Dziadzi wrote:
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"?
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.