Why does this happen?

[Abby Rose]

This picture:

The red is so red that there are no details on the flower. This is straight out of the camera. (JPG, if that matters. My camera does not support RAW.) Why does this happen? Is it the sun? Something I did with the shutter speed (1/30) or aperture (f/2.7)?

Just wondering. I like red flowers, but I cant take pictures of them where they dont look like a flat red blob.

 

[Goontz]

Most likely, your camera has some sort of setting to adjust how it processes the JPG images. That setting might be set to a preset titled something like 'vivid' or maybe the saturation is just turned up a bit. Look through your menus and/or owner's manual and see if you can find how to fine tune the in-camera processing.

 

[LaFoto]

I used to have the same problem with red flowers even back in those days when I still shot film.
Today, I feel it might help to underexpose just a little, so the danger of blowing the reds is diminished. You can later bring back the highlights in post, sparing out the flower head.
AND Goontz may be very right that your parametres are set to "vivid" or whatever it is called on your camera, so the colours are extra intense.

 

[Overread]

I tend to find that yellow flowers are the worst for this - something about them and the colours just leads them to overexpose so easily. If you camera happens to support histogram displays for previewing your shots and has the option to show RGB channels select that - as often as not you can expose a shot correctly (no overexposure) but the colours themselves will overexpose.

I know quite a few will use a circular polarizer for flower photography to cut down on glare and help show up details so that might be an option if your camera takes filters. Otherwise I think it is a case of delibratly underexposing the shot to a limited degree in order to save the colourchannels from clipping.

 

[KmH]

In addition to the photo being overstaurated in general (the greens too), the scene is in dappled sunlight, a tough situation for most cameras to handle.

Consequently the rose is partly overxposed (right side) and partly under exposed (left side).

This is a situation where using the spot metering mode on the camera and fill flash are useful, as is getting in closer and filling more of the frame with the subject, the rose.

 

[creisinger]

Like KmH said it's a mix of wrong exposure time (for the rose bud) and possibly camera settings that push the saturation.

 

[Abby Rose]

All very good suggestions, thanks!

My camera does have a saturation setting, but it is set to "normal".

 

[KmH]

Hopefully it has a setting that is less than "Normal".

 

[Abby Rose]

Oh, it does. I havent had any problems keeping it at "normal", except for these flower types. The only time I've used the lower and higher setting are when I was seeing what the different controls did when I first got it.

But you think it is worth trying these bright flowers in its "less saturation" setting?

 

[KmH]

I think it is batter to abandon JPEG as your image capture format and switch to capturing images as RAW data files.

Then none of the in-the-camera, decided for you by a committee of camera engineers, coarse, global, saturation, sharpening, contrast or any other in camera editing functions will be applied to the images you make.

You can then decide on precise, either global or local edits for specific areas of your images in post processing.

 

[Abby Rose]

I totally would, but my camera doesnt support RAW files. So I do the best I can with what I have.