Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Fellow hoggers, I am at a loss as to why many of my photos appear to be washed out, i.e. lacks color, photos look pale. If you have any ideas as to why I am not getting vibrant photos, nor crisp pictures. Please feel free to critique. Thanks in advance. BTW, I shoot a Nikon D7100, with an assortment of lenses (depending on the venue).

As an after thought, does my issue have anything to do with "exposure compensation"?

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PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Frank, Looks like over exposure to me. Can be corrected at capturing time with exposure compensation and or in Post processing in a program like Lightroom.

Quixdraw Loc: x

If you shoot JPEG as do I, slight under exposure lends itself to adjustment in post better than overexposure which burns out the highlights.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

(1) Are you using the histogram to check the exposure, when shooting?
(2) The girl and the dog photograph was shot at 1/15 second, and no flash (acording to the exif data). At this slow shutter speed it is very difficult to stop unwanted camera or subject motion. Also shooting at f2.8 doesn't give you a lot of dof to work with.

pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

My first solution would be to increase the shutter speed and close down the aperture a stop or so. When I put the photos in the Photos app on my IPad and edited it there all I needed to do was bring down exposure and bring up the black point and contrast slightly. Comes up nice and crisp.

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

I believe most of you images are primarily over exposed and lit with diffused light.
Over compensating does lead to over exposure and may be the reason to your captures. Chimp every once in a while and look not only at the images but the histograms too.

Some things that can create washed-out/flat images are listed below;

1. Particles in the air like dust, smoke or fog (haze)
2. Shooting towards a light source, including reflections and light outside the FOV but is shining directly to the lens of camera (can be controlled with a polarizing filter & a lens hood).
3. Some lens inherently produce washed out, less contrast images(like the Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 DG Macro Lens)
4. Over exposure (scene is too bright such as outside mid day sun. Also see 10, 11, 12. Chimp every once in awhile)
6. Camera Settings (use Vivid instead of neutral or adjust to personal taste)
7. Diffused/Scattered light source (like overcast skies which produce no shadows or a very large lightbox)
8. Effects filter (ye old vaseline LOL)
9. RAW read/conversion settings
10. Large aperture (over exposure & loss of detail to shallow DOF & bokeh)
11. Slow shutter speed (over exposure & loss of detail to movement smudging)
12. High ISO (over exposure)
13. Mist inside of lens/camera (Usually happens when going from a cold to a warm moist area)
14. UV or Infrared light (normally not a problem. If uncontrolled adds light to the output creating overexposed images but not predicted by the eyes as it is only visible to the sensor. Only Film* & DSLR, this does not bother mirrorless cameras)
15. Malfunction

Any one or combinations of the above can result (within boundaries)to washout images and
sometimes we actually adjust the camera to achieve such effects.

Gatorcoach Loc: New Jersey

A couple of thoughts: Obvious but important questions:
I don't see whether you are shooting jpg or raw. Raw comes out flat and in need of processing. Jpeg should be good - all other things being correct. TRY Jpeg and see if it still happens. Whether you are shooting RAW or Jpeg the image you see on the camera screen during review is a jpeg and can be confusing when the image on your computer is flat.

What exposure mode (auto, AP, S, manual) are you using? If AP or SP it could be too fast or slow or aperture too wide causing undesirable results. TRY auto and note the settings.

Is your Auto ISO (if using it) coming up way too high? TRY using 200 or so. See if it produces better outcomes.

Again, with so little information these are just some easy things to check and you might get lucky.

Check your dials and buttons. See if there is some compensating setting you have causing it.

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

These images all appear to be shot at different times and locations. All are overexposed except #3. Without looking at metadata my guess is you are shooting in auto mode with exp comp set around +2 EV. Check the exp comp dial. The preview screen should show this issue unless it is set very dark, fooling you into thinking the exposures were OK. Check these two settings, if you still have the problem send it in for service.

BebuLamar

You use spot metering in #1. You have +0.5 EC and +2 EC in #3 and #4.
I wonder why you decided to do that?

Jerry G Loc: Waterford, Michigan and Florida

You have your exposure comp set to +2 causing over exposure. You need to reset your exposure comp to 0 or do a reset to factory settings.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

All of your images suffer from either camera motion or focus errors. Also, exposures are all over the place.

If you decide to use exposure compensation, then you'll need to watch your histogram and turn on your highlight overexposure indicator (blinking highlights).

If you decide to use spot metering, there is no problem with that, as long as you are well-versed in using the zone system.

If you decide to use spot metering AND 2 stop overexposure (something I do 95% of the time), make sure you are metering highlights where you want to keep detail, and you use AE-Lock to keep the exposure setting until you snap the picture. The highlights will not be overexposed, and, in high contrast scenes the rest of the image will be underexposed. This is a great introduction to shooting raw, and how to best manage high-contrast scenes.

Focus issues are partly shallow depth of field, softness from using your lenses wide open, and possibly focusing modes in the camera. What works for me is to use Back Button Focus, where I turn off focusing with the shutter button, and designate a different button to focus on demand. In your camera you can use th AE-L/AF-L button to do this. But make sure you go into the menu and turn off AF Activation in the Custom Settings menu.

Shooting raw has another advantage - you can control noise and sharpening far better than you can when you let the camera do it.

This is an image from a D300, taken at ISO 1600 and cropped, which illustrates what an older, noisier camera with half the resolution is capable of:

_DSC1094 - sm by Gene Lugo, on Flickr

Your camera can and should do much better.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Your third shot is exposed correctly. Your other three are a little over exposed.
1. I suggest you bracket your exposures, it will work on non-action shots.
2. I strongly suggest you start really concentrating on your backgrounds, they are distracting in all four of your photo's. Suggestion, get closer to your subjects, walk around your subjects until you see less distractions in the background, use a wide aperture to blur the backgrounds, in the photo of the young girl, move her forward so the background is more out of focus.
For action shots, such as baseball shots, use the longest lens you have and try again to eliminate backgrounds so your subject stands out more. Don't worry to much about exposure, worry more about isolating your main subjects.
And then grasshopper, you will be on your way.
PS. most camera's have in camera adjustments to taken photo's. Go over your retouching menu of your camera and start using some of the adjustments there.
If Nikon, try using the vivid settings.

Joe Blow

You have received several very intelligent and good responses above. I would add is for you to take a course on the "exposure triangle". Next would be to get away from using AUTO setting and either go full manual or either shutter / aperture priority. Know what the different conditions are and how they affect the exposure. Shooting a summer ball game at noon on a cloudless day gives an entirely different environment than an early morning landscape with puffy clouds.

Knowing the fix will help you today. Knowing the why will help you tomorrow and the day after.

I strongly recommend shooting in RAW or RAW/JPG. Compensating and correcting in JPG is limited. RAW allows a lot more latitude in correction and adjustment.

Remember, my advice and $1.19 gets you a free coffee at the Marathon gas station.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Yeah, but there is some reason the camera is not exposing correctly. For the kinds of subjects shown, no exp compensation should be needed. The OP needs to look into the root cause of the problem, rather than having to repair it after the fact (which should be a last resort, not the first solution). A pass thru every camera setting would be a good head start. For example, maybe undesired exposure compensation is enabled now.
>Alan

Charlie C Loc: North Liberty, IA

Press the +- button on top and check the exposure compensation setting. Should be set to zero.