What am i doing wrong

feileacan

i spent a lot of time over the weekend taking close ups (canon 100mm macro with ef25 tube using tripod) of photos.

i lot of the colour / exposure on them are completely crap, i normally set the camera (canon 5d) to aperture and use f2.8 and let the camera worry about the other settings

ive attached one of the worst ones for the kind boards members can throw up some ideas.

GristlyEnd

You are going to have a very small depth of field with an extension tube on a macro lens and f/2.8.

Did you shoot in RAW. If so what did you use for converting them to JPEG?

feileacan

shot in raw - the image is converted to a jpeg - this one had no alterations

the colours seem completely 'blown'

i use aperture on mac

5uspect

You've blown out the red channel alright.
What metering mode did you use?
The camera, I guess, meters on the luminance of the scene not the specific colour content so when you shot in Av mode the camera may have over done it.
Especially if you used a metering mode other than spot or center weighted.

feileacan

the camera has evaluative, partial, spot and centre weighted.

i always have it set on evaluative.

i will try and use spot and centre from now on

something i never thought of.

cheers

5uspect

You can always check the histogram after you shoot to make sure you've no blown out highlights. Drop the exposure compensation a bit to correct.

Fajitas!

Would agree with using the spot metering if you're using natural light, however, (and if you have a flash, and get an off camera cord) why don't you consider using off camera flash - it'll make an unbeliveable difference to your macro shots.

leakd

I don't see anything wrong with the exposure on this picture, but I think you set the white balance too low... If you set it higher, the picture will look warmer and the colours will look better (IMHO).

5uspect

Look at the individual colour channels, the red one is blown.

Duchovny

What ISO are you using? What about the light arround? was it good?

Are you trying to use manual or auto focus??

feileacan

Duchovny

ISO was 200, light was sunny but intermittent rain

the lens / tube does not allow auto-f

seems the red was blown

leakd

will try altering the white balance a little bit next time but chaning the colour temp does not seem to make a difference

thanks everyone

GristlyEnd

Did you get Canon RAW software with the camera? try that. I use Capture NX for my RAW's as the CS3 profile for the D200 is not the best.

nilhg

DarrenG wrote:

I use Capture NX for my RAW's as the CS3 profile for the D200 is not the best.

Darren just for interests sake, did you (or anyone) try the presets i posted a link to in the digital darkroom forum, they seem to have got a good reaction on the adobe forums.

GristlyEnd

nilhg wrote:

Darren just for interests sake, did you (or anyone) try the presets i posted a link to in the digital darkroom forum, they seem to have got a good reaction on the adobe forums.

Just tried it out in CS3. A bit better but still not as good as Capture NX. I don't have lightroom to try it out.

nilhg

DarrenG wrote:

Just tried it out in CS3. A bit better but still not as good as Capture NX. I don't have lightroom to try it out.

Thanks Darren, the situation is similar with Olympus, but the Oly software sucks so the profiles speedup things slightly in LR.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

haz

feileacan wrote:

i spent a lot of time over the weekend taking close ups (canon 100mm macro with ef25 tube using tripod) of photos.

When you write "close ups .. of photos", you mean you are enlarging a printed photograph using the macro lens? If so, then it could be the print that is at fault, even if it looks good. A daylight-balanced lightbox under the negative would give more dynamic range.

Duchovny

Well analysing your photo again, and comparing with one of my own i see that probably you focus the midle of the flower, and not the all flower, the flower is not all focus as we can see, and that causes the color to fade a bit... try to dont get yourself so close and dont focus one point in the picture but focus the all lot and see if it helps...

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/17830118/