Help me with my new dslr, some pics have washed out colors.

[RosieC]

Glad you seem to have sorted it. I must admit I've not really played with the photo styles. I tend to just leave it on 'standard' might have to play with that more.

I don't know what settings you have on that model, from what I have seen of my brother-in-law's which is either the 550D or the 600D it has a lot of the same settings as my 60D but some of them are more hidden in the menus on his when they have specific buttons on mine.

I tend to always work on the Av (aperture priority) setting which lets me control aperture and it works out shutter speed. With that I then use the Exposure Bias to control how bright the metering is aiming for. Sometimes if something looks washed out the Exposure Bias dropped down a bit will solve the problem.

Another thing that surprised me once (but shouldn't have done) is that I had the TV on to one side of the room while taking shots. I was getting quite random lighting results and took me a while to realise why

[Call_Me_Bob]

Once you know your camera well, shooting in manual is the way to go!

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by Call_Me_Bob

Once you know your camera well, shooting in manual is the way to go!

You know I'm inclined to disagree

It's a purest view I know, but actually the combination of Av and exposure bias makes getting the shot with the colour you want much quicker an simpler to get.

Manual focus on something like orchids (something that isn't moving) is a big must to get good results. Hubby and I always finely adjust focus, often both of us agreeing first that we have the perfect focus we want. We also finely adjust the exposure to get the depth of field exactly as we want. But then if the exposure it works out is not quite what we want, the bias can be the easiest way to adjust it.

Just my thought, and I'm probably wrong

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by RosieC

You know I'm inclined to disagree

It's a purest view I know, but actually the combination of Av and exposure bias makes getting the shot with the colour you want much quicker an simpler to get.

Manual focus on something like orchids (something that isn't moving) is a big must to get good results. Hubby and I always finely adjust focus, often both of us agreeing first that we have the perfect focus we want. We also finely adjust the exposure to get the depth of field exactly as we want. But then if the exposure it works out is not quite what we want, the bias can be the easiest way to adjust it.

Just my thought, and I'm probably wrong

I was actually referring to manual mode on the camera for the setting, I pretty much always use auto focus. I'm not as good at manual focus, the view in the eye-piece is too small for me to tell if its perfectly focused or not.

I guess Av mode could save you some time, but for me it's not that difficult to change a click-wheel a few clicks to change the exposure or adjust something. I spend way too much time with my camera, I can sometimes set it just by looking at the scene and get perfect exposure!


Besides that, I have trust issues. Especially when it comes to technology

Sorry for the slight de-rail Camille!

[camille1585]

Well, now I have another problem. I don't know if they are linked or not, but it seems that ever since my computer installed some windows updates last night, the EOS Utility program (to transfer photos) is bugging. It starts up, freezes, and then disconnects the camera.... I'm going to try resinstalling it.

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by camille1585

Well, now I have another problem. I don't know if they are linked or not, but it seems that ever since my computer installed some windows updates last night, the EOS Utility program (to transfer photos) is bugging. It starts up, freezes, and then disconnects the camera.... I'm going to try resinstalling it.

That's odd! I can't help you there, maybe someone familiar with Cannon would! Question for you, why go through the camera and software? Do you have a card reader built into your computer? Most computer do nowadays.

[camille1585]

I don't have a built in card reader, the laptop is 7 years old. The problem is worse that I thought, I can't access the camera through 'my computer', nor through the windows photo uploader thingy (don't know the name in English). I'm going to the Canon site now to download driver updates.

Edit: No driver update available. And the software refuses to uninstall So for the moment I'm totally 'locked out' of my camera.

Great that you solved it!
I have dslr for a while now but still didn't get time and desire to explore all the options of it. I promise myself to do it one day, but that day never comes, so I usually just get one occasional nice picture out of bunch of crappy ones .

[Call_Me_Bob]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I don't have a built in card reader, the laptop is 7 years old. The problem is worse that I thought, I can't access the camera through 'my computer', nor through the windows photo uploader thingy (don't know the name in English). I'm going to the Canon site now to download driver updates.

Edit: No driver update available. And the software refuses to uninstall So for the moment I'm totally 'locked out' of my camera.

Hope you can get it figured out then!!

[silken]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I don't have a built in card reader, the laptop is 7 years old. The problem is worse that I thought, I can't access the camera through 'my computer', nor through the windows photo uploader thingy (don't know the name in English). I'm going to the Canon site now to download driver updates.

Edit: No driver update available. And the software refuses to uninstall So for the moment I'm totally 'locked out' of my camera.

I hope you get it sorted out. I just use a small external card reader that plugs into the USB port. It is much faster downloading than plugging the camera in and I am afraid of locking something up on the camera so I prefer the card reader. They sometimes come free with a new memory card but aren't expensive to buy either.

Hopefully re-installing the software will fix it.

---------- Post added at 03:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:50 PM ----------

Originally Posted by RosieC

I tend to always work on the Av (aperture priority) setting which lets me control aperture and it works out shutter speed. With that I then use the Exposure Bias to control how bright the metering is aiming for. Sometimes if something looks washed out the Exposure Bias dropped down a bit will solve the problem.

I too almost always use Aperture Priority (A on a Nikon) It is a semi manual mode and the meter should always put the shutter speed to the one that would show correct exposure anyways in full manual mode. It gets the same results quicker. And if I have a lot of black or am getting the incorrect exposure, I tend to use Exposure Compensation (I think the same as Exp. Bias) either up or down based on if its over or under exposed.

I don't always use manual-focus as I feel the modern models of camera have very accurate and sharp auto-focus. I still choose where it will focus and use my "Depth of Field Preview" button to see what is all in focus with that aperture. I trust the electronics better than my oldish eyes! If I do photo-stacking then I for sure use manual focus and take multiple pics with the focus moved to many points all over the subject. This gives a really good result!

Lots of things to try and do with cameras these days. It's one of my main hobbies and sure ties in nicely with growing orchids.