited the digital exposure compensation while editing/processing the raw images in my canon program. Some of the pics are washed out, and can be saved. Others are totally blown out in places. But at least I caught myself after a few shots. Unfortunately, her only smile was before I realized what I was doing.