Newbie questions about contrast and details

[dfed]

Hi

I have been keeping an eye on this forum recently and following your opinions. I currently use PENTAX K100 D/SMC PENTAX DA 18-55
My pictures are not as I expect them to be, meaning that the colors are pale, but not vibrant. Also the details are not sharp but blurry. How could I improve and have better contrast, coloring and details? I attach some pictures as an example.

Thanks in adv

 

[BlackSheep]

Are you taking the photos in auto?

 

[dxqcanada]

Lenses have a best aperture ... most lenses are soft at max aperture, so it is generally a rule of thumb to shoot a least two stops from max (websites like DPReview do a good job of visually describing lenses they review).
Lenses with poor correction ie chromatic aberration, will cause soft focus.
Flare. Internal light reflections will cause loss of contrast.

Over or under exposure can cause loss of detail.

Are you shooting in RAW or JPEG ?? That also makes a difference.

 

[enzodm]

To expand previous comments, picture #1 and #2 have been taken against sun, so there is flare; to maximize contrast be sure not to shoot against sun.
Then, all pictures depict scenes with a wide range of distances. Of course, detail is maximum only in the point where you focused, unless you use very small apertures (which by the way introduce other quality problems). If you want to experiment with detail and contrast, identify a scene with an object being a point of interest on which to focus. Finally, if you shoot RAW, contrast and sharpness should be adjusted in postprocessing, because nothing is done in camera.
It is easier to comment if you put parameters (ISO, aperture, shutter).

 

[DRoberts]

Completely agree with enzodm...another thing to do is meter your shot to the lightest ambient light (the sky in most cases) then recompose your shot and adjust detail in post processing on areas you want to standout in. Burn and dodge tools will create depth to those areas and/or surfaces.

 

[KmH]

The scenes you have posted here have high dynamic range. In fact the total dynamic range of the scenes is greater than the image sensor in your camera can record in a single exposure.

The camera does not 'see' like your eyes do.

If you had used strobed fill lighting in the top 2, you could have controlled the bright, ambient light lit parts of the scene separately from the foreground, balancing the 2 exposures so they could be equal.