Why are my pictures so plain?

[5DManiac]

These kinds of questions are like "my cars making a noise! what is it!?" Impossible to answer without seeing some evidence first. In all likelyhood, your settings are scrood. Try cranking up the saturation and contrast using your in-camera JPG settings.

 

[gsgary]

Have you got your camera's colour space set to Adobe RGB instead of SRGB ?

 

[GeneralBenson]

"my cars making a noise! what is it!?"

"Do you have the car with you?"

"No"

"Then how am I supposed to know what the noise is?"

"Well I drove my friend's car and it didn't make any noise, and he drove my car and it still made noise, so what's the problem?"

 

[Silverdreamer3]

If you are using Auto mode that might be the problem. I have the Sony a700 and the auto mode sucks. I have learned to use manual 100% of the time because of it. As the others said adjusting the contrast and saturation should help too.

 

[Sirashley]

These were all photos I have done with a sony a200... Grant it, it was with various lenses, but all of the lenses I have shot with have a retail of $250.00 or less

Don't let the a200's price fool you... I think its a great camera, and imagine if I was a real photographer who knew what the hell he was doing...LOL... Anyway, perhaps you could post some samples and we could help you figure out the problem from there...

 

[Derrel]

I went here to get an overall, simplified view of how the A200 renders images.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 Review: 31. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review

Sounds like the camera lacks contrast in the shadows and lower tonal values of pictures, has overly aggressive noise reduction at higher ISO settings, and is in fact, not that great of a JPEG-shooting camera. It sounds as if this camera needs to be shot in RAW mode, and those captures post-processed for the best output.

Some cameras, like the older Nikon D50, and the D40 and D60 on Vivid mode, produce snappy, punchy out of camera JPEG images. Other d-slr models have much lower contrast, lower-vibrance images that the manufacturer expects will be post-processed to bring the contrast and color saturation/vibrance "up" to the level the user desires.

Olympus and FujiFilm have made some cameras where the out of camera JPEG images have a heavily-processed, rich,saturated, punchy look sometimes deprecatingly referred to as "eye candy". For those who want images right of the memory card to be rich,vibrant,and punchy, that's a good thing--although at times in high contrast situations, that type of in-camera JPEG processing will cause a compressed dynamic range and excessively burned out highlights or excessively dark shadow tones.

 

[ToddLange]

ive got an a200. i have really no problems getting colors to "pop"

maybe its just the person behind the camera.

 

[epp_b]

Halp! I live on planet earth and it's not woarking!!!111

Seriously, you need to post some pictures if we're to have any idea how to help you.

 

[GeneralBenson]

make some sample pics here.

Um, are you Jessica Alba?

 

[epp_b]

lulz ... people I have all sorts of things as their avatar. I have Jeremy Clarkson doing a funny face as my avatar in another forum, but that doesn't make me Jeremy Clarkson.

BTW, welcome to the Internet

 

[o hey tyler]

lulz ... people I have all sorts of things as their avatar. I have Jeremy Clarkson doing a funny face as my avatar in another forum, but that doesn't make me Jeremy Clarkson.

BTW, welcome to the Internet

I think they were being facetious.

Anyways, I have a Sony A-200, and I don't have any trouble getting photos to pop and what not. Here I can post an example of the most recent cover photo I took.

Although, the colors on this are a little off because I designed it around being printed on newspaper stock.

 

[gsgary]

lulz ... people I have all sorts of things as their avatar. I have Jeremy Clarkson doing a funny face as my avatar in another forum, but that doesn't make me Jeremy Clarkson.

BTW, welcome to the Internet

I would change it because Jeremy Clarkson is the biggest tosser going

 

[robertwsimpson]

lulz ... people I have all sorts of things as their avatar. I have Jeremy Clarkson doing a funny face as my avatar in another forum, but that doesn't make me Jeremy Clarkson.

BTW, welcome to the Internet

I would change it because Jeremy Clarkson is the biggest tosser going

I like him:taped sh:

 

[epp_b]

Uh-oh, what did I start...

Oh, yeah, and he's awesome.

 

[IgsEMT]

Show what you got so it can be judged accordingly...
if you're shooting JPG, preset your WB, boost up the vibrance a drop and your color should be nicer (unless there's an operator error). if you're shooting RAW, learn to post process.
Don't fall for gimick that one brand is better then the other, it isn't the equipment, it is KNOWING HOW TO USE EQUIPMENT CORRECTLY THAT makes images better.