Couple of questions on the Canon G9 Exposure Compensation and AWB

jezzerr

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Im going to play around with my camera before i think if i should go for a dslr,This morning i took a picture of my little girl in her school uniform the picture of her came out ok but beside her was her school coat and on the sleeves it has white strips going up the arm when i took the picture i now see those white strips are now white blinding strips,I know you use the histogram but to me there was nothing i could do about the coat,Is it just one of those things that you cant control,The main picture was fine because i used the histogram.


If you dont understand what i mean ill post a picture:)

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Next Thing: For the white balance is the AWB a good setting or is it better to use the other settings like Cloudy/Day Light etc..
 
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Posting a picture will help.

The key to photography is not just learning exposure, but learning how the camera 'sees' light.

For example.

You are out on a sunny day. You have 3 cars in the car park, a white car, a black car and a grey car.
Shooting with no exposure compensation will result in the white car being under exposed, the black car being over exposed and the grey car pretty much spot on. This is because the car reads the light being reflected back from your subject, rather than the light falling on it. This can be described as a reflected light reading versus an incident light reading, where incident is the light falling on the subject. Once you know how the camera will meter a given situation then you can use exposure compensation to adjust the captured image to be correct.

The general rule of digital photography is expose to the right, which means the histogram should be a curve with more of the data in the middle to right hand section than in the middle to left.

Try reading this. Expose Right

Alistair
Canon Pro.
 
It would be a good idea to post a picture.

Are the white stripes on the coat those reflective safety stripes designed to show up in car headlight? If so there is not much that can be done if you are using flash. They act as a mirror and reflect the flash back to the camera with an intensity that often causes flare. The solution is to not use flash or make sure that the strips are not in the picture.
 
Next Thing: For the white balance is the AWB a good setting or is it better to use the other settings like Cloudy/Day Light etc..

I would use auto white balance; it normally does a good job. If you shoot in jpg and leave it on the wrong setting then you will get some very odd coloured pictures.

Better still shoot in RAW and then the white balance can be adjusted after the event. I would still leave it set to auto WB though as this will give a good starting point when you open the file in the RAW converter.
 
Agreed, Canon AWB does a pretty good job at getting it right under everything except complicated lighting, but then again, I always shoot RAW and tweak it properly after.
Where AWB often fails is indoor with flash, everything has an orange tone with the build in G9 flash. If I use my 580EX2 flash then AWB does a correct calculation via the flash.
 
Thanks about the AWB

Now to the main problem here is the picture it was taken quite quick as she hates pictures...But the histogram was telling me it was ok.

You can see what im talking about cant you,The strip on her coat is quite dull but its not in the picture.

It would be a good idea to post a picture.

Are the white stripes on the coat those reflective safety stripes designed to show up in car headlight?

No its just a normal strip

IMG_1276.jpg
 
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Yep, if those strips are reflective safety ones, they are certainly shiny and have absolutely picked up the light from the flash.

Not much you can do about this really with direct, integrated forward facing flash. I really do hate direct flash. :devil: Best thing you could do, if you do alot of indoor flash photography, is to pick up a Canon 430EX or EX2, rotate the head, bounce it up and you get a nice image that isn't obviously looking likes it flashed. :)

Anyway, your image isn't lost because I just tried the Photoshop/Elements 'burn' tool on the 2 bright white lines and the images cleans up nicely. Have a go! :)
 
Ok looks like ill have to get Photoshop and buy a flash:)But those strips Are Not Reflective Safety Ones they are actually quite dull.
 
Ok looks like ill have to get Photoshop and buy a flash:)But those strips Are Not Reflective Safety Ones they are actually quite dull.

I wouldn't say you need the full version of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements will do nicely.

I appreciate you say these are not reflective safety ones, and in normal light they may look quite dull, but they are obviously 'flash unfriendly' and something in them is causing them to flare up in the image.
Try taking a photo of the coat in daylight, with and without flash, you will see. :)

Bounced flash has many advantages, first off all the light appears more natural because it has taken on the colour of the reflected surface, you won't get red eye either and the flash within the image will appear more even, rather than the central area just looking lit.
 
Ok looks like ill have to get Photoshop and buy a flash:)But those strips Are Not Reflective Safety Ones they are actually quite dull.

Not saying you are wrong, but just to satisfy our curiosity take the coat outdoors and look it from a sort distance from your car with the headlights on. Some reflective safety strips are quite dull and appear to be grey under ambient illumination, but reflect back strongly when the angle between the light source and viewer/camera is small, as happens with on-board flash. From your picture it is quite clear the strips are reflecting more light back to the camera than, say, white material.

This is a common problem for photographic cyclists whose friends clothes seem to be covered with this stuff :smashin: :(.

Hope this helps :).
 
So sorry for doubting you my fault it is reflective:thumbsup:

Sorry in my day coats with reflective strips were bright
 

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