Problem with pictures

[ceddy1031]

Hi all,

I am new to this forum, got some question hope someone can help me.   I have the canon 20d with the STOCK lens and just bought the 580ex flash.    I sometimes take indoor pictures and notice that the built in flash is not strong enough,  thats why I had the 580ex , hope it makes the result better.   But when I took this pictures couple days ago,  I had the flash aim 45 degree up towards to the ceiling, and  as you can see my parents face look dark and red.   Also the background wall shows very red.   Is there a problem with my flash? or my lens?    I was using the  "P" mode on the camera.
If i change the parameter to (1), would that help?    

Please help me.   My parents will be back to Hong Kong in 2 months.   Since I haven't seen them almost 4 years, they came visit me and my new born daughter.  I really want to have better pictures for memories.

I also planning to get a better lens.   But not sure what to get.  My friend told me to get the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM    or  EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM   due to my hand can't hold the camera tight, with the IS will help me a lot i believe.  

I don't know why the pictures came out not too clear, it looks like a thin fog covers it.   It doesn't look sharp at all.    If I get those lens, will it correct the problem?

Here are the pictures.



This one i had the flash point up to the ceiling, but it seems too bright.


And the last picture was using just the built in flash from the 20D.  It was bad.



Samy's camera is having special,  most of the things no SALES TAX.

[David White]

Are you shooting RAW or Jpeg?  What color is the ceiling?

[Raw shooter]

Your doing fine.  Flash photography is different than shooting outdoors.  Your images are, on the most part, just underexposed.  You can either learn to expose the images better - by using the histogram as an exposure guide on the LCD screen on the back of the camera - during image capture.  Thre P mode is nice for outdoor or snapshots, but indoors you may get better results using the A mode- or aperture priority (where your dial will change f/stops). Also, you will find the tint is better if you change the White Balance to flash in the camera menu.

One simple solution for exposure control indoors, use low number f/stops to brighten images and higher f/stops to darken images.  In other words, if you image is too dark, change the f/stop to a lower number - take the picture again, but this time it will be brighter.

Another solution is to correct the images in Adobe Photoshop.  You can correct underexposures and make a poor image seem almost perfect.  It is much better to capture the image properly exposed, but Photoshop is truly a digital photographers best friend!  We all make mistakes during capture.

Best of luck

[pobrien3]

Jo san, Ceddy, I agree entirely with what Raw shooter said.  If you look at the histogram for the images, they're underexposed with blocked up blacks.  Bouncing the flash also appears to have picked up a colour from your ceiling - the white balance seems very warm in all your pictures.  If you shoot RAW then you can adjust the white balance easily, but in JPEG you can still do it through a curve layer in Photoshop.  The Photoshop shadow/highlight tool is great at lifting blocked shadows.

The lens and camera are not faulty so buying a new lens won't correct this, this is simply an exposure issue.  After taking each shot have a look at the exposure histogram.  You can quickly see if there was enough exposure and dial in exposure compensation for a second shot.

For bouncing flash, take a look at this solution - it's a new variant on an old trick, and really works!

Congratulations on your beautiful daughter!

[ceddy1031]

Are you shooting RAW or Jpeg?  What color is the ceiling?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=76531\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply.  I was shooting with jpeg.   The color of the ceiling is like off white.

Regards
Cedric

[ceddy1031]

Your doing fine.  Flash photography is different than shooting outdoors.  Your images are, on the most part, just underexposed.  You can either learn to expose the images better - by using the histogram as an exposure guide on the LCD screen on the back of the camera - during image capture.  Thre P mode is nice for outdoor or snapshots, but indoors you may get better results using the A mode- or aperture priority (where your dial will change f/stops). Also, you will find the tint is better if you change the White Balance to flash in the camera menu.

One simple solution for exposure control indoors, use low number f/stops to brighten images and higher f/stops to darken images.  In other words, if you image is too dark, change the f/stop to a lower number - take the picture again, but this time it will be brighter.

Another solution is to correct the images in Adobe Photoshop.  You can correct underexposures and make a poor image seem almost perfect.  It is much better to capture the image properly exposed, but Photoshop is truly a digital photographers best friend!  We all make mistakes during capture.

Best of luck
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=76535\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi Raw Shooter,

To check if images are underexposed, so I might need to take the same shot twice.  after the first one I need to check the historgram.   Sometimes I get confused with the creatve zones mode.  Should I use "P" all the time when shooting landscape or portraits outdoor like under the sunny day.   With indoor, I should use "AV" mode?  I don't see the Canon 20D has the "A" mode.  

I have a question though, with my last Canon Rebel, i notice the picture quality came out little sharp on its own.  Is that factory pre-configed?  

I shot this fish picture using the rebel long time ago.


PS:  Does every professional digital photographer do touch up using photoshop?

[ARD]

Nice lizard shot there.

Yes, theres always a bit to do in photoshop, even if it is just cropping.

Your photos are good, but as mentioned earlier, just a little under exposed.

I have attached one of your shots that I altered in photoshop.

If you still can't get it right, take you photos in RAW. Then I'm sure one of us will help you alter them to bring out the best.

[ceddy1031]

Nice lizard shot there.

Yes, theres always a bit to do in photoshop, even if it is just cropping.

Your photos are good, but as mentioned earlier, just a little under exposed.

I have attached one of your shots that I altered in photoshop.

If you still can't get it right, take you photos in RAW. Then I'm sure one of us will help you alter them to bring out the best.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=76604\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi ARD,

You guys are the best !!!!    I will do that.  

Regards
Cedric

[pobrien3]

Ceddy, images from digital SLR cameras are artificially ‘soft’ due to the camera’s anti-aliasing (AA) filter mounted in front of the image sensor.  The filter is there to eliminate false colours and moire, but it also softens image detail. If you shoot jpeg then there is in-camera sharpening performed to counter this effect, but you will get better results from shooting RAW and performing sharpening in Photoshop.  If you shoot RAW, you can also adjust the white balance more easily.

Think of the digital image on your CF card as the negative, and you 'develop' it in Photoshop.  All serious digital photographers use photoshop.  May I suggest you concentrate on learning how to check your exposure using the camera's histogram, and use the exposure compensation dial on the rear of your camera to make any necessary adjustments to take a second shot if the first is inaccurate.

On this site there are articles to help you. Determining Exposure, Expose (to the) Right, and there was a discussion about under-exposure with the 20D and flash here.

I would also seriously consider moving away from using 'P' mode for everything.  The 'Av' mode suggested by Rawshooter is aperture priority, and when used with flash the camera will try to balance the shutter, aperture and flash duration to expose the entire scene, avoiding the 'deer in the headlights' look of on-camera flash.  Av mode allows you to fix the aperture and so control depth of focus, and the camera will automatically set the shutter speed.  Tv mode will permit you to fix the shutter speed whilst the camera will alter the aperture.  P just lets the camera do everything, which often works OK but you get no creative control of the picture.

Mastering the histogram is the key to exposure - this for me is one of the greatest digital advantages and you should aim for it to become second nature to you.

Take a trip to 298 Hennesy Road or Mongkok this afternoon and get yourself a copy of Photoshop CS2 - it's very well worth it!

[llama]

Hi Ceddy,

My approach with the 20D and the 580EX is to put the camera in Manual (M) mode, set the aperture to something like 4.0 - 6.3 (will affect how bright the background is), set a shutter around 1/50 - 1/80, and put turn the flash on and ensure it is in "High-Speed Sync" mode (little H with lightnight bolt on the flash's display).  90% of the time, the results are great.

Also, when bouncing, ensure that the angle of the head will put the light where it needs to be.  For example, if you're very close to the subject and the head is at 45 degrees, most the light will fall behind the subject.  In such a situation, it would be better to point straight up and maybe pull out the little white plastic to put some light directly in the subject's eyes.

Again, checking the histogram remains useful, but if you use the approach I'm using above (manual mode), increase exposure using the flash exposure compensation setting.

I'm less experienced than others here, so I defer to them if they think I'm nuts, but this works well for me.

Good luck!

[Yakim Peled]

Flash photography is not easy. Read the manual and the EOS flash bible. Then experiment. A lot.

See

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

And especially

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/i....html#confusion

It helped me. It will probably help you too.

[Ben Rubinstein]

As a wedding photographer I shoot almost exclusively with flash. Your problem here is that the canon system is very sensitive to whites in the picture (though less so than Nikon suprisingly). The camera is reading the scene as a 2D picture, it does not know that the white walls are behind the subject, as far as it is concerned they are on the same plane. Therefore is is underexposing. To give you some idea even the white shirt in the picture with it cropped in tight would need a +1/3 of exposure to compensate for the white. Those wide expanses of white wall would need a +1 in my experience or maybe even more.

I've never had good results using the flash at 45 degrees, you would be far better pointing it straight up and using the white bounce card. Although canon advises against it I strongly suggest using the built in diffuser over the flash when using the bounce card as otherwise not enough light is thrown back at the bounce card for it to work properly giving some strange shadows on faces.

The reason why you are seeing the colour shift is due to the fact that the more you underexpose the more the camera is only seeing the ambient, not flash, light. However the camera knows it is using a flash so the colour is set more for flash than for the ambient light colour. Hence the colour shift. Mixing flash and ambient light can be tricky for colour anyway which is why it might be an idea to try shooting in RAW where you have far more control over the final colour and tone of the image.

p.s. the reason why the third photo is well exposed (I don't think it's overexposed, it may be the glare on the glasses and the effect of undiffused flash that gives you that impression) is because there is far less white, but more importantly, there is a lot of black which balances it out perfectly. The photos look sharp to me, I think the underexposure is fooling you there a bit.

[ceddy1031]

As a wedding photographer I shoot almost exclusively with flash. Your problem here is that the canon system is very sensitive to whites in the picture (though less so than Nikon suprisingly). The camera is reading the scene as a 2D picture, it does not know that the white walls are behind the subject, as far as it is concerned they are on the same plane. Therefore is is underexposing. To give you some idea even the white shirt in the picture with it cropped in tight would need a +1/3 of exposure to compensate for the white. Those wide expanses of white wall would need a +1 in my experience or maybe even more.

I've never had good results using the flash at 45 degrees, you would be far better pointing it straight up and using the white bounce card. Although canon advises against it I strongly suggest using the built in diffuser over the flash when using the bounce card as otherwise not enough light is thrown back at the bounce card for it to work properly giving some strange shadows on faces.

The reason why you are seeing the colour shift is due to the fact that the more you underexpose the more the camera is only seeing the ambient, not flash, light. However the camera knows it is using a flash so the colour is set more for flash than for the ambient light colour. Hence the colour shift. Mixing flash and ambient light can be tricky for colour anyway which is why it might be an idea to try shooting in RAW where you have far more control over the final colour and tone of the image.

p.s. the reason why the third photo is well exposed (I don't think it's overexposed, it may be the glare on the glasses and the effect of undiffused flash that gives you that impression) is because there is far less white, but more importantly, there is a lot of black which balances it out perfectly. The photos look sharp to me, I think the underexposure is fooling you there a bit.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the info.     What program you recommend for editing raw images.
Is PhaseOne C1 good program?

I was reading the digital camera magazine the other day and saw this ad.  [a href=\"http://www.kubotaimagetools.com/]http://www.kubotaimagetools.com/[/url]
Have you ever used that.  Some of the effects look quite amzaing.

[ARD]

Thanks for the info.     What program you recommend for editing raw images.
Is PhaseOne C1 good program?

I was reading the digital camera magazine the other day and saw this ad.  http://www.kubotaimagetools.com/
Have you ever used that.  Some of the effects look quite amzaing.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Try this, it's free and a very good program for RAW editing

[a href=\"http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter_essentials.asp]http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter_essentials.asp[/url]

[HamSammich]

Okay. Overdone a little bit for effect, but here's my exagerated version to illustrate how easy it is to get rid of the dull-scrim-fog.


1) Do NOT, repeat NOT, repeat NOT go searching for another raw covertor/editor/gadget/gizmo! That's not the problem. Focus on the basics.

          a) Check your histogram in your editing app. There was a mile of empty space on the right. use Levels in Photoshop to slide the endpoint back 'til it's barely touching the data. That brightened the highs.

           Adjust middle triangele slightly to bring up the midtones.

   
          c) Do some slight capture sharpening-- Unsharp Mask 300/.3/0. If skin texture gets exagerated, bump up the threshold to 300/.3/5,6,7,8 to taste.

         
          d) Use the old trick for increasing local contrast-- High Radius/Low Amount Unsharp Mask-- Try about 15/60/0 for starters. OR


          e) Apply a gently S-curve to boost contrast. OR



          f) Expose slightly more and use a bounce-flash and wind up needing less a-e.


Good luck. Do NOT spend the rest of your days searching for a magic software or hardware tool to fix this. You have all the hardware and software you need.

       



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[HamSammich]

Here's another.[attachment=1005:attachment]