DRebel LCD screen is WRONG - why?

[klynam]

I know it's not supposed to be a color-corrected, print-quality viewing source, but the dog-gone little LCD screen on my 300D is just screwing me ALL up!!!

Basically, it shows me beautifully exposed images that - when moved to and viewed on a computer - are terribly UNDER exposed. (I notice this problem mainly when shooting with strobes.) Images that look underexposed on my LCD are almost black on my computer - while images that look totally blown out on my LCD are sometimes actually useable. I'm not doing anything unusual in the computer; just popping in my card and looking at the images.

I've tried reducing the LCD brightness but that doesn't help fix the problem. It's like the LCD is using a totally different gamma curve (or something) that really brings out highlights and midtones. I'm just now beginning to try working off the histogram. But if the histogram is showing me what the LCD is displaying, then I'm still not getting an accurate reading of the image.

Any ideas how to RELIABLY correct this other than just guessing like I have been doing? (And usually guessing wrong!)

klynam

[johnellisphotography]

I deal with the same thing on my 20D just not as bad as you describe it. I usually set my light meter to 1/3 stop under what Im actually shooting and go with it(ISO 80 if camera is at 100). Does the rebel allow you to view a histogram? That can be a good indicator of exposure. For dark backgrounds, the "hill" in the histogram is usually the skintones and I'll make sure they are in the upper half of the histogram. Sorry I cant help with identifying why your camera does that.

[HJMinard]

LCD's are - as you've learned - not at all reliable for judging exposure. An exception would be the "blinkies" - which are helpful for identifying blown out areas of the image.

On the other hand, the histogram should be completely accurate and is the tool to utilize for judging exposure.

Bottom line ... use the LCD image to judge composition and - to some degree (when zoomed in) - focus. Use the histogram for exposure.

Here (http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml) is a histogram tutorial.

[Cadwell]

Might be a daft comment but are you looking at this from the right direction? Is your computer monitor properly calibrated?

[cmM]

yea the LCD on my rebel and 20D are both a little off. The histogram, however, has nothing to do with the LCD. It's how the image is capture, it's how the image will be on your computer, the histogram will be the same.

[Jesper]

This histogram is always right. It's a graph that shows how light or dark the image is and doesn't have anything to do with how the brightness or contrast on the monitor are set - it just gives you information about the image itself.

If all your photos look too dark on your computer monitor, but the histogram looks OK in Photoshop (for example, if you took a photo of a light subject, you should see a significant amount of data on the right side of the histogram), then it must be your monitor which isn't set up correctly.

Jay already posted the link to the well-known histogram tutorial on Luminous Landscape; here's another one: http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/histograms/histograms.htm

[tim]

Like everyone's said, ignore the pic and look at the histogram. If the pic looks ok, cool, if not, oh well. I'm not sure if the 300D has a brightness control, but if it does turn it down.

[Tom W]

Might be a daft comment but are you looking at this from the right direction? Is your computer monitor properly calibrated?

I have to second this. Make sure that your monitor is isn't showing you the wrong picture.
I also second what others are saying - don't use the LCD as the final judge of an image's exposure. Use the histogram instead.

[Scottes]

I almost never look at the picture on the LCD, but often enough I look at the Histogram. Use the histogram to judge exposure.

[JZaun]

With my eyesight I can't even see the LCD with out my glasses. I can't see thru the view finder with my glasses on. So I just ignore everything after taking the shot. For action I let the 20D decide and when I shoot manual I wll compare my decision to what the camera thinks. This approach works well for me. I think the LCD only tells you yep you took a pic. I haven't figured out the histogram yet. I get good and bad pics when I thought the histogram was ok. Maybe one day I will learn but for now I shoot like I was using film. If you consistantly cannot get it right maybe RAW would be a better choice as you then have more control over the exposure.

Just my 1 cent worth :)

JZ

[PhotosGuy]

See pgs 42 & 87 of your manual: Review [On (Info)]

[mjordan]

If you are going to use the histogram, make sure you know how to interprete what it says or you will have just as bad an exposure problem with it. Although the histogram is pretty accurate based on how it views the pixels in the image, that does not mean that it's going to always be correct for how YOU want your images to look. What I have done and do every once in awhile is add in either a McBeth chart or a tri-color (black/gray/white) card to my images so I can judge where the shadow, mid-tone and highlight bars are falling based on the exposure I want.

Just like with most tools (a hammer is pretty intuitive, but if you don't use it right you are going to get bent nails and/or a smashed thumb) you have to learn how to use them first to get the most out of them.

Mike

[BDM]

OK. This is just a guess but . . .

If the histogram is OK I think your shots are OK. You are having display problems. It could be that something is not set properly. For example . . .

When I first started I was converting my raw Drebel files to 16 bit tiff for processing in Photoshop Elements 2. Unfortunately, Elements 2 could not handle 16 bit depth files . . only 8 bit. The resulting converted 16 bit tiffs were virtually black. There was nothing wrong with the camera files - - just the converted tiffs.

When I upgraded to Photoshop CS, the 16 bit tiffs worked fine. And before upgrading, I just re-converted to 8 bit tiffs and Elements 2 could handle them just fine.

You should check your setup to be sure you are viewing the images with the right bit depth, the right color space and any other possible incompatabilities. Although monitor calibration is important for final judging of color and density, I doubt it could be off enough to make your images very dark. If it was, you would have trouble viewing anything including the program interface.

So I would first carefully check to be sure you have the various parameters set right.

Bruce

[pyterps]

I just want to tell everyone that this forum is great and I am on it at least once every day.

I to was one that was only going by what the screen was telling me and get home and things were very sad once I looked at the shots.

I came across this thread and boy did it help me a lot. I went and did tons of reading and learning about what the histogram was actually telling me and now I look at it set the exposure I want from it and the pictures are just jumping off the screen at me. I could not be happier and I thank all those that took the time to respond to this thread with advise.

Again thanks,

Dave

[Chazs]

Not sure if this is anywhere remotely a possibility, but I recall last year I posted a nice looking picture (on my PC) to the net, and friend pulled it up on his Mac and said it looked completely dark. Found out the gamma setting on PC monitors is different than on Macs (I think it was the gamma settings). Are you using a Mac or PC?