Burn out when shooting reds...How do you adjust your camera?

[Bliss]

My photos of reds have a burned out look. How can I adjust my camera to compensate for the way my digital camera reads reds?

[ljameso1]

Meter off the red and open up the exposure +1/2 to +1 depending on how much brighter than midtone it appears. Alternatively meter off green foliage in same light go minus on exposure. Will need to be in manual or a program mode that allows you to change and lock in the exposure.

[Bliss]

Thank you!

[lowbone]

Make sure your white balance is set correctly. Red in particular is thrown off by the wrong white balance.

[Chuck S.]

Here's a thread that discusses the red clipping problem and some potential solutions:

Taming Red (http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00HMWR)

[Codebreaker]

Maybe I'm not understanding the problem but to me Burnt Out Reds means they are over exposed. A previous post suggests metering of the Red and then compensating by + 1/2 to 1 stop. I think that should be -1/2 to 1 stop so that the Red becomes under exposed - i.e darker.

Of couse RAW would be a great way to go.

Colin

[Chuck S.]

Colin, I understood it the same way as you - red channel clipping (or red color 'burnout") and I also thought the exposure value adjustment needed to be negative as opposed to positive.

[ljameso1]

If you meter off a color that is brighter than medium, you will have to open up as much as it is brighter. Such as metering snow, need to go + 1&1/2-2 stops. Red is brighter than medium so need to go +. Now if you meter off something around the red that is medium then would go -. For instance I photographed a white mushroom surround by green moss and metered off the moss. The -2 exposure was the best. Had I metered off the white mushroom would have gone +2.

[Chuck S.]

Linda: I wonder if the camera sensor can adequately deal with the full range of red tones..? If red is being clipped, the only solution that I know is to go negative on the exposure compensation. A + adjustment would exacerbate the loss of red highlights.

I recently took some macro photos of some giant red hibiscus flowers which essentially filled the frame - the result was a nearly disastrous loss of red highlights. My saving grace was that I was shooting RAW and the Recovery slider of Lightroom worked its magic (at a setting of +39) - coupled with a negative 0.86 adjustment to the Exposure slider. My original camera setting was zero exposure compensation; it looks like it should have been negative 2/3 or negative 1.

[lowbone]

Yeah Chuck, on my cameras red always blows out. Had the same experience shooting Hibiscus as you did. The only way I was able to match the reds was to use -2/3 compensation in the camera.

[ljameso1]

It may depend on the shade of red. Some reds probably are darker than midtone, so would need go negative. Fall maple leaves always turn out great for me at +1/2.

[Bliss]

I was trying to shoot red lillies on a cloudy day and the reds had no depth. I called it burn out, because when I looked at the photo it looked over exposed to me. But I am such a novice that my terminology may not be accurate.

I didn't have this problem with my film camera, so I thought it had to be something about the sensor in the digital camera.

My little digital camera can shoot raw, so should I try that?

Bliss

[Bliss]

Chuck the link you gave me was most helpful. I will try some more shots and see what happens.

I did try using my software to make corrections, but since the orginal photos were so poor, I really couldn't correct the lack of depth and the "burn out" of the highlights. That may be because I'm a novice with the software.

[Chuck S.]

My little digital camera can shoot raw, so should I try that?

Bliss

Bliss, yes, I would recommend trying Raw. It will give you a little more dynamic range (range of dark to light tones) and the ability to adjust white balance and a number of other image parameters. It also bypasses the in-camera JPEG adjustments (contrast, sharpening and saturation) that sometimes cause a loss of fine detail in your images. It's not necessary to shoot Raw all the time, but in difficult exposure situations, it may give you an edge.