Settings?

gopher78

Here we go again. I'm having trouble getting a true white color when I'm shooting in the snow. Usually they are coming out dark or bluesh. I've gotten advice on what to set my 10D at and most agree I'm best off at just the fully automatic setting. I just went out and shot some scenes (day is slighty overcast with new snow) at the fully auto setting. Downside is I can't do rapid shots (I don't think) and I need to when I do athletic events. The pictures came out quite dark. I had to adjust contrast and brightness on my software to get a true snow color.
I then put the camera on "sports". Got the rapid shots but still quite dark although not quite as dark as the "auto". I then put the camera on Program with the WB at auto too. Pictures came out very nice. I also took a Program shot and adjusted the WB to a "shady" day. These came out good also
I'm getting more confused--shouldn't the auto come out pretty true?

Shay Stephens

gopher78 wrote:

Here we go again. I'm having trouble getting a true white color when I'm shooting in the snow. Usually they are coming out dark or bluesh. I've gotten advice on what to set my 10D at and most agree I'm best off at just the fully automatic setting. I just went out and shot some scenes (day is slighty overcast with new snow) at the fully auto setting. Downside is I can't do rapid shots (I don't think) and I need to when I do athletic events. The pictures came out quite dark. I had to adjust contrast and brightness on my software to get a true snow color.
I then put the camera on "sports". Got the rapid shots but still quite dark although not quite as dark as the "auto". I then put the camera on Program with the WB at auto too. Pictures came out very nice. I also took a Program shot and adjusted the WB to a "shady" day. These came out good also
I'm getting more confused--shouldn't the auto come out pretty true?

Auto does not mean perfect, it just means easy. The camera has no idea what it is looking at and just tries to get an average exposure. If your scene is average, then you will probably get a good result, but if the exposure is not average, then you have trouble.

If you want to continue using the auto or semi auto modes, try using the exposure compensation of the camera to give the photo more light. If you are spot metering off the bright snow, then set the exposure compensation to +2EV. That will force the camera to give you more light to expose the scene properly.