vibrant colour too much

[peetrie]

Hello I am new to this forum have been taking digital photos for some time but don't really understand the technical side. I have trouble photographing closeup pics of e.g. flowers with bright / strong colours. Is there an easy explanation or does it takes years to understand this?
i have attached 2 photos one with the glare and one without.

Any help would be appreciated towards my learning.

 

[sm4him]

Welcome to TPF.

Some more information might be helpful. What camera and lens are you using?
Are you shooting in raw format, or jpeg?
What were the settings when you took these--shutter speed, ISO, aperture, etc (all available in the EXIF data).

These look like they were taken in pretty harsh sunlight, although I actually rather like the first and think with some improvement to the background and a different crop it could be pretty interesting.

 

[480sparky40 40]

It's not sunlight, Sharon. It's the on-board flash.

Both suffer from a number of afflictions. The most serious is Subjectis Centertrophic. It's commonly referred to as Compsositional Defieciency, where the subject is placed dead-center in the viewfinder.

Another issue is the use of the camera's on-board flash. While producing a technically-correct exposure, it creates harsh, flat lighting that does not 'flatter' the subject.

Time and practice are the prescriptions to cure these diseases. Stick with it, try again, post your results, and remember.... we're your doctor for what ails your images!

First one:

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Image Date: 2013-10-20 19:57:27 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 40mm
Aperture: ƒ/4.5
Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: program (Auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: Yes (Auto, return light detected)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: QuickTime 7.7.1



Second one:

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Image Date: 2013-10-20 19:52:47 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: ƒ/5.0
Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: program (Auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: Yes (Auto, return light detected)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined

 

[peetrie]

It's not sunlight, Sharon. It's the on-board flash.

Both suffer from a number of afflictions. The most serious is Subjectis Centertrophic. It's commonly referred to as Compsositional Defieciency, where the subject is placed dead-center in the viewfinder.

Another issue is the use of the camera's on-board flash. While producing a technically-correct exposure, it creates harsh, flat lighting that does not 'flatter' the subject.

Time and practice are the prescriptions to cure these diseases. Stick with it, try again, post your results, and remember.... we're your doctor for what ails your images!

First one:

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Image Date: 2013-10-20 19:57:27 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 40mm
Aperture: ƒ/4.5
Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: program (Auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: Yes (Auto, return light detected)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: QuickTime 7.7.1



Second one:

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Image Date: 2013-10-20 19:52:47 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: ƒ/5.0
Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: program (Auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: Yes (Auto, return light detected)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined

 

[peetrie]

WOW I have just been writing that down and I look up and you have put it there. Thankyou.

 

[peetrie]

Here is another photo taken on that same day the flash also I like this one but I realise i and naive re photography so what can you tell me is this too harsh as well?

 

[peetrie]

 

[sm4him]

It's not sunlight, Sharon. It's the on-board flash.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense now that you point it out. I really shouldn't even be trying to C&C right now, way too tired to really pay attention or think about it too much.

 

[480sparky40 40]

Here is another photo taken on that same day the flash also I like this one but I realise i and naive re photography so what can you tell me is this too harsh as well?

It suffers from the same maladies listed before. It also has far too much 'other stuff' in it. Meaning... the main subject is lost amidst all the other flowers and the other flowers detract from it rather than compliment it.

Don't take my critique as an indication you're failing. You're just starting out, and we all did at one time. Everyone took images like this when they first picked up a camera. So be proud.... you're in good company!

 

[peetrie]

Here is another photo taken on that same day the flash also I like this one but I realise i and naive re photography so what can you tell me is this too harsh as well?

It suffers from the same maladies listed before. It also has far too much 'other stuff' in it. Meaning... the main subject is lost amidst all the other flowers and the other flowers detract from it rather than compliment it.

Don't take my critique as an indication you're failing. You're just starting out, and we all did at one time. Everyone took images like this when they first picked up a camera. So be proud.... you're in good company!

Thanks for your advice will take it on board and keep growing

 

[Braineack]

look decent enough to me, what's the actual problem?

 

[peetrie]

The red rose is to bright you can't see the detail. it happens mostly to my photos when the subject closeup is red.

 

[Ysarex86 80]

The red rose is to bright you can't see the detail. it happens mostly to my photos when the subject closeup is red.

Your red rose problem -- I can help. You have your edit tag set to NOT OK -- change that and I'll show you what's going on using your photo.

Sparky's note about the on-camera flash is important and it is a contributor but it's not the root of the problem. The red channel in your rose photo is blown to h*ll and the detail in the flower is destroyed in that process.

Here's an example of the same with one of my photos.

Joe

 

[peetrie]

The red rose is to bright you can't see the detail. it happens mostly to my photos when the subject closeup is red.

Your red rose problem -- I can help. You have your edit tag set to NOT OK -- change that and I'll show you what's going on using your photo.

Sparky's note about the on-camera flash is important and it is a contributor but it's not the root of the problem. The red channel in your rose photo is blown to h*ll and the detail in the flower is destroyed in that process.

Here's an example of the same with one of my photos.

Joe

View attachment 103255

I have set the photo to allow edit the change in your photo is amazing.

 

[Overread16 4]

Red and Yellow are the most horrible of colours.

Which is me saying that its very easy to blow them out - ergo to over-expose them.

I would advise that when you are taking photos and reviewing them on the back of the camera use the "histogram" display. This shows a chart which displays the exposure data for the shot which, at its most simple, shows bright parts on the right and dark on the left. In an ideal world you want as much of the "bulk" of the chart on the right side of the graph, which means that much of the shot is well exposed and thus you have good light data (you can always tone back the degree of brightness in editing).

However if the bar actually makes it all the way to touching the right hand side it means that you have over-exposure; which is often also shown by the camera making overexposed areas of the photo "blink" during review like this. If its a tiny catchlight in an eye or the centre of a light bulb its not to worry; but if its a huge area then you know something is wrong.

Sometimes, esp if the photo has a lot of dark areas, you might get a larger amount on the left side of the histogram; where again if it touches the line at the very end it means full underexposure; ergo black and no detail.



However the histogram can go one step further. The default is luminescence which is basically all the light data; however if you set it to RGB mode in the histogram review then you see 3 little histograms. One for the red channel, one for greens and one for blue. This lets you then see if you've blown out one of the 3 primary colour channels in the exposure. It is very possible that you can over-expose a colour channel whilst the luminescence view shows no over-exposure at all. For something like a red or yellow flower this is very easily done and can sometimes be very hard to avoid.

Over exposure in colour channels still results in a reduction/loss of detail data in those affected areas; although sometimes you won't be able to avoid it - but given the chance experiment and see what works for you - knowing how to review on the histogram will give you a lot of post-shot information in the field where you've a chance to take another shot and correct the problem.