hello - new to the hobby and got a new g5 and ....

[mike115]

i dont think ive got the hang of it yet. everything i shoot indoors has either a greenish or amber hue to it which makes the pics look very unnatural. ive read the manual and i think i know what the different buttons do but thats not quite helping. outdoor pics are better in comparison to indoor pics. i also noticed quite a bit of jagged edges in some of the indoor pics where the setting comprised of a bookshelf with books and compact discs- is there any way to eradicate this? and what would be recommended reading on this - preferably web based - oh btw before the g5 i knew and i still know nothing of cameras - im an absolute novice at this so please break it down simply :lol:
cheers

[rraman]

Are you using wrong white balance setting by any chance?

[mike115]

hi raman, thanks for the reply - its usually on auto white balance as i found that the other settings gave a much stronger amber hue and custom set - using a white card - usually resulted in a bluish tinged pic.

[twl845]

Look at the page in your manual for setting white balance. set the appropriate icon on the lcd screen. example: set the little sun icon on a sunny day outside. Your pictures should be OK.

[John_T]

The greenish/amber hue would likely be due to mixed ambient lighting, and since it is mixed it is difficult to find a WB setting that will cover the range. Do you get the same cast on screen and on print, or is there a difference?

If you were to use an external flash, such as the 420EX and a Stofen Omni-bounce on it, or pointing the flash more toward the ceiling it would help neutralize the mixed lighting.

Otherwise you will need to play with it in post processing.

[ScottK]

I agree, mixed lighting is probably the issue. Are these pictures taken with the flash? If so, have you tried the flash white balance setting? I've found it works reasonably well with the internal flash.

As for the jagged lines, it might depend on how you're viewing it. I have noticed that edges like you described do tend to be much sharper on indoor flash shots. If you view the picture so that it fits on your screen (whether on the computer or the camera), it has to be resized, since your screen isn't big enough to display all the pixels in the picture. If that resizing isn't done well (depending on what program you're using to view the picture), it might not smooth those lines as well as it could. First, you could zoom into a full sized view, and see if its still jagged. Or, like with the colors, get it printed and look at the results there. In most cases, you should see the lines come out smoother. If you want to resize your pictures for displaying on screen or on a web page, let me know and I'll give you a trick for resizing that helps eliminate the problem.

[4walls]

i dont think ive got the hang of it yet. everything i shoot indoors has either a greenish or amber hue to it which makes the pics look very unnatural. ive read the manual and i think i know what the different buttons do but thats not quite helping. outdoor pics are better in comparison to indoor pics. i also noticed quite a bit of jagged edges in some of the indoor pics where the setting comprised of a bookshelf with books and compact discs- is there any way to eradicate this? and what would be recommended reading on this - preferably web based - oh btw before the g5 i knew and i still know nothing of cameras - im an absolute novice at this so please break it down simply :lol:
cheers
Post some examples?

[IainB]

Regarding jagged edges, check what resolution the camera is set to. If you are taking jpegs in auto mode, a low resolution setting will naturally produce low quality. Try superfine, or better still, shoot in Raw.

[mike115]

hi - thanks for all the replies - i have had to be away from the pc for the last couple of days but i will reply in detail over the weekend and post some sample pics if possible.
cheers

[mike115]

hi, the pics have been finally uploaded and here they are with brief commentary.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=room2.jpg
view of my room - this is the kind of look i have been getting on auto white balance - the main light is a ceiling fluorescent which is warm white. you can also see the jagged effect on the cd collection on the left of the pic and on the blinds which curiously also has a curved thingy which appeared on the lcd screen as pink/reddish rays.
another problem with this pic is what you see at the corners- i dont know what this effect is called - im so new to the terminology - i used a raynox 6600 wide angle lens taking this pic and had a hoya 72mm uv guard filter on the raynox. and this is the result of that- wtihout the uv filter, i dont get the darkened corners. is there a way to counter this?

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=room1.jpg
same room but with tungsten setting - this time you will see a what looks like a halo at the ceiling - which goes away when the uv filter is removed.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=windows.jpg

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=picframes.jpg

more jaggies- with the buildings, at the louvres and with the framed pics, at the frames. note the colour of the pic with the frames - on awb setting.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=morejaggies.jpg
this was taken with a flash and i was quite shocked at the result.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=jagged.jpg
more jaggies

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=bench.jpg
look at the pathway

http://photobucket.com/albums/v324/mikey115/?action=view&current=cdrack.jpg
look at the window blinds for jaggies.

sorry for the long post. what you see in the pics above have been driving me nuts really and any help or insight given as to how i can overcome them would be really really appreciated.

thanks very much
m

[Belmondo]

Mike:
I tried opening the images, but I'm getting a message that says they're password protected.

[mike115]

hi belomondo, sorry for that - it should work now. most of the pics were taken on av mode - superfine resolution except for the pic of my pc table which i think was taken on auto mode with flash. save for this pic, no flash was used.
cheers
m

[Andy_T]

Mikey,

how did you resize the pictures for the web?

To me, the jagged lines look some very bad resizing algorithm.
The picture with the windows looks like it was best viewed with some red/green 3d glasses :roll:

Could you post the picture with the windows or the one with the park bench in its original size (2.500x2000 pixels) or something like that?

Let me tell you what I'd try if I were you:

- Shoot one of these pictures in RAW mode
- Convert the RAW image to TIFF in Canon ZoomBrowser
- Open the TIFF image in Photoshop LE (great program, should be included in your G5 box)
- Resize the picture in PS LE to the size you usually use for the web (1200*800 or the like)
- Apply the 'unsharp mask' or 'sharpen' filter
- Save the image as JPG file, quality=10

This should give you a significant improve in quality.
I include a link to one of the pictures of my son (from the G2) that was treated like that. Apart from a little motion blur, it does not exhibit problems like the jagged lines your photos seem to suffer from:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2543371&size=lg

Best regards,
Andy

[mike115]

hi andy, thanks for the suggestions - that is a very clean and sharp pic - i can imagine a lot of jaggies if i had taken the shot. i will work on your instructions and report back.
on resizing - i didnt change any parameters at the time i downloaded the pics thru zoombrowser. could resizing have taken place nonetheless? sorry if this is a strange question - all this is still very new to me. :?
thanks again
mike

[Andy_T]

Hi Mike,

Zoombrowser should not resize the pics when downloading, but load them in the size they were taken (RAW/large/medium/...)

Do your pics look the same on your PC (using ZoomBrowser)?
Have you tried to open them in Photoshop?

If they look different on your PC, then maybe the site you posted them to does reduce the size of the images... maybe you should try a different one. Photo.net is not bad.

Your G5 should have the following resolutions:
2592 x 1944
1600 x 1200
1024 x 768
640 x 480

Check your display, if you have selected 'L':
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong5/Images/statuslcddiag01.gif
(Display from DPReview G5 review): http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong5/

If you shoot 'large JPG' or RAW, then the resolution of the picture will be 2592 pixels by 1944 pixels.
The picture you posted has a resolution of 819x614 pixels ... that's only 0.5 Megapixels or about 10% of the information of the original image :roll:

This is an example of a picture with 4 Megpixels from the G2: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2476580&size=lg

If you click on the 'smaller' button, you'll see a photo that was resized not in PS, but by the website's algorithm ... not the optimal result.

Best regards,
Andy

[mike115]

hey andy, thanks very much for the detailed instructions - i worked on this last night and think i am getting somewhere :D will try to post pics these evening.
cheers
mike

[nitewulf]

mike, photobucket is the culprit here. the site automatically resizes photos over 200k, and their algorithm really sucks! the pictures come out completely distorted. what you should do when uploading to photobucket is, reduce the resolution of the original photo such that the file size is less than 200k, and then upload it.

ps: have fun w/ the G5, fantastic camera.