Newbie question.....

Hi everyone. I am new to this forum but hope someone is going to be able to answer what may seem a basic question......

I have an EOS 400D and although the pictures I am getting are OK I have recently found that my partners Casio digital compact is taking far clearer, brighter pictures than my 400D and with far less fuss!

I tend to use the 'automatic' settings when taking photos as I admit to not being fully conversant with the capabilities of this camera.

Am I doing something wrong or is the camera possibly at fault?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Reg,
Welcome aboard !!! Sorry to say but it sounds like your partners a better photographer than you heh heh. Seriously though you will have to post an example of you photograph with all the Exif data there, for all the experts here, of which there are many, and I'm not one of them, to be able to assist you.

Thanks for your reply Ian.

I am attaching a pic taken only three weeks ago in Oberammergau. The exposure was 1/200sec, F-stop f10 and ISO 400 - if that is any help!

The colours on this pic are no where near as good as those of the same pic taken by my partner on her compact. Her pic is a much better representation of the true colours on the building whereas mine appears to be dull.

I can't find my partners pic on my computer so cant attach that one at the moment.

Thanks again for helping.

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Overall your camera did a good job, the sky is a little overexposed, telling by its colour and the building is in shade, not as easy scene to capture. Compacts have saturation and contrast high to give stronger colour out of the camera, slr's give a more faithfull picture. You can adjust that picture to look like your partners shot quite easilly i would guess without seeng the other shot.

Thats the type of shot shooting in raw format helps with, as you can develop 2 versions, 1 for the sky and one for the shaded building and blend them, that would give an even more rich shot than the compact.

Do you have a cheap filter on the lens ?

Camera looks ok though to answer your question, get it off auto

The camera is not at fault. It did the best it could with those lighting conditions. If you enable Image Editing in your profile, I'll post a 2 minute edit of your picture (in Photoshop Elements) that may be more like what you thought you saw.

I just wonder... what picture style have you set?

It might be that the Canon doesn't sharpen and saturate as much as the Casio.

Also, do you shoot RAW or JPEG? Try RAW and fiddle in DPP
And the 400D will give pretty good results on Auto - that's where I started in the DSLR world.

oldvultureface wrote in post #10514923
The camera is not at fault. It did the best it could with those lighting conditions. If you enable Image Editing in your profile, I'll post a 2 minute edit of your picture (in Photoshop Elements) that may be more like what you thought you saw.

This may sound like a stupid question but how do I enable Image Editing?

RegG wrote in post #10515015
This may sound like a stupid question but how do I enable Image Editing?

Its an option in your user profile.

Your camera seems fine, but DSLRs tend to do less processing for you than a snapshot camera, which assume that the user will not do any processing themselves and so have a fairly aggressive profile for creating the jpeg 'ready for printing'. DSLRs are aimed more at enthusiasts and so are at their best when you take control yourself. Although the xxxD bodies do have quite a bit of automation to help users transition from point and shoots to DSLRs, they still aren't as optimised for the point and shoot role as a p&s camera.

A DSLR will generally deliver a more faithful image which you can then adjust to suit yourself, in processing. The end result takes a bit more effort on your part but should be superior to anything a point and shoot will produce.

If you don't want to do your own processing, you can adjust the contrast, saturation, sharpness etc by changing picture styles (or creating a custom one to suit yourself). That should bring it more into line with the Casio. The exif suggests that you are shooting in standard style, which does very little boosting of the image and (I imagine) is aimed at giving a flatter result with little processing so that the user can process later (a more aggressive style would potentially overprocess and for a jpeg shooter would be irreversible).

I can't suggest a suitable picture style I'm afraid, as I don't use them myself (I have it set to faithful so that the camera histogram isn't thrown off by the processing, but I shoot RAW and do all my own processing later) so have no idea of which does what to the image.

However, don't expect the camera alone to be able to produce images such as the best you will see around. They are generally the result of the photographer taking control of the camera (rather than simply using auto) and then taking time to optimally process the RAW image themselves. You can get good images with auto settings and letting the camera process for you, once you set up the picture styles to suit you. However, the camera doesn't know what the subject is, or what you are trying to achieve, so will frequently disappoint by not getting things spot on for what you want.

Another aspect that may affect the clarity is the depth of field. The Casio will produce massive DoF compared to your Canon, so much more of the image will be sharp. The Canon will have a much shallower field of acceptable sharpness. This is a good thing, used properly, as it lifts the subject from the background better. However, if the focusing is off, you will get softer results. Did you choose your own focus point for this shot, or allow the camera to decide for itself where to focus (using 'all-points')? It looks like the focus has hit the large concrete flower tub, rather than the building, so the building is a little out of focus. In all-points focusing, the camera tries to focus on what it perceives to be the subject and this is generally the closest thing. If that flower tub had been a friend, it would probably have been correct as the building would have been the background.

You have a great tool there, but one that needs a little learning to get the best from it. You don't have to go fully manual, but learning how to control the focusing and exposure compensation etc in the semi-auto ('creative') modes will dramatically improve your success rate.

RegG wrote in post #10515015
This may sound like a stupid question but how do I enable Image Editing?

Not a stupid question. Upper left of this window, click on User CP. Click on Edit Profile (left panel). Third box down under Additional Information.

I felt the same way when I started. The images were just slightly not right, and I quickly realized, it was me, not the 10D. I worked with the camera and then the software and my life has really improved since. Many models of Canons and a variety of pp software later, I'm pretty happy. But it took from going from the little green box to shooting manual most of the time. The P&S cameras are great, they do their own work inside the camera. A DSLR allows the shooter to choose all the settings, if desired, even pick lenses to make life easier. What made the images much better for me was just meeting up with POTN friends who knew more than I did and were willing to work with me. I've learned more from Jon than just about any course or book. So, welcome, and stick with us. We can really help, but you have to be willing to do a lot of shooting and make more mistakes than you feel comfortable with.

If you've ever listened to a stereo, you'll be aware that you can adjust the sound. If you don't like how it sounds when you turn it on, you can do things like increase or decrease the volume and vary the tone between treble and bass.

Just as you can adjust the sound of a stereo, you can also adjust digital images. You can increase the color saturation, contrast and sharpness. The colors, sharpness and brightness of the pictures that your 400D produces are not fixed in stone.

If you look through your camera manual, you'll see that you can go into the camera menu and increase sharpness, saturation and contrast. If you increase those settings, your images will have more pop.

If you still don't like your images after you've downloaded them from the camera, you can improve them further with a decent editing program. This will allow you to further brighten and sharpen your images. Even if you choose not to shoot RAW, you can still greatly enhance JPEG images using post processing.

oldvultureface wrote in post #10515133
Not a stupid question. Upper left of this window, click on User CP. Click on Edit Profile (left panel). Third box down under Additional Information.

Thanks! I've changed the setting so look forward to seeing what you can do with the pic!

Many, many thanks to everyone who has replied to my question. It is so pleasing to join a forum and receive such a great response to my first question! I feel very encouraged to get out there and take some more photos. I do have Photoshop Elements on my computer so will have to learn how to use it!

Thank you all once again. I am sure I will be posting more questions!

I think that shot is fine. Everything is in focus. The only problem is the exposure as mentioned above. I would use center weighted metering to expose for the building. It will overexpose the sky, but you can take two photos with exposure for the sky and one for the building and merge them. Or you can reduce over exposure of the sky in Photoshop. Also you can increase constrast, individual color saturation, and sharpness in Photoshop as well.

As the light is coming from the right at 90 degrees to your position, a polarizing filter will give you better color depth.

Also, if you shoot in RAW mode, you'll have even more flexibility in all these parameters.

All these things are individually adjustable, which is the joy of an SLR and also a pain in the a#*. For me, that's the fun of using an SLR rather than a P&S.

But the bottom line is that from the EXIF data you're in good shape, and the sharpness is visibly fine. Aside from exposure, the rest is post production. The final result will blow away the images from your friend's P&S where each of the above parameters are adjusted automatically and most times never as well as you can do in Photoshop. As noted below, if you shoot JPEG, you can set sharpness, saturation etc., yourself to your own likes.

Here's a thread you may find interesting.

Here is a before and after. Point and Shoot cameras tend to do this automatically each time you take a photo.