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I was trying to capture some of the fantastic autumnal colours and moods, but my pictures never look as good as "reality" does 😥
I've got a Canon Ixus 75, and I take most pictures in 'automatic' mode. I guess I should be doing something with the exposure or ISO settings to make the colours more vivid against a bright sky or when taking pictures from-shadow-into-sunlight?
Could someone give me some hints please? Thank you 🙂
SHADOW INTO LIGHT PROBLEM - too glary:
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TREES AGAINS BRIGHT BACKGROUND - bright sky makes leaves "disappear" into sky at top of tree and water reflecting sun:
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The problem you have is that you are photographing relatively dark things against a very bright background (the sky/sun).
The camera can't cope with the range of dark to light, so has to decide whether to expose for the dark bits or the light bits or somewhere in between.
In the first two pictures you posted, you could have increased the exposure (+ve exposure compensation) slightly to get a bit more detail in the darker areas, but this would have made the bright bits even more over-exposed.
In the third pic, it looks like a bit of -ve exposure compensation (a faster exposure) would have given you a bit more colour in the sky & the leaves at the top of the tree, without making the rest of it too dark. If you look at the dark areas of that image, none of them look particularly dark, so there was probably a little room to under-expose a bit....
The fourth pic looks like about as good as you are going to get it, with that amount of shadow & bright light.
It's annoying, because your eyes automatically adapt for the bright bits and the dark bits, whereas the camera doesn't. It has to look at the overall brightness.
What time of day is this? You could look at shooting earlier or later in the day, when the sky is not so bright. You might need a tripod to do that though, depending on how early or late it is.
Alternatively, shooting in woodland on an overcast day makes the light a lot more even and will give you less of the over-exposed areas.....but you won't get the bright blue skies that I suspect you were aiming for...
Stumpy01, thanks, that really helps - I have to admit I did assume that the camera would be able to take a photo of EXACTLY what I can see with my eyes...
I took the pictures around lunchtime (between 1 and 2), sounds like that might have been the worst time of day for getting the sky to be non-glary in the pics. And you are 100% right, I was hoping to get the lovely blue colour of the sky against the colourful leaves/dark trees!
A quick google shows your camera has exposure compensation:
"There is also a sub-menu accessed via the Func/Set button in the middle of the navigation pad, which allows you to set exposure compensation"
Take a photo. If it's not how you want it try some +/- exposure compensation until it looks right.