Transfering software and photo quality

[namjak]

Hey all. I'm new but have been lurking and browsing the galleries that you guys have for several months now.

i'm not entirely new to photography in general, but am new to digital photography. i bought a Canon S50 about 3 months ago, but am having some questions about my photo quality. i've seen this issue brought up before and the suggestion was to shoot in P mode. most of the photos i shoot or either in P more or in M mode so that i can have more control. more in M than in P. however, the problem lies in the quality of the picture after it being taken.

i run Linux (Debian) and use gphoto2 to transfer photos from my camera. i have the light on the LCD turned as far down as it will go but after transfer, my photos still look much much darker than what is on the LCD. i can almost never get photos in natural light without upping the exposure to 2 seconds and in many times, more than that. at that speed, it's impossible to take shots of moving people and objects without getting a blur.

i'm wondering if this may have something to do with the transfering software? does anyone know if it has any effect on image quality?

[bookster]

Check your gamma on your monitor, it could be set incorrectly. This thread (http://forums.powershot-a.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4609&highlight=monitor+ AND+gamma) discusses a similar problem...

[eland]

Well maybe it's your monitor but then everything would be dark besides
your images.
What ISO is the camera set at ?

An ordinary daylight shot with the ISO set to 100 should be around
1/125 sec at F8 to F11.
Exposures of 2 seconds or more are not on for bright daylight.

Try uploading a few images to some one else's computer and see what
they look like there.

* If they are still miles too dark then your camera or CARD is faulty
* If they look ok and your monitor shows other pics normally
then use different and better software.

Didn't you get a CD with uploading software with your camera ?

First thing I'd try is a different CF card. Maybe the one you have is faulty.

Regards
eland