Canon XSI- White Washed Images, Poor Color Saturation

[Sleepy_Sentry]

I got my new Canon Rebel XSi two days ago, but am having a problem with it. Compared to my old Rebel 2000 SLR shots, the colors just don't seem saturated enough and everything looks white-washed.

Take a look at these petunias I shot.

1/80, f/5.6, ISO 200

1/640, f/7.1, ISO 1600

These were shot after setting everything to default. The pink in the petunias should be much darker and more vibrant. It looks like the sun was shining right at me, but it wasn't. I have the same issue taking pictures indoors.

Again, my camera is at default settings. I am using Auto White Balance and standard picture style.

What's going on here?

 

[Big Mike]

They look slightly overexposed to me. Just dial down the exposure a step or two and that would help. Are you sure the EC wasn't set to a positive value?

Or go into the menus and adjust some settings or picture styles to give you more saturation & contrast etc.

Or just adjust them with software, it would only take a few seconds to make those minor adjustment.

 

[Big Mike]

Compared to my old Rebel 2000 SLR shots, the colors just don't seem saturated enough and everything looks white-washed.

Remember that when you shoot color negative film, it's likely that your output (prints or scanned digital images) have been adjusted by the lab. Back when a lot of people were moving from film SLR cameras to digital SLR cameras, many of them were complaining of similar issues...not knowing that their lab had been correcting their images for years, without their knowledge.

 

[johngpt]

Mike has made excellent points.

The Canon default settings are pretty neutral.

If your XSi is somewhat similar to my 40D, in menu settings you can change your default jpeg captures to having more contrast, saturation, etc.

I tend to shoot RAW as I find when shooting jpeg, I'm usually decreasing the saturation in post. I prefer modifying my images in post rather than in camera. (as much as these new-fangled pieces of equipment let us )

I tend to like subtle gradations in hue, value, and saturation over boing, in yer face stuff.

And of course, as Mike pointed out, you might want to experiment with your exposure settings.