Advice please - "Dull" images

[hobbit412]

First off, I'll say the lens I have is not a high quality one - it's the Canon 4-5.6 55-250mm IS. (Edited to add, I'm using it with a Canon 550D)

But it has given me some pretty decent shots. The main problem I'm having is that a fair few of my images are really dull. The sharpness is not that great but I can live with that. It was "cloudy" for this shot, but not greatly so, I've had the same issues in sunlight)

Today I used these settings shooting some Terns (in Shutter priority mode, auto ISO for fear of ruining the shots)
Exposure 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 250 mm
ISO Speed 100

I had played around with + and - EV balances but -1 EV was way too dark, +1 EV got me a nice blackbird singing the night before. I played it safe and left it at 0EV.

I tried some shots in AV mode at 5.6 (normally I'm at 250mm) but the shutter speeds were always too low, or the ISO too high.

Any help or advice most appreciated!

[roseway]

There's a lot of contrast between the lightest and darkest parts of that image, and the camera has done its best to accommodate the range by reducing the contrast, which makes the image look dull. If you shoot in raw format, you can tweak the contrast curve afterwards to optimise the image.

To freeze the beating wings of the bird, you probably need a higher shutter speed. I would increase the ISO to 400, which ought to be perfectly OK with your camera, to facilitate a higher shutter speed.

[shadowx]

As mentioned try shooting in RAW format, to edit RAW images you need to (ideally) use the software that came on the CD with the camera for my Canon the software is called "Digital photo professional", not sure if it will be the same for yours but google will help you find out.

Once you get it into the program play about with settings, DPP has automatic contrast/lighting enhancement with a strong-medium-weak setting which does a great job of increasing the contrast while still keeping the subject in the right exposure and it really does cut through the gloom, it is a tweaked version of contrast no doubt tailored so increase the range of contrast on the subject at the expense of the background but it works well.

If you cant find a setting like that then increase the exposure (similar to brightness) and then tweak the contrast, although I often find the contrast and saturation sliders to be really clunky and I prefer to use the GIMP for that. It is also worth playing with the white balance, perhaps warming the image up a little (to simulate a warm sunlit day) might make the image feel better. You *can* alter the white balance in programs like photoshop and the GIMP but you will always get better results from the RAW image.

[Geoff F]

Firstly, never use any auto settings. OK, I know that Tv or Av are semi auto but you are, or should be, still in control.

Auto ISO will always pick the lowest possible ISO number which will be at the expense of more important options. Most modern cameras and lenses can work perfectly well at ISO 800 and at the worst it is better to have a bit of background noise, which can be improved during editing, than to totally ruin the shot by having other settings incorrect.

As the other answers have pointed out. For that sort of shot you need a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 and preferably more like 1/1500. Plus a slightly narrower aperture; say F8.

Most lenses are a bit soft towards their aperture extremities.

That particular lens is one of the 'cheapies' at least by dslr standards where lenses costing around £1000 are sometimes regarded as 'budget' options by the real professionals.

However, although the build quality of that lens may be a bit 'plastic' it is generally considered to be of acceptable optical quality.

What editing software are you using? This can make all the difference between a basic shot and a stunning photograph. And, I'm afraid, there is a lot of technical stuff which needs to be understood rather quickly.

However, nowadays there are a lot of photo editing tutorials, photo self help forums and books available.

The main thing is don't get discouraged by initial setbacks and keep a desire to learn and improve. It is a process that every digital photographer had to endure at the outset of their hobby/career.

So have another play around and return with more photographs. And don't worry about asking for more advice.

You may find some useful advice from these tutorials http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

[shadowx]

I disagree with the exposure time there, unless you are referring to totally freezing the motion of the wings etc...

For a static subject (eg a bird perched or standing still) at that focal length I would be tempted to stay close to 400/1 or 500/1 If I can get away with it I normally leave the exposure at 500/1 for my 200mm lens but lighting can change my mind.

But for a fast moving subject to freeze the wings etc.. then I agree, 1000 or more would be good.

If the lighting wont let you go up that high even with a high ISO and wide aperture then you would probably be best to let the bird (or car, whatever) get into a stable trajectory, so for example a bird, wait until it has taken off and is somewhat predictable in it's direction, then set as fast shutter speed as you can and simply pan the camera, set the focus on the bird and follow it for half a second or so matching its speed and then smoothly hit the shutter button, it probably wont be sharp at 100% crop but easily get 50% or even 75% crops after only a little practise.

[nigel_b]

I've come to accept ISO 400 as the norm and would only drop to 100 if I wanted to de-sensitise the sensor for a time exposure, moving water say, or if I was shooting static off a tripod.

The other issue is freezing movement. We all seem to be intent on freezing the whole thing but recently I've seen some fabulous shots where part of the image is blurred from motion, the wing tips might be a good example here. Unfortunately I don't believe WAB like us to link to external images but if you google images the string "Great Lens: Minolta 70-210 F4 Beercan Lens" the first image you see shows this effect really well.

To be honest, it looks a bit of a dull day and maybe you were also shooting into the light? Watching hobbies on the heath in recent evenings, through some alpha glass, its become really clear what a difference that makes. Into the evening light all you get is a silouhette (sp?) but with the light behind you the colours and clarity are wonderful.

Just some thoughts.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by hobbit412

The main problem I'm having is that a fair few of my images are really dull. The sharpness is not that great but I can live with that.

There's not enough contrast in the image.

Have a look at the 'Levels' with Photoshop. You'll see that there are no clear whites and most of the image data is crowded in the midtones. This tells you (without looking at it), that the image is flat and dull. The blacks look OK and are not 'blocked up'

It's also underexposed (again the Levels tell you this). You've not captured the lightest stop of exposure which contains half the available image data.

If the levels are adjusted to give a clean white, there's no detail in the whitest part of the wing. This is not necessarily because they are 'blown' (overexposed), but probably because the lens is too soft to capture the detail.

Jim

[Jonners]

This photo has a lot of grey in it and mainly only shades of black and white besides. The cloudiness will not usually give the best lighting for a bright photo. Have a look and a play with your metering options and experiment to see what results the different methods will give you. You could also try bracketing your shot in tricky lighting situations... this will give you a shot at the set exposure and additional shots over and under exposing the shot by on or two stops.

[Jim Ford]

Don't underexpose!. Expose to the right of the histogram.

Half the tone data in a subject is in the lightest stop - the whites and near whites. The second lightest stop has again half the remaining data - and so on down to the darkest stop which has very little data. This is because the sensor captures light in a linear fashion, as opposed to the eyeball which captures light non-linearly. Display systems eg monitors are adjusted to compensate for the non-linearity of the eyeball.

If you deliberately underexpose for fear of 'blowing' highlights and then use PP to 'stretch' the data to give a spread between black and white, you run into the danger of introducing 'posterisation', because of discontinuities left in the range of tones.

Jim

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Jonners

This photo has a lot of grey in it and mainly only shades of black and white besides.

Errm, isn't grey a shade of black and white?

There's some black in the image, but no white - have a look at the histogram in eg Photoshop.

Jim