Canon 7D - Shadows & highlights??

I love my 7D but I am noticing that I ALWAYS have to tweek the hightlights and shadows in lightroom after taking pictures. The photos are really dull. I played with the settings yesterday to see if I could make the pictures POP to no avail. I changed the metering mode, the picture style, etc... but nothing. For some reason, I find all the pictures dull. I shoot with the Canon 70-200 F4, or the Sigma 17-50 F2.8, but nothing.. it wouldn't let me change my "highlight tone priority" for some reason. Does anyone have suggestions on what settings I should use.

Heya,

Post examples of what you think are dull and where you think you're having issues with having to push shadows or drop highlights, etc.

I shoot a 7D, and I generally expose for highlights, and lift shadows a little in post with no issue, and I don't think they're dull. I do not shoot JPG though (picture style only effects JPG by the way so if you're shooting RAW it does nothing really). I shoot RAW and do my edits in the RAW first.

We really need to see what you think is "dull" though. It may be that you're shooting in the worst light, and getting too much dynamic range, and so you get a grey mash after you drop highlights and raise shadows. Or, and this is my hunch, I'm betting that you're under-exposing all the time and so it looks dull due to lack of contrast and low exposure in general.

Here's an example of dropping highlights a touch, and lifting shadows a touch, from a RAW from the 7D:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Kfv5​KD

Assuming you are shooting RAW,not out of camera JPEGs, it sounds to me as if you need to use different default settings for you RAW converter. Most RAW conversion programs have their initial defaults set up to be very conservative, with very little pop. All it should take is setting the processing the way that YOU like it, and save that as you new set of default settings in your RAW converter. If you are using out of camera JPEGs, then you need to change your default processing settings! Usually most folks have the camera setup to produce an image with decent amounts of "pop", although again you can change it, you have different Picture Styles you can use, as well as settings for sharpness contrast etc. I have my 50D set up with Faithful as the picture style, and the four adjustable settings set of 0, -4, -4, 0. This makes for a very flat conversion, actually most people think that the Adobe default conversion is pretty flat, and complain that when the software goes from showing the camera's JPEG conversion preview, to the default Adobe version it makes the image look dull and flat. For my settings, the Adobe default, using the Adobe Standard profile actually makes the image pop compared to the OOC JPEG. So which ever way that you look at it, I would say that you need different default conversion settings, be they in your computer's RAW converter, or the one built into the camera. It is these settings, where ever you chose to apply them, that will make a difference to how the image looks, your metering mode and other non processing settings will not really make much difference. Also where are you looking at the images? On the camera screen, or your computer? The camera screen is not really very good for this sort of evaluation. If the computer, is your system correctly colour calibrated, because that and the associated use of the correct brightness/contrast settings, will make a huge difference, as will using good software that can actually work correctly with colour management systems. The default windows picture viewer is actually pretty awful, and doesn't do colour management (I think) at all.

Alan

Should I be using a flash? I have the Canon 430ii Speedlight and never really used it. I look at other pictures taken outside and most use a flash even in the sun.

The biggest difference I found to make my pictures pop was three fold

1. proper exposure
2. setting custom white balance
3. understanding light and lighting.

In order to do the above properly, you have to take the camera to 'M' ... and tell it what you want.

So it depends on how dedicated you want to be in learning to tell the camera what you want. Be aware that is is a long way down this rabbit hole, and I still haven't found the bottom yet.

I always shoot in Manual mode. I know my camera pretty well. I think I'm just comparing with what some of you post on this site and your pictures are just OUT OF THIS WORLD. I think I just need to better understand post processing.

anitaw2 wrote in post #18128785
I always shoot in Manual mode. I know my camera pretty well. I think I'm just comparing with what some of you post on this site and your pictures are just OUT OF THIS WORLD. I think I just need to better understand post processing.

Post processing is a skill set just like taking a photo......

Your primarily shooting available light. This is something you must work with and cannot control.

It's common to manipulate shadows and highlights in the post processing. In many cases if your shooting outdoors you'll blow out the background in order to have your subjects properly exposed.

In post try to set your contrast to 20, vibrance 25-35 (to taste), Sharpening amount to aprox 50 (to taste), Luminance noise reduction to aprox 30. If you go too aggressive on the NR human skin texture can go plastic with the 7d.

Your current lenses should produce very nice images.

If you incorporate flash outdoors this will fill in shadows. I use flash all of the time outdoors with my Canon gear (My fuji gear I need to buy the new OEM flash for High speed sync). This way you have two exposures to deal with. 1) available light for backgrounds. 2) Flash exposure to fill in shadows and gives a little more "pop" compared to "all natural light shooting".

As per MalVeauX and BigAl, shooting RAW is a big deal. It really gives you alot of freedom in processing.

Are you shooting RAW and post-processing?

If you could provide a raw file on dropbox or google docs, etc. we could probably help you with suggested in-camera settings, and some post processing steps. It is hard to theorize what the issue might be without a sample.

yes in Lightroom 5

how do I post a RAW picture on this forum? I've never done this.

You have to store the file online somewhere, then share the link. Dropbox and Google doc accounts are a very common method.

You can try wetransfer as well, it is pretty easy, and it will give you a link you can share here in your posts, where others can download the file. Just put your own email as your friend's email, then take the link you are emailed and bring it here.

https://www.wetransfer​.com/