Why the photos color varies?

[tazmic]

How come sometimes the photo don't turn out brightly as it should be? The photo looks very dark, yet, if i take another shot a few minutes later, it looks bright and nice and it's the same spot. Is this gotta do with White Balance settings? I'm using a Fujifilm 4900 .. Yeah, i know. it's an old camera but it's still working ok.

Help appreciated.

cheers

 

[Kei]

Originally posted by tazmic
How come sometimes the photo don't turn out brightly as it should be? The photo looks very dark, yet, if i take another shot a few minutes later, it looks bright and nice and it's the same spot. Is this gotta do with White Balance settings? I'm using a Fujifilm 4900 .. Yeah, i know. it's an old camera but it's still working ok.

Help appreciated.

cheers

hm is the metering for both shot the same ?

 

[megaweb]

post the shot and the settings to let us see the problem

 

[ziploc]

The camera's metering system is such that the center has more weight in the calculation of exposure value. So if the center is very bright, the picture will be underexposed since the camera thinks you are taking a bright subject, and vice versa when the center is dark.

 

[mpenza]

it may depend on where the camera is pointing at when you half-press the shutter.

 

[GoclPa]

show us the pictures
breaching done :dent:

 

[tazmic]

Paiseh.. Here's the photo...

This is the dull photo.

This looks a bit brighter.

I'm a newbie so don't ask me what is metering or what setting i had. Just don't understand why the duller color on one photo when both also shoot at about the same time. Something to do with White Balance??

 

[Edmund]

Originally posted by tazmic
I'm a newbie so don't ask me what is metering or what setting i had. Just don't understand why the duller color on one photo when both also shoot at about the same time. Something to do with White Balance??

No, in this case, your white balance settings shouldn't be affected much (or at all even) since both photos were taken in daylight.

The difference that you see in your photos is due to the way that your camera perceives the current lighting condition. This is also commonly referred to as the metering system of your camera. Ziploc is correct to a certain extent but what he has described is only valid if your camera has been set to work in what is known as Center Weighted Metering mode where a certain higher amount of weightage has been given to the values recorded at the center of the viewfinder.

Not having used your camera before, I can only guess that your camera's 64-division TTL average metering mode is similar to a certain extent what Canon calls Evaluative Metering mode.

Assuming that your camera is in the above metering mode (average metering mode), your scene (or what you are shooting) should be divided into 64 zones in your viewfinder. When you press half on the shutter button, the camera focuses and records the level of light in each zone and averages the readings (with equivalent weightage). In such a situation, the most accurate readings are of course when light level in the entire scene is pretty even throughout (as is the case in your second photo) since the averaging will return a very close value to each of the metered zones.

In your first photo, there is quite a large variance in terms of light levels from the very bright sky to the pretty dark shadow area just below the tree closest to you. This is probably what caused the difference in brightness that you are talking about.

Hope this helps!!

 

[tazmic]

wow... Spare me the jargons. Thanks for the help, dude. Roughly understand what you guys are talking about. So how do I correct this error?

 

[mpenza]

you may be a newbie but it doesn't hurt to learn more about your camera to improve your technique

check out this article on using exposure compensation. it explain the concepts well.

http://www.shortcourses.com/using/exposure/chapter3.htm

 

[tazmic]

Thanks for the site. Not that i don't wanna learn, but i already tried to take alot of pictures but I just do not know why the color varies with the same settings. Thanks to you guys, I think I roughly get the idea liao... Arigato. I think the site you gave is gonna give me a good headstart, thanks.,