30D: HELP dark images when downloaded

[morganweddings]

Hello everyone, I am so glad to run across this forum, we have been banging our heads agains the wall trying to figure out how to correct this problem. We have a 30D cannon. When we take photos, they are perfect on the image display screen on the camera itself, however when they are transfered to the computer, they are SIGNIFIGANTLY darker. The camera is set to adobe RGB. Any help or suggestions anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
morganweddings

[Pete-eos]

Could be your LCD brightness very high or you're monitor set too dark?

[morganweddings]

I should also say thay they print dark also.

[madferrit]

I think i ran into this issue when i first got my 30D.

I believe Adobe RGB only works well when sent to a printer who has his equipment configured to the Adobe RGB setting. Don't quote me on that, but its basically what i remember from the manual (can't locate it at this precise moment :()

I set it to sRGB and shoot in RAW & JPEG and i've found that it works fine for me.

Hope that helps.

[breal101]

You might check the exposure compensation setting.

[Mark_Cohran]

The LCD display can't be used to determine exposure or sharpness. It's best used for determining composition. At best, with the overexposure alert turned on (you may hear this referred to as "blinkies"), the display can help you determine which areas of your photos are over-exposed.

To get good exposure in camera, you need to use the histogram. This link should help:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml

Bottom line, if you depend on your LCD to determine exposure, you're going to be sorely disappointed more often than not.

Mark

[casaaviocar]

When I read the title, my first question to you was going to be how does the histogram look? If the curve is crowded to the left the images are underexposed. Like Mark said, use your histogram. The link he provided will help you understand how to read your histogram. Have the LCD set for maximum info, with the histogram displayed in the review. Use your LCD for review, but only for basic compositional shape and always with the histogram for exposure. Like Mark said don't rely on the image in the LCD for exposure, or sharpness(unless you zoom in a long way on the LCD)that's best left for the histogram, and viewing on your monitor.
My guess is your LCD is set to max brightness, so what looks good on the bright LCD is significantly darker when viewed on your computer monitor. Calibrating the Gamma and Black and White points on your monitor will make viewing your photos much more accurate also.
AdobeRGB is for use with Adobe PS(or other software that is color management aware)and printers that are color management aware, shooting in sRGB will probably be better. Adobe acutally encompasses more colors, but most devices are compatible with sRGB. If you shoot in RAW the color space can be assigned during post processing.