Washed Out Images

[cam1210]

Hi All,

I've recently been out on the hills taking photos in reasonably good daylight conditions. I was using a 5 year old Panasonic bridge camera in full auto mode and the wife was taking photos on her iPhone 4. When I downloaded the images, the Panasonic images were good but all were a bit washed out. Hard to describe, but they all needed auto-levelling within photoshop. The iphone pictures all seemed to have better definition.

I'm not that experienced, but I was wondering if there was something obvious I could change to improve the unadjusted output of the Panasonic?

Sorry - don't have any photos to hand to upload...hope the question makes sense!

Thanks,

Chris.

 

[jimmyb]

If you can set up the picture profiles in your panasonic try boosting the saturation.

Also are the pics a touch over exposed, can make them look washed out.

 

[cam1210]

Yes, it could be over-exposure - without access to my hard drive it's difficult to remember and describe. I'll probably have to wait to get home and post a shot to provide a better idea. From memory, it just seemed like a lack of contrast producing a greyed out image. With a bit of level changing (moving the black slider up on the levels histogram), the photos look ok...I was just a little disappointed that the iphone outdid the camera...even my wife commented that her photos were better than mine and that post-processing was cheating!

 

[jimmyb]

The cameras in the iphones are impressive, nice of your mrs to be so supportive

Post up that pic when you get chance and I'm sure more on here will give you some tips and pointers.

post processing isn't cheating, every digital camera does some 'in house' processing, including her iphone. Post processing has been around as long as photography has.

 

[steveo_mcg]

Odds are the iPhone camera pushes the saturation way up, seems to be the popular style at the moment.

 

[Nod]

Read the camera's manual and see if it tells you how to set it to underexpose every image by as much as it needs. It may be as simple as just hitting the +/- button and dialling in a bit of exposure shift, or you may have to go through the menus to find out how to keep the setting when the camera's turned off.

 

[cam1210]

Cheers guys...I know the camera produces excellent images and I'm sure it's just a case of altering something. Will investigate. Shame auto mode doesn't produce ideal results though...I guess this is normal though??