Faulty Camera or Faulty Photographer?

I've uploaded some pics (link at bottom) I took today with my Canon
S2IS. Since I bought it about 3 months ago, I noticed that it would
often yield blown highlights. Anything with sun shining on it, or
anything with sky, would result in the nasty 255,255,255 areas. In order
to get any type of a landscape shot that has colour in sky and detail in
clouds, I have to lower the exposure. If I shoot on auto, it will always
result in 100% white for everything above the horizon.

I come from a mostly film background, and in pretty much identical
shots, I know from experience that I wouldn't have to worry about film
coping. I'm not sure if that is purely just from the greater latitude of
film, or if the metering systems in my film cameras are more accurate.

My previous digitals (a couple of Kodaks and a HP), were not as good as
my film cameras, but nowhere near as bad as the Canon is. With them I
could be reasonably successful in taking a photo that had sky in it.

What is the general consensus of these shots that I have uploaded - do
you think that the camera is faulty and over-exposing by a little over 2
stops? or is it just that Canon's metering system isn't as good in high
contrast scenes as what I'm used to with my other cameras? or do I just
need to learn how to use it, and shoot everything by spot metering on
the brightest object and setting AE lock/manual exposure?
The photos can be seen he
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72... vId=x757947fc
or
http://tinyurl.com/rbwr6
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

Graham Fountain wrote:
The photos can be seen he
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72... vId=x757947fc
or
http://tinyurl.com/rbwr6
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

My guess is it's not you. DPReview found the same with this camera:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons2is/page15.asp

Ways around? AE-L would be my first choice.

Graham Fountain wrote:
I've uploaded some pics (link at bottom) I took today with my Canon
S2IS. Since I bought it about 3 months ago, I noticed that it would
often yield blown highlights. Anything with sun shining on it, or
anything with sky, would result in the nasty 255,255,255 areas. In order
to get any type of a landscape shot that has colour in sky and detail in
clouds, I have to lower the exposure. If I shoot on auto, it will always
result in 100% white for everything above the horizon.

I come from a mostly film background, and in pretty much identical
shots, I know from experience that I wouldn't have to worry about film
coping. I'm not sure if that is purely just from the greater latitude of
film, or if the metering systems in my film cameras are more accurate.

My previous digitals (a couple of Kodaks and a HP), were not as good as
my film cameras, but nowhere near as bad as the Canon is. With them I
could be reasonably successful in taking a photo that had sky in it.

What is the general consensus of these shots that I have uploaded - do
you think that the camera is faulty and over-exposing by a little over 2
stops? or is it just that Canon's metering system isn't as good in high
contrast scenes as what I'm used to with my other cameras? or do I just
need to learn how to use it, and shoot everything by spot metering on
the brightest object and setting AE lock/manual exposure?
The photos can be seen he
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72... vId=x757947fc

or
http://tinyurl.com/rbwr6
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

Hi Graham...

I don't have or know your camera, so can't comment specific to it,
but it sure looks to my old eyes like you might have been using
spot metering?

Take care.

Ken

Graham Fountain wrote:
[]
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

I think it's just that you need to learn how to use the camera. In JPEG
mode, you do need to treat it like slide film and expose for the
highlights - this may mean that in subsequent processing you need to bring
up the dark areas a little (but not too much or you'll see the noise -
which looks like grain). Learn to check the shots after taking, so that
important photos are not lost. High-contrast situations like this can be
difficult, and fill-in flash can sometimes help.

Once you get used to what can be done, you may want to take images like
this in RAW mode (should your camera allow), which may allow a greater
freedom in post-processing. You can also try taking multiple exposures
(perhaps you camera allows automatic exposure bracketing) and combine the
images to maximise the dynamic range.

On my own Nikon 8400 and Panasonic FZ5 I typically have a -1/3 stop
exposure bias permanently on.

Does your Canon have a "contrast" setting? If so, try reducing it.

Cheers,
David

"Graham Fountain" wrote in message
...

I've uploaded some pics (link at bottom) I took today with my Canon S2IS.
Since I bought it about 3 months ago, I noticed that it would often yield
blown highlights. Anything with sun shining on it, or anything with sky,
would result in the nasty 255,255,255 areas. In order to get any type of a
landscape shot that has colour in sky and detail in clouds, I have to
lower the exposure. If I shoot on auto, it will always result in 100%
white for everything above the horizon.

It looks like your pics are over contrasty. Does your camera have contrast
settings? I don't know if it will let you shoot raw, but if it does you
could alter the contrast curve in your editor. I had a quick go at playing
with the contrast curve (i'm no expert with curves as I hardly ever use
them!) of the darker image and got this:

http://www.boliston.co.uk/temp/IMG_2548.jpg

not ideal, as re-editing a jpeg is always a compromise, but it does let you
see some shadow detail on the back of the truck.

Ken Weitzel wrote:
Graham Fountain wrote:

Hi Graham...

I don't have or know your camera, so can't comment specific to it,
but it sure looks to my old eyes like you might have been using
spot metering?
Nope - centre weighted average. I thought of that too. When I saw the
flashing bits on the preview I checked metering mode. Just to be
certain, Centre Weighted Average is also what the exif info says.

Take care.

Ken

Adrian Boliston wrote:
"Graham Fountain" wrote in message
...


It looks like your pics are over contrasty. Does your camera have contrast
settings? I don't know if it will let you shoot raw, but if it does you
could alter the contrast curve in your editor. I had a quick go at playing
with the contrast curve (i'm no expert with curves as I hardly ever use
them!) of the darker image and got this:

http://www.boliston.co.uk/temp/IMG_2548.jpg

not ideal, as re-editing a jpeg is always a compromise, but it does let you
see some shadow detail on the back of the truck.
Yeah it is a very contrasty scene. The bright australian sun tends to do
that to scenes. The camera only lets you adjust contrast by going into
one of the special scene modes (called my colours). Otherwise it is the
defaults all the way. I have set the colour mode to vivid, to give the
colours a little bit of punch. This doesn't affect the exposure issue
though. Having the colour mode set to normal results in a dull flat
image with blown highlights, rather than a bright colourful image with
blown highlights. It's not just this image either, it's pretty much
anything I shoot that has sunlit subjects or the sky in the shot. By
going to spot metering, pointing it at the brightest thing I can find,
and then locking the AE, I can normally get an acceptible image.
Alternatively I have had it set to -2 stops underexposure most of the time.

Noons wrote:
Graham Fountain wrote:
The photos can be seen he
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72... vId=x757947fc
or
http://tinyurl.com/rbwr6
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

My guess is it's not you. DPReview found the same with this camera:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons2is/page15.asp

Ways around? AE-L would be my first choice.
Hmmm... I must have missed that line when I looked at dpreview prior to
buying it. I've also noticed it has a couple of hot pixels, so I think I
might send it off to Canon and request a credit - I don't expect they
will give me one, I even doubt they will fix it, but I'll see what
happens. I do like it, it's quite a versatile little camera - very handy
to have something that can do reasonable quality, decent zoom, in a
compact size. This exposure issue is annoying the hell out of me though.
Almost have to leave it with -2 exposure compensation, or put it in
bracketing mode.
If I do manage to get a credit out of Canon, I'm not sure whether I'd
look at upgrading into a low-end DSLR, or to go to something else in the
compact zoom category. I know DSLR would give me the better image
quality, but I already have better image quality when I need it, from my
film SLR's. The compact zoom is great because of it's compactness and
convenience, even if I do have to take a bit of a quality hit to get that.

Graham Fountain wrote:
I've uploaded some pics (link at bottom) I took today with my Canon
S2IS. Since I bought it about 3 months ago, I noticed that it would
often yield blown highlights. Anything with sun shining on it, or
anything with sky, would result in the nasty 255,255,255 areas. In order
to get any type of a landscape shot that has colour in sky and detail in
clouds, I have to lower the exposure. If I shoot on auto, it will always
result in 100% white for everything above the horizon.

I come from a mostly film background, and in pretty much identical
shots, I know from experience that I wouldn't have to worry about film
coping. I'm not sure if that is purely just from the greater latitude of
film, or if the metering systems in my film cameras are more accurate.

My previous digitals (a couple of Kodaks and a HP), were not as good as
my film cameras, but nowhere near as bad as the Canon is. With them I
could be reasonably successful in taking a photo that had sky in it.

What is the general consensus of these shots that I have uploaded - do
you think that the camera is faulty and over-exposing by a little over 2
stops? or is it just that Canon's metering system isn't as good in high
contrast scenes as what I'm used to with my other cameras? or do I just
need to learn how to use it, and shoot everything by spot metering on
the brightest object and setting AE lock/manual exposure?
The photos can be seen he
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72... vId=x757947fc

or
http://tinyurl.com/rbwr6
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

hmmm one thing I have discovered with digital.... is that much like you
need to get the best out of some films by slight over or under exposure,
I have sometimes found it best to under expose shots (sometimes more
than slightly) to compensate for the 'clipping' of highlights. Simply
put, film does have much wider tolerance. Particularly evident when
printing films in the lab of serious under/over exposure.... there is
often enough detail to get a half way decent result.

that said.... one of those clouds with the sun behind it REALLY is
acting like a massive softbox.... it sure isn't helping.

I would be tempted to do some more tests without such an extreme....
though as reffered to in dpreview, you would tend to hope for better
performance than what you got.

one thought could be white balance... I have been playing with WB to
warm and cool shots... I have found highlights tended to blow out more
in some circumstances... What was the WB in the exif data?

kosh

David J Taylor wrote:
Graham Fountain wrote:
[]
Not the world's best photos, but they do show pretty well what the
camera is doing.

I think it's just that you need to learn how to use the camera. In JPEG
mode, you do need to treat it like slide film and expose for the
highlights - this may mean that in subsequent processing you need to bring
up the dark areas a little (but not too much or you'll see the noise -
Funny thing is, I find it easier to keep slide film acceptibly exposed
than I do on this thing. Perhaps it is just getting to know the camera,
but I can load slide into any of my film cameras, and 99% of the time
when the meter says exposure is correct, exposure will be correct or
very very close to it (they all have centre weighted average). I can
easily read which shots are likely to need a bit of a twiddle on
exposure and do so.
On this Canon though, it's almost everything that needs an exposure
change. The auto exposure seems to hardly ever get it even close to right.
which looks like grain). Learn to check the shots after taking, so that
important photos are not lost. High-contrast situations like this can be
difficult, and fill-in flash can sometimes help.


Once you get used to what can be done, you may want to take images like
this in RAW mode (should your camera allow), which may allow a greater
unfortunately, the S2IS won't do raw.
freedom in post-processing. You can also try taking multiple exposures
(perhaps you camera allows automatic exposure bracketing) and combine the
images to maximise the dynamic range.
seems a lot of work to get a result I can achieve by pointing and
shooting on any other of my cameras. If I was to take a typical sunlit
scene, put sky in the top third, the canon will give me a white sky
every single time. Drop by 1 stop and I get a washed out sky, drop by 2
stops and it is almost acceptible (cloud detail is still blown). Even my
old Kodak digital and HP Digital would do better than that - the sky
would be a little washed out, but not blown.

On my own Nikon 8400 and Panasonic FZ5 I typically have a -1/3 stop
exposure bias permanently on.
i've pretty much been using it with -2 stop. I have to reset it though
every time I change from P to Tv to Av to M etc.

Does your Canon have a "contrast" setting? If so, try reducing it.
Actually I just discovered another spot where contrast can be set. I had
previously thought it was only available in "My Colours" mode, which
allows you to tweak contrast and colour balance, but nothing else (not
even exposure compensation). I did just find where I can tweak it in
other modes. It won't allow contrast adjustment in Black and White mode
though. I'll give that a try in the morning and see if it makes any effect.

Cheers,
David