Canon S50 issue

[Ben3000]

Hi,

After long, long research :-) I finally bought a Canon S50. I've already taken several photos and I noticed that the sky is always white. Especially when I take photos with bright sunlight and shadows. When I underexpose the photo, the sky is ok, but the darker parts of the pictures are much too dark.
In night photographs, highlights are always too bright.
Is this a known problem of the S50? Should I take it back to my dealer?

Thanks for your help, Ben

[PeterS45]

Assuming that the S50 is technically identical with the S45 (my camera) except for the MP's, it's not something I've ever experienced. The ccd can only cope with a certain level of contrast (just like film) so when you take a picture looking right into where the sunlight comes from, this can happen. Try and take a picture with your back to the sun and use evaluative metering and then see what happens.

[Ben3000]

When the sun is in my back, the sky is ok, but shadows are still too dark. I'm quite disappointed that the dynamic range of the CCD is so small.

[PeterS45]

Take a look at my homepage, follow the American flag to the English section and go to Vacation - Pictures to see some pictures I took with my S45 a few weeks ago. I suppose that's how you want your pictures to turn out also.

http://home/planet.nl/~bout0140

[Ben3000]

Great panoramas. Which stitching program did you use?
Did you take the pictures in panorama mode or did you use the manual mode to correct any settings?

[PeterS45]

I used Photostitch (which came with my S45) and just used the panoramasetting of my camera.

But how do they compare with your pictures?

[Ben3000]

When I take the photographs with the sun in my back they are similar to yours. I've uploaded a picture to demonstrate the low contrast-range problem: example.jpg (http://www.neuedonau.com/pic/example.jpg)
As you see, the background is too bright. The building on the right in the background should be yellow but it is overexposed. The sky should be blue...

[pblevitt]

From your example, the majority of your image is dark, so the exposure compensates for that, over-exposing the light areas

You could try exposing for the bright part, and forcing a fill flash.

Hardware ways you would need a gradient filter, dark at the top to light/clear at the bottom.

I've had the same effect using S30 and S50, so I wouldn't have thought it is a camera problem.

You may have to change your technique, ie including more of the light part of the scene to balance out the dark.

Hope this helps

[PeterS45]

I've examined your picture and according to me there's nothing really wrong with it and I don't think you can get any better results with another camera.
In fact, the exposure was calculated on the foreground (the subject) and that part isn't under- or overexposed.

I tried using Photoshop Elements to improve the picture, and it didn't change much.

[rondel]

I have not done this yet but I read about it and I plan to try. The trick is to use a tripod and the AEB feature of your camera and set your camera so that the dark and light frames are each about 1.5 stops apart from norm. You then use photoshop to process and combined the image. You can read about the process at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml

[Ben3000]

Thanks for your help. I'll try to do that. BTW, perhaps the new Fuji-sensor will resolve this problem. The F-707 isn't out yet, but I think that the additional less-sensitive pixels will improve the picture in such lighting-conditions.

[Guillermo Freige]

try to shot in raw mode using low contrast seting, and a -1/3 or -2/3 EV exp.compensation. You will recover the sky and the shadows. This also works in jpeg, but with 8 bits you will end with less dinamic range to tweak the shadows than in the 12-bit RAW.

[Ben3000]

Good idea, I'll try that. Thanks