Washed out colours

[v4nno]

Hi, I have a Canon 30D, (about 8 years old I guess), fitted with a Sigma 28-300 lens. Currently all my images seems to have washed out colours no matter what settings I use. I don't have another lens to try, just wondering if it's the lens or something wrong with the camera? Thanks....

 

[jaomul]

Did you accidentally change your picture style to nuetral or faithful. These settings are very subdued

 

[v4nno]

No I tried every setting, even pushing stops for exposure but blues and reds have no depth, just look very over exposed.

 

[v4nno]

Here is an example, settings are flat in program mode

 

[Designer]

.. wondering if it's the lens or something wrong with the camera?

If nothing has changed recently,

 

[SCraig]

Some Sigma lenses just don't provide good contrast. I have that issue sometimes with my 150-500. I don't worry about it that much and just boost the contrast and saturation when I edit the photographs.

 

[Ysarex]

Here is an example, settings are flat in program modeView attachment 142412

The example you've posted indicates the camera is working very much as expected.

Joe

 

[nerwin]

Is your monitor too bright?

 

[v4nno]

Thanks for the replies. I too wondered if the sensor was failing and yes I have to boost balance and contrast during editing to get any decent images. My friend uses Canon so I might see if I can use one of his lenses to run as a test first otherwise I might be shopping for a new body.

 

[tecboy]

The photograph looks normal to me. Are you saying the highlight is washing out?

 

[v4nno]

The colours on the day were far more vibrant particularly the blues in the Elsa dress and the reds in the flag were much deeper. A market stall in the far background was bright maroon striped.

 

[KmH]

What device do you use to view the photos?

 

[TCampbell]

You may need to calibrate your monitor. The sample image you provided does appear to have normal color.

If you shoot JPEG you can select a "picture style". Here's a link to a PDF:

https://learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/quickguides/CDLC_PictureStyles_QuickGuide.pdf

Take a look at the picture style called "standard" and, in particular, pay attention to the 'red' band in the samples. Compare that red to the red you see in 'portrait', 'landscape', 'neutral', and 'faithful' picture styles and you can clearly see that Canon is saturating the color a bit.

When I shot film, we used to select films specifically for how they'd represent colors. When we did weddings, we typically wanted the color to be slightly soft and subdued... we didn't want "jammy" "in your face" saturated color because we were trying to convey a soft tenderness in the images. Depending on the type of photography... you might want jammy edgy in-your-face color.

If you shoot RAW, your settings are saved in the meta-data... but not actually applied to the image (no changes are made that would result in the loss of original data when you shoot RAW.) This means it's entirely up to your post processing software (e.g. Lightroom or Canon Digital Photo Professional, etc.)

Your software will definitely have a saturation adjustment... but it might also have something called "vibrance". You can think of "vibrance" as being a special version of "saturation" where it does saturate colors... but it attempts to restrain itself a bit for any colors that match human skin tones. This allows you to pump a bit more color into environmental portraits without your subjects taking on tangerine skin and looking like Oompa Loompas or Donald Trump.

Keep in mind that the colors "you" see may not be the same as the colors "everyone else" sees. I learned this myself when I took a photo that I adjusted to look pleasant on my monitor and others asked me why it had such a strong orange color. I thought they were nuts until I was over at a friends house (another photographer) and he pulled up my image that I had posted to the web... and it was positively orange (nothing subtle about it.) The following week I bought an X-Rite ColorMunki and color-calibrated all my displays (and the tool shows you the "before" vs. "after" calibration so you can see how much it tweaked the color profile. My monitor was previously way out of calibration. Now it's pretty much bang-on accurate. I still re-profile from time to time and find my monitor holds it color profile fairly well (sometimes colors change as the monitor ages ... even calibrated monitors should be re-checked periodically.)

 

[smoke665]

The colours on the day were far more vibrant particularly the blues in the Elsa dress and the reds in the flag were much deeper. A market stall in the far background was bright maroon striped.

Have to agree with Joe. In addition to what he said a couple more points-

• The image you posted is between 3/4 to full stop over exposed.
• WB off slightly
• This looks to have been shot during the day. Midday or bright sun can cause several problems from lack of contrast, desaturated colors, and the inability of the digital camera to handle the dynamic range.
• All of the issue you have can be easily corrected post on this image.

 

[v4nno]

I use Windows Photo Manager, I also use that to edit.