Canon A520 effects settings

Dave Cohen wrote:
"salgud" wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a Canon A520. I like the camera a lot. I'm still learning
about digital photography, it's very, very different than shooting
film.
One question I thought someone here might be able to help me with. The
camera has a menu item called "Effects" which includes sepia and b&w.
Those are simple. What I'm more curious about is the color effects,
like "vivid" and "neutral". I prefer that the camera not do any
"enhancing" of my pix. I want what was there, as close as a $200 p&s
can give me. One of the main reasons I chose the A520 was because most
reviews said it did little in-camera image modification, and when I
examined it's pix alongside others I was considering, the colors seemed
truer (contrasted with the Nikons and others).
I've already taken some test shots, but they didn't reveal much to my
inexperienced eye. I'm going to take some more test shots, taking the
same pic with just this setting changed.
Any feedback from others familiar with this camera would be welcome!

These settings seem to be common to canon cameras. The only one I've used is
vivid. This causes a subtle but noticeable difference in color intensive
shots such as flowers, fall foliage etc., by making colors well 'more vivid'
for want of a better explanation.
I suspect any of these affects as well as others can be accomplished in a
full featured photo editor, but not all consumers do post editing (bear in
mind only a very small percentage of purchasers of this class of camera will
be reading ng's). Whether those same people will take the time to
investigate these settings is anyone's guess.
Dave Cohen

Thanks for the reply. I figured "vivid" meant "vivid". What I am
wondering is would "neutral" reduce the amount of in-camera enhancement
of the image? I want my pix to be a natural as possible, don't want
some techie at Canon deciding how blue my blues should be. (Obviously,
to some degree, they do, no matter what I want. They design the
camera.)
Does anyone have any experience with these features on the A520 or any
other p&s Canon?

salgud wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I figured "vivid" meant "vivid". What I am
wondering is would "neutral" reduce the amount of in-camera enhancement
of the image?

It's just a difference in the in-camera color saturation value. Some
other cameras (A95/A610) allow you to adjust color saturation manually,
but the A520 only allows three settings.

I want my pix to be a natural as possible, don't want
some techie at Canon deciding how blue my blues should be.

There has to be some default value for color saturation: vivid and
natural just select different values. I don't think it's very important
since you can always change the color saturation in photoshop.
Personally, I prefer the default.


-Mike

none wrote:
It's just a difference in the in-camera color saturation value. Some
other cameras (A95/A610) allow you to adjust color saturation manually,
but the A520 only allows three settings.

Oops...I made a minor mistake. In the Canon manual, it says that
vivid/neutral affect the contrast value as well as the color saturation
value.

-Mike

none wrote:
none wrote:
It's just a difference in the in-camera color saturation value. Some
other cameras (A95/A610) allow you to adjust color saturation manually,
but the A520 only allows three settings.

Oops...I made a minor mistake. In the Canon manual, it says that
vivid/neutral affect the contrast value as well as the color saturation
value.

-Mike

Thanks for your replies, Mike. Do you have any idea how I could test
this feature so the difference would be easily seen? Take pix of
colorful objects in bright sun? Pastel objects by flash? Inside a
garbage can lit by a blueberry scented candle while my dog howls? Any
suggestions?

salgud wrote:
Thanks for your replies, Mike. Do you have any idea how I could test
this feature so the difference would be easily seen? Take pix of
colorful objects in bright sun?

I am not an expert, but maybe try taking a picture with a gray scale
card and a color control patch card? You should probably use the custom
white balance function with this, so it will not matter what kind of
light you use.

Your local photo shop should have these cards. The only problem is that
they are insanely expensive (around $15 each IIRC).

-Mike

none wrote:
salgud wrote:
Thanks for your replies, Mike. Do you have any idea how I could test
this feature so the difference would be easily seen? Take pix of
colorful objects in bright sun?

I am not an expert, but maybe try taking a picture with a gray scale
card and a color control patch card? You should probably use the custom
white balance function with this, so it will not matter what kind of
light you use.

Your local photo shop should have these cards. The only problem is that
they are insanely expensive (around $15 each IIRC).

-Mike

Thanks for the quick reply.
Will check with my son first, he's a professional photographer, might
have one or know where I can borrow one.

salgud wrote:
Will check with my son first, he's a professional photographer, might
have one or know where I can borrow one.

Cool. If you get any good tips for testing the various functions, please
let us know!

-Mike