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I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount of
contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of grey.
The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are in the
sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does not seem to
be a range of shades.
My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.

Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in the
camera to overcome this problem?

Regards Brian

Brian wrote:
> I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
> I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount of
> contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of grey.
> The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are in the
> sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does not seem to
> be a range of shades.
> My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.
>
> Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in the
> camera to overcome this problem?
>
> Regards Brian

Check your manual and look up "exposure compenasation."
It sounds to me like you may have inadvertently set the exposure to "+2" or
so.
This would mean that you are over-exposing your shots without meaning to.

Look at the LCD display and see if the little scale that goes from
(about) -2 - - - 0 - - - +2 has a little black blob beneath a space on the
plus side.

The other possibility is that you've got it on a very high ISO setting
without realizing it.
This would mean that even after your camera choosing a very high shutter
speed, it was/is still getting more light than it needs. Check ISO.

Finally, if neither of those two are teh culprit, check in your shots to see
if the center portion of the frame has a darkish subject. If so, they it is
fooling your camera's meter into thinking it needs to brighten the scene by
cranking up exposure. -Leads to over exposure.

Bottom line is:
Your camera is capable of fantastic tonal range, far exceeding that of just
about any point-and-shoot, Canon or otherwise. Unless it is defective
(which is unlikely, but possible), there is an adjustment you need to make.

-Mark

"Mark²" <mjmorgan(lowest even number here)@cox..net> wrote:

>Brian wrote:
>> I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
>> I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount of
>> contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of grey.
>> The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are in the
>> sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does not seem to
>> be a range of shades.
>> My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.
>>
>> Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in the
>> camera to overcome this problem?
>>
>> Regards Brian
>
>Check your manual and look up "exposure compenasation."
>It sounds to me like you may have inadvertently set the exposure to "+2" or
>so.
>This would mean that you are over-exposing your shots without meaning to.
>
>Look at the LCD display and see if the little scale that goes from
>(about) -2 - - - 0 - - - +2 has a little black blob beneath a space on the
>plus side.
>
>The other possibility is that you've got it on a very high ISO setting
>without realizing it.
>This would mean that even after your camera choosing a very high shutter
>speed, it was/is still getting more light than it needs. Check ISO.
>
>Finally, if neither of those two are teh culprit, check in your shots to see
>if the center portion of the frame has a darkish subject. If so, they it is
>fooling your camera's meter into thinking it needs to brighten the scene by
>cranking up exposure. -Leads to over exposure.
>
>Bottom line is:
>Your camera is capable of fantastic tonal range, far exceeding that of just
>about any point-and-shoot, Canon or otherwise. Unless it is defective
>(which is unlikely, but possible), there is an adjustment you need to make.
>
>-Mark
>
Thanks for your advice Mark,

I seem to have this contrast problem when taking photos outside when
there's plenty of light.

I was photographing a parade on a overcast day. I set the camera to
200 ISO and I had a fixed shutter speed of 250 as there was movement
in the parade.
I checked the scale as you suggested and the marker is at 0 (in the
center).
As the camera has three different types of metering modes (Evaluative,
Partial and Centerweighted average) what would be a good metering mode
to use to try and overcome the contrast problem?

Regards Brian

"Brian" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
> I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount of
> contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of grey.
> The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are in the
> sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does not seem to
> be a range of shades.
> My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.
>
> Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in the
> camera to overcome this problem?
>
> Regards Brian

Hi Brian!

If the 300D is like the 350D, there is a menu called "Parameters". These
allow to take photos with more or less sharpness, saturation or colour tone.
For each of the preceding, there is a scale of 5 levels, two being under the
average and two above. Perhaps on one of these, the contrast is 2 above...

Just an idea.

Marcel

Brian wrote:
> "Mark²" <mjmorgan(lowest even number here)@cox..net> wrote:
>
>> Brian wrote:
>>> I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
>>> I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount
>>> of contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of
>>> grey. The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are
>>> in the sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does
>>> not seem to be a range of shades.
>>> My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.
>>>
>>> Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in
>>> the camera to overcome this problem?
>>>
>>> Regards Brian
>>
>> Check your manual and look up "exposure compenasation."
>> It sounds to me like you may have inadvertently set the exposure to
>> "+2" or so.
>> This would mean that you are over-exposing your shots without
>> meaning to.
>>
>> Look at the LCD display and see if the little scale that goes from
>> (about) -2 - - - 0 - - - +2 has a little black blob beneath a space
>> on the plus side.
>>
>> The other possibility is that you've got it on a very high ISO
>> setting without realizing it.
>> This would mean that even after your camera choosing a very high
>> shutter speed, it was/is still getting more light than it needs.
>> Check ISO.
>>
>> Finally, if neither of those two are teh culprit, check in your
>> shots to see if the center portion of the frame has a darkish
>> subject. If so, they it is fooling your camera's meter into
>> thinking it needs to brighten the scene by cranking up exposure.
>> -Leads to over exposure.
>>
>> Bottom line is:
>> Your camera is capable of fantastic tonal range, far exceeding that
>> of just about any point-and-shoot, Canon or otherwise. Unless it is
>> defective (which is unlikely, but possible), there is an adjustment
>> you need to make.
>>
>> -Mark
>>
> Thanks for your advice Mark,
>
> I seem to have this contrast problem when taking photos outside when
> there's plenty of light.
>
> I was photographing a parade on a overcast day. I set the camera to
> 200 ISO and I had a fixed shutter speed of 250 as there was movement
> in the parade.
> I checked the scale as you suggested and the marker is at 0 (in the
> center).
> As the camera has three different types of metering modes (Evaluative,
> Partial and Centerweighted average) what would be a good metering mode
> to use to try and overcome the contrast problem?
>
> Regards Brian

Put it back on 100 ISO.
Overcast days aren't nearly dark enough to require 200 ISO.
What you are describing as a "contrast problem" still sounds more like
over-exposure.

"Celcius" <> wrote:

>
>"Brian" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> I recently brought a Canon 300D digital camera.
>> I noticed that my photos takenh with this camera have a high amount of
>> contrast. If I hoto of a house then the road is white instead of grey.
>> The sky is white and not slightly dark when dark clouds are in the
>> sky. The shaded part of a brush will be black. There does not seem to
>> be a range of shades.
>> My cheaper digital camera (Olympus C900) does not have thos problem.
>>
>> Could this be a fault in my Canon camera or is there a setting in the
>> camera to overcome this problem?
>>
>> Regards Brian
>
>Hi Brian!
>
>If the 300D is like the 350D, there is a menu called "Parameters". These
>allow to take photos with more or less sharpness, saturation or colour tone.
>For each of the preceding, there is a scale of 5 levels, two being under the
>average and two above. Perhaps on one of these, the contrast is 2 above...
>
>Just an idea.
>
>Marcel
>
Thanks Marcel,
those three parameters are all set to +1
at the moment. I might try changing the setting to 0 or -1.

Regards Brian

"Mark²" <mjmorgan(lowest even number here)@cox..net> wrote:

<snip>

>> Thanks for your advice Mark,
>>
>> I seem to have this contrast problem when taking photos outside when
>> there's plenty of light.
>>
>> I was photographing a parade on a overcast day. I set the camera to
>> 200 ISO and I had a fixed shutter speed of 250 as there was movement
>> in the parade.
>> I checked the scale as you suggested and the marker is at 0 (in the
>> center).
>> As the camera has three different types of metering modes (Evaluative,
>> Partial and Centerweighted average) what would be a good metering mode
>> to use to try and overcome the contrast problem?
>>
>> Regards Brian
>
>Put it back on 100 ISO.
>Overcast days aren't nearly dark enough to require 200 ISO.
>What you are describing as a "contrast problem" still sounds more like
>over-exposure.
>
Thanks again Mark.
The reason I choose 200 ISO is to give me more depth of field while
having a fixed shutter speed of 250 for the parade.
I was limited to using 28-55mm lens but after I could zoom in on
people in the parade (on the computer) for cropping etc so I needed
good depth of field.
One of the photos that were over exposed had been taken at a setting
of f 5.6 at 1/250 shutter speed. It's strange why the camera choose
that setting where some others were at f 8 and f 10. The large tree
behind the crowd was correctly exposed but the performer (near the
center of the photo), the crowd and the road were over exposed.
This must be unusual for a Evaluative metering mode.

Regards Brian