Photographing Red or Pink Flowers + Going Manual

[THOSK]

Hi,
I have a Canon 450D which I have been playing with for quite a while. I am use it mostly on AV and do want to swap to manual. I have sort of gotten the hang of changing the aperture settings depending on which bit of the subject i want in focus. However can you advise why every time i take a photo of a pink or red flower they look like i have burnt them. I have spent time at the subject and changed my iso and white balances settings through the ranges to try and make a difference but can't seem to - is there a magic trick to getting a red or pink flower to look normal.

Some of my images i have managed to resurrect with either Lightroom, Photoshop or OnOne software, but would like to be able to take a decent photo from the camera.

Second question if i switch to full manual, i am still a bit confused with the shutter speed, getting my head around the numbers - is it the longer the shutter stays open the more light in the picture. Can someone give me a very brief idea.

thanks

Trish

[Cathus]

are you able to put up a shot so we can see what you mean.

red can be quite a hard colour to capture accurately, when you say 'burnt' do you mean as in oversaturated & you are rescuing them by destaurating a bit?

does your camera have jpg settings like 'natural' 'vivid' 'black & white' etc, and does it make any difference if you change them & try a different look with less vibrance?

is it the same if you shoot in RAW, does the same image one shot with RAW & one shot with jpg both show the red as burnt?

These are a couple of things you could test

[GeoffWessex]

I think Cathus is on the right track....
the 450d has some custom settings.....
• Sharpness: 0 to 7
• Contrast: -4 to +4
• Saturation: -4 to +4
• Color tone: -4 to +4
• B&W filter: N, Ye, Or, R, G
• B&W tone: N, S, B, P, G

These are for use with Jpeg. I wonder if the Saturation has been turned up?

You could also try in Raw (which shouldn't be affected by the custom settings but will probably look, in the LCD, like they have been - the LCD gives an impression of what a Jpeg would look like, rather than the "undeveloped" Raw image).

And yes, the longer the shutter speed, the longer it's open. e.g. 1/30th is three 'stops' more than 1/250th. Which means your aperture could be three stops smaller...... think of the hose image - the bigger the hose (=aperture) the shorter time (=shutter speed) it needs to be flowing to fill a bucket.

I wouldn't worry too much about using Manual, though - it's just another way to come to the same Exposure Value because you adjust either the shutter speed or the aperture and the camera gives you the other half of the equation.

I'd stick with Av and decide how much depth of field you want with the aperture (smaller aperture the greater depth of field)..... set that on and let the camera's meter tell you how fast a shutter speed it needs. If the shutter speed is too slow to hand-hold, use a tripod, otherwise increase the aperture size (a lower f number).

Shutter Priority (Tv) isn't so commonly used unless you're determined to control the amount of movement in the shot - or lack of it..... much more the province of the sports photographer.

[THOSK]

thanks for the responses, i have put up a few of the images i had problems with that i took all as jpg's whilst in London in May 2010. I have taken raw before but was trying to conserve space on may SD cards ( i had already filled 12 x 4G ones from my trip).

I seem to manage better just using AV so will stick to that for a while, but would love to be able to sort the red/pink/orange flower issues out as i mainly photograph floral work.

thanks again

Trish

[nikorman]

Hi had a look at your pics , I had a problem like that when i had a 20d, But only when i shot jpg.What i did was set up a test bed with red blue and yellw flowers ,went in to settings and lower,d the contrast and saturation until i got it set how i thougt was correct. once set never had another problem..

[Forseti]

OK, well I'm going to throw a few other suggestions/comments into the pot.

(a) To get a 'true' representation of what an image looks like colour wise, or at least as close as is possible, it is important that you view the image(s) with a calibrated monitor. All colour managed applications such as Lightroom, Photoshop & Co use the icc profile to display the image. Here it's important to differentiate between the working space that you set in Preferences which is an entirely different thing altogether. If you use a colour managed application to view an image on an uncalibrated monitor which is using for example the manufacturers default icc profile then you're on a hiding to nothing from the word go. So, point one - ensure that your monitor is calibrated using external hardware such as the iMatch Display2 (to name but one) if not already done so.

(b) If not already installed, consider installing Canons own DPP from the CD that came with the camera. Unlike Photoshop/Lightroom which use the monitors icc profile (hopefully the now calibrated profile) by default, in DPP you need to locate and set this profile from within the application itself and do so each and every time that the monitor is calibrated. Once a month is recommended for this calibration.

(c) Compare the colour rendering (especially the reds) in both DPP and Photoshop - you might well find a considerable difference as indeed I do. This last statement applies more to raw images as ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) in both Lightroom and Photoshop use different algorithms to DPP and render raw images differently. There was quite a discussion on the Adobe forums some time back regarding ACR's inability to render correctly Canon reds and although considerable improvements have been made in this regards (in my opinion of course) it is still not up to par with Canons own DPP in this regards. Quite understandable really as Canon go to great lengths to protect the algorithms used in both their software and hardware. Although I myself predominantly use Lightroom and Photoshop, for images where accurate colour representation is an absolute priority I always revert to DPP, saving out as a TIFF for opening in Photoshop for further editing as necessary. When I refer to accurate colour representation I'm meaning commercial products e.g. Coke where the tone of red is as important as the trade mark itself and must be represented accurately in whichever market the product is advertised/sold.

(d) User settings of Av, Tv or indeed manual do NOT effect colour representation. What does affect colour representation when shooting jpeg images is how you have set the camera up. In the menu settings you should find a choice between sRGB and RGB and if you are only using a standard run-of-the-mill monitor then I would personally recommend setting this to sRGB if not so already. Your everyday monitor is not capable of displaying the full gamut of RGB and your camera manual will no doubt caution you against using RGB anyway.

(e) raw captured images do not have a colour profile attached to them in the everyday sense and this is only attached to them upon saving out to another format. You will no doubt have already noticed this from within Lightroom where when you Export an image out a choice of colour profiles are offered.

[THOSK]

thanks all - looks like i have a lot to learn on colour and profiles.