out door pics seem too bright 7D

Both pics look fine on my calibrated monitor. One is certainly warmer than the other but neither seem overexposed.

The camera is fine, but if you like to boost saturation and contrast in post processing, then it would be better to shoot RAW rather than JPG images.

Alternatively, you could shoot JPG images and modify one of the built-in camera shooting styles to give you the high saturation and contrast in your images directly out of the camera. As a starting point, try the Landscape style and increase the saturation and contrast to suit your taste.

The original unedited pic looks pretty good on my monitor.

Yes, I think some of the problem would be solved by properly calibrating your computer monitor. You also might want to evaluate with prints, rather than on the monitor... however that brings in yet another level of calibration for the printer, inks and paper being used.

I don't know how much photographic experience the OP has, so please forgive me if you are aware of some of the following....

The 7D has a pretty impressive metering system. I find it quite good... for a meteing system of its type. But, often the best thing to do is simply take control and not leave it up to the automation of the camera. In the examples shown, you actually don't need to use the camera's meter at all...

You could set the exposure by eye. The Sunny 16 rule could be used to arrive at an exposure within half or third of a stop of correct. There are some high clouds, which might mean opening up the aperture 1/3 stop or slowing the shutter an equivalent amount. "Sunny 16" simply says that on a typical sunny day the nominally correct exposure parameters will always be f16 aperture and a shutter speed set at the reciprocal of the ISO you are using. So, if you are using ISO 400, use 1/400 shutter speed, for example.

Now, since in the first example you are obviously choosing to us a larger aperture for shallower depth of field, you might need to vary those settings. Change f16 to f11 (twice as much exposure) and use 1/800... with ISO 400 the exposure remains the same. f8 and 1/1600 would work, too. So would f5.6 and 1/3200. Or maybe you feel those shutter speeds are getting too high and would want to drop ISO to 200, then f5.6 and 1/1600 would be the other settings. At ISO 100, use f5.6 and 1/800. All of these give the same amount of exposure, equal to Sunny 16, but vary one or more of the three settings to achieve other purposes (such as shallow DOF).

Over time you can learn to select settings by eye. It's really not hard. But initially it might be helpful to write up some simple cheat cards for reference and carry those around with you as you learn to set exposure by eye.

It is more difficult to set exposure by eye in more extreme situations, such as very early or late in the day, or indoors in ambient lighting, or under really heavy clouds/in deep shade.

Alternatively, for more consistently accurate exposures, get an incidence light meter such as this or this.

The beauty of the incidence meter is that it measures the light falling onto your subject, instead of what's reflected. The intensity of the light falling onto the subject is often much more consistent, so you don't need to vary it a lot in many situations. Just set the camera to M and choose your ISO, then set the aperture and shutter per the meter and start shooting. So long as the lighting doesn't change, every single shot is exposed exactly the same.

Another nice feature of many incidence meters, including the two examples shown, is that they are also flash meters. You can use them to set up manual flash and studio strobes with a high degree of accuracy. Most meters of this type read out in 1/10 stop increments, although some can also be set to read in 1/3 or 1/2 stop to match your camera, if you prefer.

The reason it's good to know how to set with "Sunny 16" or by eye, or to use a separate incidence meter is because the meter in your camera uses a reflective type sensor. That means it measures the light bouncing off of - reflected off of - the subject. So the colors and tonality of the subject itself will influence the meter's reading. This can skew the camera's exposure... a lot! That's why many cameras have a means of Exposure Compensation, so that you can adjust it by eye, based upon your visual evaluation of the subject.

Do a simple test to see how much using the camera's internal meter can vary the exposure. Go outside, set the camera to any auto exposure mode (Green Box, P, Av, Tv are all auto modes... Only M and B are not.) Hold the camera to your eye and pan around while holding the shutter release button half pressed. Dip the camera down a little to include more of the foreground, and up a little to include more sky. Pan across a variety of subjects, such as in a parking lot. All the while, watch the exposure settings the camera's metering system is selecting.

What you will see is wide variation, full stops and more. Now, there are times when this is good and necessary, such as when photographing a moving subject that's going in and out of shadows or rapidly moving from one level of light to another. However, if the lighting is steady and your goal is accurate exposure, this is not a good thing. You either need to learn to dial in correction for the camera's meter, or take the camera out of auto exposure mode and use other methods of determining exposure settings.

Also learn to use the histogram to evaluate exposure. In all but the most extreme situations, if you have a curve that's reaching but not exceeding either the right or left side of the histogram, you are getting a good exposure. Even steady light outside gradually changes during the course of a day. The histogram can be used occasionally to check and tweak exposure a little, as needed. (Note: don't trust the image review for this... only the histogram. Image review is influenced too much by ambient light.)

You also can learn to work with the camera's internal meter, if you prefer. That's good to know, too, in some situations but just too involved to try to cover here. I highly recommend the book"Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peternson.

All very good suggestions and I thank you all for that.
My monitors are not calibrated, and I don’t have a color printer. I have sent a few pics to the local printer and they seemed to come out fine.

This is my first "big" step up into the dslr realm, and with around 5000 pictures taken now, I am getting more of a feel for the camera.

I came across this:

Arizona has a variety of landscapes to choose from when you are visiting. The one common factor is our unusual light. If you are from back east, or up north you are not used to the incredible contrast your photographic scenes will have. Our light is so bright, color saturation can be washed out without the use of a good uv or a polarizing filter. Always use your lens hood.

I don't have a UV or Polarizing filter, I think I will be trying them soon.

bk2life wrote in post #11422984
I came across this:

Arizona has a variety of landscapes to choose from when you are visiting. The one common factor is our unusual light. If you are from back east, or up north you are not used to the incredible contrast your photographic scenes will have. Our light is so bright, color saturation can be washed out without the use of a good uv or a polarizing filter. Always use your lens hood.

I don't have a UV or Polarizing filter, I think I will be trying them soon.

To get the most "bang for the buck," go with a good circular polarizing filter - it will be far more useful than a UV filter.

bk2life wrote in post #11422984
I came across this:

Arizona has a variety of landscapes to choose from when you are visiting. The one common factor is our unusual light. If you are from back east, or up north you are not used to the incredible contrast your photographic scenes will have. Our light is so bright, color saturation can be washed out without the use of a good uv or a polarizing filter. Always use your lens hood.

I don't have a UV or Polarizing filter, I think I will be trying them soon.

UV filter does nothing for DSLRs, UV doesn't affect them. I also wouldn't buy gear just because some random website says to, until you know why you need it, you don't need it.

On a side note, if the photos look too bright, it could just be your monitor is too bright, it is very common for monitors to be too bright.

bk2life wrote in post #11422984
.... Our light is so bright, color saturation can be washed out without the use of a good uv or a polarizing filter.

This part of the advice is greatly exaggerated. It is the same sun that we have in Texas and setting the exposure will take care of most things that you encounter.

A UV filter will do essentially nothing other than protect the objective lens from getting dirty from Arizona road dust and sand. It does help to reduce the level of UV radiation which is a contrast killer, but the objective lens does a good job of filtering the UV. It is funny that the article talks about the extreme contrast being a problem and then recommends a UV filter to increase contrast. However, I do keep UV filters on all of my lenses just to protect them from being scratched or getting dirty and no other reason.

As far as using a circular polarizing filter is concerned, they have limited usefulness. Their main advantage is to help darken the sky, BUT a circular polarizer will only be very useful for darkening the sky if shooting in a generally northerly or southerly direction during mid morning or mid to late afternoon landscape shots. At high noon, you might not see much difference with the polarizer other than an overall slight darkening of the image. For darkening the sky and dealing with reflections, a regular polarizing filter works far better than a circular polarizer, BUT they are not always compatible with the metering system (and possibly AF) of DSLR cameras.

BTW, the polarizer also contributes to making shadows darker, so another faux pas by the author of the article. Having these two filters in your arsenal is good, but the author apparently doesn't understand the real reasons why.

I went back and revisited this thread I started 4 years ago. My first POTN thread! I have learned so much from this website, and continue to learn every day.
Thank you POTN

arhaha wrote in post #17031027
Any ideas or things to try would be greatly appreciated.
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