What is causing the blown colors?

I am shooting with a Canon 30D and occasionally get photos like these that the colors
are completely blown. I shot these with a Sigma 50-500 and a Canon 28-135.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.....

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

On the flowers, I'm not sure if you've completely blown the red channel, but if you did it's probably because of white balance. And on the second, well...it's the sun. It's kind of hard not to blow out part of a frame when it includes the sun...

Are you using the RGB Histogram?

Any colour can be blown out if it is the dominant color in the image - the RGB Histogram will help immensely.

But I suspect that with our 30Ds, the red is the easiest to blow out - just a suspicion based on observing a number of new white snow shots taken a year ago - particularly when loaded into DPP.

Where did you meter the sunset? I think most meter the sky to the side or above/below the sun to better expose the surrounds - it doesn't matter if you blow out the sun, as there's no detail there anyway.

How the subject affects the exposure & why manual keeps me worry free:
Post #47

Need an exposure crutch?

Thanks....

You may be right about the reds. I will shoot some different color flowers in the same morning light and see if I get the same results.

Here is an older article aboutrestoring a clipped channel.