WTF auto vs manual

[d5000kid]

I have been shooting in manual mode on my d5000 for quite some time now, only using auto for a real quick shot or for other users. Today I decided to try auto on a flower just to see what it wanted to do. It shot f/5.6 , 1/60 @ ISO 500 on auto. I decided to shoot the same in manual mode, with auto white balance, auto HDR, same same metering settings and all. Guess what, the auto photo turned out wayyy better!

WHY??? The whole auto picture is much more rich with color, the greens greener, the reds redder. The manual picture seems washed out with less color and now i notice on almost all of my other thousands of pictures that i have taken in manual mode that this is the case, WTF?!!@>#

This is really frustrating me right now!

 

[Big Mike]

Are you shooting in JPEG or RAW? Are there 'picture styles' being applied to shots in auto but maybe not in manual? Can you show us examples?

 

[Bram]

Are you shooting in JPEG or RAW? Are there 'picture styles' being applied to shots in auto but maybe not in manual? Can you show us examples?

What he said.

 

[heyjoe]

Yeah where are the example photos??

 

[Bram]

:addpics:

 

[pgriz]

One of my gear-head friends, who does some technical consulting to two of the companies whose names start with "C" and "N", told me that RAW and JPG from the same camera won't ever be exactly the same. Apparently, both "N" and "C" do various proprietary enhancements in the JPG's they produce, that we can approximate, but not exactly reproduce when we're doing stuff in CS or Lightroom on the RAW files. So, according to him, the best JPG you can get is direct from the camera (assuming you have got the exposure, focus, etc. right).

 

[Postman]

Set your "Picture Control" of choice in manual mode. It's to the right of the flash compensation on the info screen. You can boost or lower values from the default Picture Control Settings in the menu.

 

[white]

Camera is probably increasing the saturation automatically. Like mike said, 'picture styles.'

 

[sobolik]

Auto mode has about 17 settings that cannot be changed but can be changed in manual mode. It is possible that all of the settings do not match thus your comparison is not apples to apples. See your manual for these setting in various modes.

Failing a setting difference then I would do some more test shots to repeat the examples. Then I would conclude that the computer calibration is off for the manual circuitry and send it in for repair.

 

[Josh66]

Auto mode has about 17 settings that cannot be changed but can be changed in manual mode.

One of which is usually RAW/JPEG. If you are shooting RAW in manual, the camera is most likely automatically switching to JPEG in Auto. If that were the case, any in camera processing that is applied to JPEGs will only be applied to whatever you shot on Auto.

Auto might also be using a different metering mode. Most likely Matrix/Evaluative. If you were using spot metering in manual, that would probably make a noticeable difference too.