Am I doing something wrong?

[BillK]

Greetings everyone,
As some of you know, I just recently purchased my 1st DSLR camera system.

Camera: Canon Rebel XTi
Lens: Canon 50mm F/1.4

Today was my first chance to put it to use out in the field.

Location: Mt. Monandock
Conditions: Bright Sun, Scattered Clouds

Most of my shots were taken with an average aperture of between f9-f11 in an attempt to obtain a deep depth of field. The sun was very bright throughout the day which allowed me to operate with an average shutter speed of around 1/100 or faster. (I was happy about this as I had concerns about camera shake going in) After loading my pictures, it appears that a lot of the shots have this hazy appearance to them. Can someone please take a quick scan through my pictures and let me know if I'm doing something wrong? Is this normal based on the bright sunny conditions? Is there something that I could have done to prevent this? (polarizer/haze filter, etc.) Should I have used different camera settings? Any recommended post editing changes? Your insight would be greatly appreciated as I find myself feeling very discouraged by these results. Thank You.





Pictures

 

[DougPaul]

Looks like it was simply a hazy day. I don't see any problem with the close objects.

A haze, UV, or polarizing filter might help. (I always put a haze or UV filter on all of my lenses for dirt and mechanical protection.)

BTW, what mode setting are your using?
I use P because auto insists on turning the flash on for lower light pics. (Or aperture or shutter priority if I wish to control them explicitly.)

Doug

 

[BillK]

Looks like it was simply a hazy day. I don't see any problem with the close objects.

A haze, UV, or polarizing filter might help. (I always put a haze or UV filter on all of my lenses for dirt and mechanical protection.)

BTW, what mode setting are your using?
I use P because auto insists on turning the flash on for lower light pics. (Or aperture or shutter priority if I wish to control them explicitly.)

Doug

Thanks for responding Doug. I thought that may be asked:

Settings: ISO 100, AV Mode, white balance=Daylight, Picture Style=standard, no exposure compensation, evaluative metering.
I'm also using a Hoya Pro1 Digital MC filter (clear) to protect my lens

Shots taken primarily between 9:00am-12:00pm facing southerly skies

My understanding is that a bright sunny day isn't the ideal condition for taking pictures. I've also read that you should keep the sun at your back.
In my situation, I was shooting southerly between 9:00am-12:00pm, so obviously the sun wasn't at my back. Maybe I could have metered the light differently. I've also read something about the "Sunny F16" rule, which basically says you should match your shutter speed to your ISO setting, and use an aperture setting of F16 on bright sunny days. (I was actually pretty close to this for most of my shots) I'm hopeful that there's a way to overcome these type of lighting conditions to produce a more pleasing exposure going forward. Thanks again.

- Bill

 

[Mark Schaefer]

I agree with Doug. Hazy days can be difficult for distant scenic photographs. Your close up subjects worked better. Generally on hazy days it best to concentrate on near rather than distant subjects. There will be less atmosphere between you and the subject, and the haze will be less noticeable.

UV haze and polarizer filters can cut through some of the haze, but never all of it. There was an earlier Polarizing filter thread which had some information on how they work and when to use them. I use a polarizer filter on probably 99% of my hiking photographs. It doubles as lens protection, and I rarely take it off when I hike. A polarizer would help to increase the color saturation in many of your photographs, and it will cut down on some but not all of the haze. It does this by eliminating the glare on each microscopic water droplet in the atmosphere.

The advice you mention about keeping the sun behind you is good. Where you followed that, you had generally had better results and got some blue in the sky. As you found shooting toward the south or toward the sun will produce a generally white sky. There is an old photographic adage. If the sky is not interesting, keep it out of your photo. If you eliminate the uninteresting white skies from your frame, your photos will generally improve. Also when the sky is white the camera's exposure will have difficulty finding a balance with the darker ground. The camera will try to compromise. The sky will wash out, and the ground will become too dark.

 

[DougPaul]

Settings: ISO 100, AV Mode, white balance=Daylight, Picture Style=standard, no exposure compensation, evaluative metering.
I'm also using a Hoya Pro1 Digital MC filter (clear) to protect my lens

I use auto white balance--it generally works pretty well. A UV or haze (which, IIRC is actually a form of UV filter) filter might be better than the clear filter. If the sun is off to the side, a polarizer will usually help.

I suspect that we tend to pay more attention to haze on our pictures than we do in person. But it is still there.

I usually set the focus to the center-only. This way, you know what the camera is focusing on. (You can focus and then re-aim before taking the pic.) I've had situations where the camera focuses on the background and ignores the flower in the foreground... (You can see this happen in some of the pics attached to some of the trip reports.)

Shots taken primarily between 9:00am-12:00pm facing southerly skies

My understanding is that a bright sunny day isn't the ideal condition for taking pictures. I've also read that you should keep the sun at your back.
In my situation, I was shooting southerly between 9:00am-12:00pm, so obviously the sun wasn't at my back.

The issue is the quality of the light and the shadows. Near mid-(sunny)-day, the light is cold (bluish) and the shadows are harsh. Near sunrise and sunset, the light is warm (reddish) and the shadows aren't nearly as harsh.

As for the direction of the sun, best depends upon the scene.

Maybe I could have metered the light differently. I've also read something about the "Sunny F16" rule, which basically says you should match your shutter speed to your ISO setting, and use an aperture setting of F16 on bright sunny days. (I was actually pretty close to this for most of my shots) I'm hopeful that there's a way to overcome these type of lighting conditions to produce a more pleasing exposure going forward. Thanks again.

This is an old rule-of-thumb. I've used it when the meter in my otherwise mechanical camera failed. Works pretty well in most "ordinary" situations.

You might find reading the tutorials at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/ worthwhile. Lots of good stuff. It took me a while to read through all of them, but it was worth the time.

Doug

 

[kmorgan]

In addition to all the good advice, you can get a lot of recovery using Photoshop. Try to shoot in RAW mode (or RAW+JPEG) so you can more easily mess with settings like white balance, exposure, etc.

Here's what I was able to do (just in 15 minutes or so) playing around with one of the shots. Not perfect by any means, but I'd keep it.



Kevin

 

[w7xman]

I think that the shots actually came out pretty well for midday light. In the summer, 9AM is already essentially midday, as you are 4 hours past sunrise... and by noon, you have flat, cool light to work with. Not ideal.

The ways to deal with this are highlighted in this thread already, and my suggestion is to get a polarizer for sure. It can really add contrast to off-midday scenes when used at the correct angle from the sun...and is a must in my opinion for landscapers...

As for post processing...a simple fix in photoshop or elements is just to adjust the levels, and you'll be amazed how much these photos will pop with the 'information' your sensor has cancelled. If your not familiar with how to do this, shoot me a PM and I'll talk you through this...

 

[Grumpy]

I think you hit a hazy day, and that’s about it. My own files are amply filled with photos like yours, virtually all of them shot with a UV or haze filter on the lens.

So experience leads me to doubt that a UV or haze filter would have significantly “cut through” the haze in your broader vistas. A polarizer might have helped in some of your photos, but I wouldn’t run right out to buy one expecting it to be a cure-all.

As others have pointed out, the timing was less than ideal for “character” of the light. Early and late day usually are far superior, both for the color of the light and the dramatic and revealing interplay of shadows and highlights.

A lens shade can help keep image contrast up by shielding the lens’ front element (or filter) from flare-inducing light. Flare reduces image contrast.

Check your lens and filter surfaces to make sure they are clean. Don’t get overly picky about it, though. A little dust doesn’t hurt much, but fingerprints, smudges, streaks or larger water spots will degrade image quality. Check the rear lens element, too.

You might want to use the “automatic” setting for color balance, if your camera has that option. That setting consistently gives excellent results with the Nikon DSLRs in my kit – I think it “tweaks” the color frame-by-frame more than any of the fixed settings.

Having gathered that you are concerned about being able to hold the camera steady, I suggest boosting your ISO to higher sensitivity levels, which will give you faster shutter speeds at any given f/stop. You might prefer to go with shutter priority exposure control, setting the shutter speed in the range of 1/500 sec with your 50mm lens. On a day like you had on Monadnock, your apertures usually should fall in the f/5.6 – f/11 range (and occasionally, even f/16) when shooting at that speed and an ISO setting of 200. Boost ISO to 400 and drop shutter speed back to 1/250 sec (maybe 1/125 sec) when you move into the woods.

Above all, don’t despair! And keep on shooting.

G.

 

[BillK]

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice. I'll keep plugging away and try not to get too discouraged. Like with anything, the more you practice, the better you get. I'm really thankful that I have a place such as this where I can learn from other peoples' experiences and knowledge.

- Bill

 

[darren]

All good info above. I just want to chime in and say not to get discouraged. I think just about everyone who has gone from a point and shoot and stepped up to an SLR has been disappointed at first. There is a learning curve. Sometimes learning can be frustrating, but it can also be fun. Hang in there and keep shooting.

- darren

 

[Brambor]

good points

Good points throughout. I would probably also try underexposing 1 stop (you can preview the setting to test) or even bracketing with three shot burst. On my setting I would also reduce the contrast setting as in midday the shots might be too contrasty. The rest of the tips on filters is spot on. During mid day, however you can find shaded areas where pictures might look better or wait for a moment when a cloud is over the sun.

 

[DougPaul]

I would probably also try underexposing 1 stop (you can preview the setting to test) or even bracketing with three shot burst.

The XTi does allow you to check for overexposed pixels and can display a histogram. Makes it easy to see if anything is overexposed.

Doug

 

[BillK]

I think Brambor makes a good point. Although I don't think it would have been fix-all, maybe adjusting the exposure by a stop would made the shots a little more pleasing to the eye and not so washed out. BTW, I did checkout the histogram in Lightroom on several of my shots, and many of them do have pixels bunching to the right. I'm not sure if there's any advantage however to adjusting the exposure compensation in the field versus doing it via software, other than maybe it would have saved me some time at the end of the day if I had chosen correctly. Below is a link to one of the shots that includes the histogram, and another after making some post exposure/contrast changes. BTW, I did order a polarizing filter yesterday afternoon and I'm looking forward to testing it out. One thing I didn't realize though is that these filters will cause you to lose 1-2 stops of light. I'll most likely swap it out with my clear filter when using it around the house or in low light situations. Thanks again everyone for the great advice.

Oh, my camera has this auto exposure bracketing feature that I played around with this morning. (I suspect most SLR cameras have this) This may have worked well on Saturday as I could have set my drive mode to continuous, set the bracketing accordingly, (+- 1 stop) and I would have gotten 3 total shots with each press of the shutter, each at a different exposure settings. (normal, +1, -1) I thought that was pretty neat. Maybe not a bad idea for tricky lighting.



Original

Adjusted

 

[w7xman]

I've long been told that there is added information in exposing the scene to the right, and fixing it later, but I'm of the 'get it right in the camera' school. HOWEVER...Exposing left (underexposing) and attempting to salvage detail is never ideal, as you introduce noise into the photo!

I think your edit is very good!!!

 

[Grumpy]

I've long been told that there is added information in exposing the scene to the right, and fixing it later, but I'm of the 'get it right in the camera' school. HOWEVER...Exposing left (underexposing) and attempting to salvage detail is never ideal, as you introduce noise into the photo!

Good point.

It has been observed that shooting digital images is much like shooting positive transparencies (slides) – underexposure is preferable to overexposure, in order to avoid blocking up – or in today’s lingo – blowing out the highlights.

Once detail in the bright areas is “gone” due to the original exposure, it never can be brought back. But even deep shadow areas in an underexposed frame may actually retain a surprising amount of “information” or detail that can be recovered in printing or other post-processing.

But, and this is the “big but,” as noted, underexposed shadows also produce electronic image “noise.” (This used to show up as “graininess” in film images.) They also tend to lack real tonal scale and be low in contrast. Making adjustments to gain contrast and tonal scale often results in color shifts (among other things) and often yields a final image that looks … well, it looks “manipulated” and somewhat “artificial” rather than natural.

The best approach seems to be shooting for a “perfect” exposure when the light is “just right.” For most of us, though, photography is an incidental aspect of our hiking: we aren’t or can’t be so choosy and just take our light as and when it comes. With luck, we produce some stunning images. The more common result will be something less than exhibition-quality pictures that are, nonetheless, very satisfying as personal documents that visually chronicle our hiking ventures.

G.

 

[DougPaul]

I think Brambor makes a good point. Although I don't think it would have been fix-all, maybe adjusting the exposure by a stop would made the shots a little more pleasing to the eye and not so washed out.

Reducing the exposure (underexposing) will do no good in a digital camera unless some of the pixels are overexposed (blown out). Reducing the exposure will also increase the digital noise, which is not desireable unless something else is gained.

BTW, I did checkout the histogram in Lightroom on several of my shots, and many of them do have pixels bunching to the right.

The advantage of checking the histogram (and the XTi flashes the overexposed pixels when you are viewing the histogram) in the camera is that, by checking it on the spot, you can take a corrected exposure while the scene is still in front of you.

I'm not sure if there's any advantage however to adjusting the exposure compensation in the field versus doing it via software, other than maybe it would have saved me some time at the end of the day if I had chosen correctly.

There is a distinct advantage to doing it in the field--information once lost cannot be regained. Adjustment in software can make things show better to a viewer, but they can never recover lost information*. Bracketing increases the chance that at least one of the pics will have a good exposure.

* This is the rational for shooting raw pics. Information is lost in creating the JPEG. The raw pic has more dynamic range than does the JPEG and you can control what information is lost when you do your own processing. OTH, it takes a lot more time and effort... I sometimes save both JPEG and raw--if there is something that I don't like about the JPEG, I can see if I can do better by manually processing the raw pic.

Doug

 

[darren]

One thing I didn't realize though is that these filters will cause you to lose 1-2 stops of light. I'll most likely swap it out with my clear filter when using it around the house or in low light situations. Thanks again everyone for the great advice.

I just want to throw in my $0.02 here. I have to say that I really do not understand why people feel the need to leave an unneccessary filter on their camera 100% of the time. I have heard people state that they leave a UV or a clear filter on the lens all the time to "protect" the lens. I just do not believe it is a good idea to take a $1500 camera / lens combo and then stick a $40 filter on the front of it for no reason. The only thing you are really protecting the camera from is it's ability to take pictures at it's best. If you spent that much money on the camera then use it to take the best pictures it can. Having a filter on when it is not needed just reduces picture quality and increases the risk of flare.

What are the chances that you drop your camera and break only the front element of the lens? What are the chances of dropping the camera and breaking the filter but not the lens? Slim to none. Yes, it does happen but I am sure it is rare. After spending that much money on a camera I would rather get the best images possible all the time rather than trying to protect a $300 lens from a 1 in 1000 accident.

Before I bought my 100-400mm L IS lens I borrowed a friends. He had always gotten so-so pictures with the lens. When I got the lens from him it came with his "protective" UV filter on it. I promptly took it off. I shot with the lens for a few days and when he saw the shots he asked "man,why are your shots so much better than mine?" I told him I had taken his filter off and that he should consider doing it too.


- darren

ps: yes, I will probably go out next weekend and break one of my lenses. But at least I got good photos from it while it lasted.

 

[BillK]

Darren,
With all due respect, is there any proof that keeping a filter on your camera, (clear/UV, etc.) degrades the quality of the image in any way? I took some pictures earlier this morning with my clear filter off, and I can't tell the difference. The concern for me isn't so much as dropping the camera as it is to getting dirt on the lens and then accidentally scratching it during one of my cleanings. It seems to me that the more times you clean your lens directly, the greater the odds that something may happen. I'd much rather replace my $60 filter than my $600 lens. If there is in fact proof that a filter does in fact degrade the image quality, then I'm completely with you, and I'll take my filter off immediately. This seems to be a major issue of debate amongst photographers and everyone seems to have a different philosophy about it.
However, I do think that if you're going to keep a filter on your lenses, that you do your research and make sure that you purchase a good quality one. (Not the $15 no name filter)

- Bill

 

[darren]

Darren,
With all due respect, is there any proof that keeping a filter on your camera, (clear/UV, etc.) degrades the quality of the image in any way?
- Bill

Yes, a filter increases the risk of flare. There is no question on that one.

As for quality without flare considered, everytime you pass light through a glass element you degrade it. How much it is degraded depends on the quality of the element. Yes, you will get better much performance from a $60 filter than a $15 filter, but either way you will get degradation.

My friend's clear filter was a "good one". But it certianly wasn't good.

I thought you got the 50mm f1.4? That lens is $285. I hope you didn't pay $600! But at $300 or $600 or $1500 the elements in the lens are designed to work as is. Adding glass in front of them can only hurt.

You are right that there is debate over this, but if you look around at pros I dont know too many that leave UV filters on their cameras all the time. Maybe if they are shooting in a desert or a very dusty place but not all the time.

I realize that you just plunked down a lot of money for your first real camera and you are nervous about it. I was the same way. A big step for me was to stop worrying about the gear and to concentrate on getting good pictures.

- darren

 

[DougPaul]

Darren,
With all due respect, is there any proof that keeping a filter on your camera, (clear/UV, etc.) degrades the quality of the image in any way?

The only perfect optical system is no optical system.

A filter is another element with imperfections and reflective surfaces. Maybe the added degradation will show, maybe it won't. Depends on the scene, the quality of the lens without the filter, and how carefully you look.

Double-coated filters ($$) are generally better than single-coated filters ($). No filter is even better optically ($0 unless you damage your lens... ).

Doug