Canon 10D

[Truffle]

Hi guys

I have recently stolen my GF's 10D and have spent an evening or two playing with the settings and taking photos of my fish. I have foud that the photos appear to be fairly dull and not as saturated as my Fuji 602. The quality is, however a vast improvement, (still struggling with the depth of field thing though). I know that I can alter the saturation using PS or Paint shop Pro but, am I doing something wrong or what.

Thanks in advance

Tristan

[paradise]

it's hard to tell, because we dont know how the 10d is set up. Are you shooting raw or JPG? how is the camera's settings set up, saturation wise. Also, Canons are notorious for not being accurate for LCD brightness, it's always darker on the screen than it was on LCD. On my Rebel, I always put the LCD to the lowest brightness just to get somewhat an accurate shot, even then it's not 100%. I dont know if 10d is like that also.

Check your WB setting, try Auto. Usually on Canons the Auto setting is quite good most of the time.

[meriadoc]

the thing with digital SLRS, is that if you shoot in raw, it retains all information, and can in fact look rather bland on screen - no color to speak of, and look generally crappy.

Case in point. This shot was taken while the lions were in the shade, on a cool day (light temperature was cooler than normal). This resulted in a rather dull image. Flat you might say.

STOOC :
http://www.silver-pixels.net/misc/CRW_2256prepp.jpg

Now, since I'm editing a RAW file, which retains all the information from the scene, and the camera doesn't do any processing, I opened up in PSCS, played around with brightness, contrast, levels, color balance (to remove some blue), saturation etc, this is what I ended up with (granted this was a 5 minute job - just for example only).

Edited :
http://www.silver-pixels.net/misc/CRW_2256postpp.jpg

So if you're using RAW files, the images will look dull and flat, and they do require some post processing to get to their full potential. The camera really doesn't handle processing, its the photographer that gets to play to get the optimum image.

[JerseyJay]

Agree with above replies.

On the 10D settings for saturation, contrast and sharpness default to zero from the factory. For each of these settings, there are five values that can be set: -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. 0 is the default value and it is also called Normal. Set the saturation at +2 and see if you like the outcome.

Put your photo software to use. Levels and Histogram is #1 step in digital photography.

Get yourself familiar with HISTOGRAM as well.

http://www.cleanimages.com/Article-UnderstandingYourDigitalCamerasHistogram.asp

[paradise]

Yeah, it takes time to learn to do that right, I still am a total chump at it. Always forget, but when I dont, it really helps.

[Truffle]

Thanks guys,

I have tried a few different settings and it helps -
I am unfortunatly in the dog house and the use of the 10D has been removed after I broke the door to the microdrive bay :eek: Canon in London have just charged me £100 to replace it :-o :eek: and my GF is not too keen on me using it again! -Understandably - some might say. - Still I am planning on getting a 20D in the next couple of months not too sure about which lenses to get - but that's covered in another thread.

Take it easy

Tristan