The Big Camera That Can't! Please Help!

Hi,

2 years ago I went out and purchased a Canon Rebel EOS Digital camera. http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=9430

I am a fanatic about taking good quality photos and needed a good camera that would take great photos and last me for years. I had read some good reviews about the Canon Rebel and wanted the best camera for my investment so I went out and bought it complete with 18-55 zoom lens and Speedlight 420ex external flash.

My exterior photos are great (no complaints) and my interior photos are good except when there are low light situations. If a room is just a little on the dark side (even with lights on) my photos turn out extremely dark even with the flash on and when I go to lighten them with my photo editing software they turn out too grainy and have a grey haze to them.

I called Canon for help assistance and I was told to experiment with the film speed and was also told that I might need to buy a higher quality lens! I told this support tech from Canon that when I purchased the camera I told the merchant money was not an issue and I wanted the best camera for the dollars and I was told what I purchased met my criteria.

I spent over $1,300 for this camera and now I see agents in my office with little Kodak Easy Share and HP Photosmart cameras costing a third of my camera taking better interior photos than my expensive camera!

I am certainly not a professional phtographer and I don't know a lot about cameras. Can someone please tell me in laymans terms if there are any solutions for me at all?

HELP!

Native Idahoan and Boise Idaho Real Estate specialist serving Boise, Meridian Eagle, Nampa, Caldwell and the surrounding Treasure valley area of southwest Idaho. Specializing in residential, investment, land and commercial real estate. Search thousands of MLS listings at Boise Homes for sale and learn all about Idaho by visiting Search Idaho Homes

Posted by George Tallabas - Idaho Real Estate on 02/25/2007 08:07 AM

Comments (40)

Originally posted at: Idaho Real Estate >> ID Real Estate Specialist: The Big Camera That Can't! Please Help!

Generate short URL

40 Comments on The Big Camera That Can't! Please Help!

FEB

2007

Compact size consumer level cameras tend to give really good shots in "Full Auto" mode. Full size digital SLRs tend to like more operator input.

I'm guessing (I could be wrong, of course, won't be the first time) ... I'm guessing you have the camera set on "Full Auto" mode. (The green rectangle on the top mode dial)

Try taking the camera out of "Full Auto" exposure mode.

Set the mode dial on "P" (program mode) and adjust the Exposure Compensation by pressing the <Av +/-> button, and turning the main dial. (Check the camera's manual for more info). Try shots with increased exposure; try shots with decreased exposure and see if you get anything you like.

You may get the results you want with just simple Exposure Compensation.

But you might also want to try these ideas:

Set the mode dial on Tv (Stands for "time value" meaning shutter priority) and try setting different shutter speeds.

Set the mode dial on Av (that one stands for "aperture value" meaning how large you want the lens opening. Larger numbers equal smaller openings) and try setting different aperture values to control the amount of light hitting the camera's sensor.

Put the camera in M (all manual) and set both your own shutter and aperture valves.

Take a couple hours at your own home or office and play around with different exposure setting. Then upload all the photos to your 'puter, and choose the properly exposed ones. Take a look at the EXIF data for each image and you'll begin to get an idea of what exposure settings work best for the kind of image you want to capture.

This is the wonderful thing about digital: Imaging software gives you all that info --shutter speed, aperture, focul length of lens with each image. I remember trying to learn about exposure with film. Writing little notes about what settings were used with which frame, then accidently mixing up the prints (which you had to ~wait~ for back then) and becoming hopelessly befuddled.

Of course, you may already know all this stuff, if so, sorry for the long lecture. But maybe another reader will find it helpful.

George, one other thought. Are there windows in your low-light rooms? I'd guess your camera's exposure meter is reading for the bright light coming in through the windows. Try aiming the lens just slightly away from the window so the exposure meter will read a darker part of the room,,,,

I shoot on tv with the flash on for all interior shots. Also turn on the lights.

George looks like you got some good advice here already, a good photographer here once told me that lighting is key and if the house faces north shoot it before 10am not sure if this really works but consider time of day too so you won't have to close all the blinds etc..

When my Canon G2 quit, my husband immediately said, Canon Rebel! He bought it and I used it twice. I went on line and bought another G2 in excellent condition off of ebay for $125.00. I LOVE the quality of these pictures! So do my clients!

While neither I nor my husband are professional photographers, my husband certainly could be. We have had the same problem and tried everything to lighten the pictures. To no avail!

Hello,

I am a professional photographer (in a past life).

Darkness in photography doesn't exist if you can have the camera open long enough. Think of it this way... you can be in the desert at midnight and take a 3 hour exposure and it will look like daylight.

Here is what you do: GET OFF AUTO MODE. People buy these high end cameras but then they want the camera to figure everything out. Well it isn't smart enough yet.

Each photo that i take of a room, I take 3 times.

1) With a Flash

2) With no Flash, longer exposure (always lights on)

3) With a Fill flash and longer exposure. You get the pop of a flash, but the warmth of no flash.

Then I have to take the photos into photoshop and correct for the distortion.

Or you can sell that camera on ebay and buy the Kodak v570:

$205 on Amazon, Kodak V570 (as of 2-23-07)

Which is a 23mm WITH built in image distortion correction (wow!! the big camera doesn't do that) and it has IN CAMERA photo stitching. You can take 3 photos and get a VERY wide image. And it happens in camera, so you don't need any software!

Here is one of my photos of a tiny 1bdr. This was taken with a Canon Rebel with a built in flash and a 22MM lens. It was taken at 9pm.

Maureen - Just curious ... and for anyone else who's reading -- When you're shooting an interior in Tv mode (shutter priority) I would guess you usually crank the shutter speed down a few notches from what the auto setting would give you?

Cheryl - Thank you so much for the tips! and yes I always make sure drapes are open and lights are on but some rooms are just dark.

Maureen & Dmitry - Thanks, I will try it!

Teri - I haven't had any problems with exterior photos which always turn out great.

Virginia - Yikes! I hope I don't have to buy yet another camera! I will take Cheryl & Maureen/Dmitry's advice to see how that works.

Frank - Yes I have read about Kodak v570 on this site and I hope I can get this Canon Rebel to work for me after spending over $1,300 on it! Yes, if all else fails I will shell out the extra $205 and use the Canon Rebel as a "hood ornament"?

George --- In really dark rooms, you may not want to open the drapes! What might be happening is you are ending up with one very bright spot in the room -- the windows; and the rest of the room is still darkish. Your camera's auto exposure meter is reading the very bright light in the windows, and setting shutter speed and aperture based on that bright light reading.... While what the rest of the room needs is a completely different exposure setting.

Another trick might be to point the camera at the darkest point in the room and press your AE Lock (Auto Exposure Lock) button (I think it is marked with a * on the Rebel - check your camera manual). Then after locking the exposure, point your camera back towards the part of the room you want to shoot.

Thanks Cheryl - I am taking notes!

I'm so glad that you asked for advice. NOT because I have it to give but because I get to read the comments and learn something!

Judi

LOL - Thanks Judi, what a great vehicle this Active Rain is. I have learned more in my 2 weeks of membership than I could ever learn in a year normally.

George,

You have a fine piece of equipment there. It's just going to take some practice to use it properly. Once you've done that you'll be able to crank out some amazing stuff, I'm sure.

Your problem is related to the combination of exposure setting which you're using and the external flash. With Canon cameras, the light meter always suggests an exposure based on existing ambient light. If you're in an auto mode, the flash really only provides a little "fill" light which might work perfectly for a portrait type shot but it's going to fall short of lighting a full room.

In order to make better use of the flash in photographing a room, you have to trick the flash. Shoot in manual mode and be prepared to ignore the exposure meter.

Try this. Set the ISO to 400. Turn the camera to manual mode. Set the aperture to around 6.3 which will give you pretty good sharpness throughout the image. Turn your shutter speed to 200. When you use a fast shutter speed like this indoors, the camera tells the flash that it really needs to blast some light, and it will. Review your images and if you find they are still a little on the dark side, you can bump your flash exposure compensation up a stop or two until you get the result your looking for.

When shooting towards open windows, I will bump my shutter speed up even more. It is possible to get a window which is properly exposed and use the flash to balance the interior light.

Here's an excellent article which further explains how your camera and flash work together. http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/. Here's another that's very good. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=207470

Also, I highly recommend Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" as a great tool to learn more about how your excellent camera works.

Best wishes. Good luck.

I also have the Rebel XT, a great camera with impressive results (esp. with the extra wide angle lens for small rooms like bathrooms) ...but, I have had the same problem with a dark room/bright windows. I use the extra flash and that helps in most situations, but, I think the time of day comment mentioned here was the culprit. I will try the AE Lock trick next. Thanks for the tips. This is my first visit to this site and I am impressed already!

Norm - You and Cheryl have got me to thinking! I am going to try all your suggestions. I had to believe that with all the great reviews of this camera there was something I was doing wrong. Yes, I have been guilty of using the Auto setting because that is what the manul and Cannon support told me to do. Again, "Thank You"

Dawn - The tips I have received have been amazing. I hope you have learned something that will help you.

George, thanks for inviting me to comment. Please let me apologize in advance if I drone on in a technical way. Cheryl in particular is exhibiting a very clear and concise style - I'll try to do the same. :)

The simplified version (hopefully):

Cameras are limited to how much dynamic range (light to dark) they can capture. Very bright lights (such as a window) compared to a room during normal daylight conditions is way too much dynamic range for most (or all) cameras.

SLR's like yours allow you to control the exposure (how long the shutter stays open and light hits the sensor). The longer the shutter stays open, the more light enters the camera, the brighter the image will be.

One very simply solution to a room appearing to dark, is to affix your camera to a tripod and expose the image for a longer period of time. This is probably your best bet at your level of expertise.

Here's where you have to give the camera some help though.

Your camera needs to know how long you want it to expose for, what aperture (f-stop) to use, or both.

I'd suggest setting the camera to Av, aperture priority. That means you are telling the camera what aperture to use and it will sort out the rest.

The good news though is you don't even need to figure that out because I am going to give you the answers to the test. :)

Set your camera to F11. This will give your image good depth of field for interiors as well as maximizing sharpness for your lens.

When your camera is set to F11, in Av mode...the light meter in the camera will 'figure out' the appropriate exposure time (on board camera metering is really pretty good these days).

So, you just press the shutter button and the camera will now take a picture that will expose long enough to be bright.

Problems with the above approach:

Even the best light meter is going to be fooled by a really bright light source (such as a window during normal daylight). All meter patterns except for spot metering average light to some degree so a bright spot is going to throw things off. Your camera is probably set to 'Evaluative metering', that's a good setting in most cases...don't change it

If you are not yet ready to really get into the guts of manual mode, do your best not to aim the camera directly at a bright window when composing your shot.

Using a speedlight:

If you own an external flash (as you have indicated you do) you can employ this to add extra light to the interior. This will help reduce (but not eliminate) the difference between the brightest parts of the room and the darkest.

However tempting it is...don't fire the speedlight forward...turn it around and fire it backwards. This is called 'bounce flash' and it will produce much more evenly toned light.

Other considerations:

Don't worry too much about ISO, your lens, or the customs settings. Just focus (no pun intended) on working on getting the exposure right. Everything else will follow.

Please let me know if I can help further, the above is all greatly simplified.

If you like you are more than welcome to send me some sample images that I can look at more specifically. Just make sure you send me JPG's so I can snoop through your EXIF. :)

bryce@brycemohan.com

Cheers, -B

+1 to what Bryce said. Take the money you were going to spend on a Kodak EasyShare and put it towards getting a decent tripod.

Thanks Bryce! I owe you all a great big "Thank You". There may still be life for this $1,300 camera! Yes Aaron, I am going to bite the bullet and get a tripod. Gracias!

Remember the tripod is only part of the story. A tripod HEAD is the other part. I own a a Gitzo 1320 tripod with center post, a Manfrotto 322RC2 Joystick Head and a Really Right Stuff Ball Head BH55

Using the pistol grip style Manfrotto is more intuitive for me, but the RSS Ball Head allows a greater range of motion, so that is the one that's screwed onto the tripod right now.

That said, I use the tripod extensively in my back yard to shoot birds, the moon, and neighborhood fireworks on July 4th with a really long lens. I have never taken it out to shoot a listing. That's just not my style. It's too, I don't know .... invasive ? .... or arrogant, maybe ... like I think I'm a hotshot ... ??

If you are mainly concerned with photographing your listings, I'd say try some of the other tips first. After all, you could almost buy a case of those little Kodak point-and-shoot cameras for what I've spent on tripods and heads.

Thank you so much Cheryl - I am so thankful to all of you for responding to my post and giving me this incredible information. I was ready to give up on my Canon Rebel but now it has a second life and I want to give it a chance. The problem with someone with someone like me is that my strength is meeting with clients and selling real estate. In reality to many I am somewhat of a counselor, attorney, accountant etc. plus I am a Father and involved with a lot of projects. Silly me thougth I was going to pull this aweseome $1,300 camera out of the box and start shooting! I have now had a wakeup call and realize that if I commit to a camera of this caliber I need to spend some time learning what it is capable of doing.

FEB

2007

George, just to add to what Cheryl is saying...

There are basically only two tripods in the world worth spending money on. Those are Gitzo or Bogen / Manfrotto. I personally use a bogen as do most photographers I know...but the Gitzo is very well regarded - either one will be great. The good news is while the better models are quite pricey and probably out of the range of what you want to spend, they both have budget models that are very good.

As far as the head goes I have to reluctantly disagree with Cheryl here. You will simply never see a ball head on a professional's tripod while shooting architecture, and for good reason. You should instead look for a 3way pan / tilt. This type of head allows you to alternately lock or free up each axis. It's hugely superior to a ball head setting up shots.

I've included a link to one below...the head in the link is pretty expensive...you can find them for much less!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=106&A=details&Q=&sku=5280&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

Cheers, -B

Thanks Bryce, you have all been wonderful to me and helped solve a big delema. I appreciate your impute.

FEB

2007

For anyone who is interested, I put together a short summary of some photography basics:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/50825/Photography-1-1-The

MAR

2007

Thank you for the post! The comments have been very helpful

MAR

2007

It just around across this Blog. I too have a Canon Digital Rebel. As I sit and wipe off the dust I will try some of the suggestions. Thanks to everyone with suggestions. I have about $1,500 invested in my camera setup. I would love to learn how to use my camera effectively.

Thanks

Best regards,

Frank Rubi, e-PRO

Broker Associate, REALTOR®

Destrehan - Kenner, La. Real Estate

http://www.7824.com/

http://www.frankrubi.com/

MAR

2007

Thanks - I really enjoy reading the suggestions

Always learning!

Thanks David - I implemented some of the suggestions given and WOW! my camera is working like a charm. This was better advice than I had received from Cannon Support!

Far from pro...I love the digital camera for #1, the ability to immediately see my error and re shoot until I get it right. I prefer always shooting in natural lighting which requires the tripod so that the lens can be opened for longer exposure. The only time I tend to use flash is when bright light is shining into windows and I need light in the forefront. I purchased a Nikon D200 a few months ago and the learning curve was and still is huge. I took an online class from Better Photo and the assignments pushed me to hit the tip of the iceberg compared to all the possibilities. Best of Luck...keep shooting.

Thank you very much - I used the tips that were given and am taking incredible photos I never thought possible. The members of Active Rain have been amazing.

Geroge: I got to this real late but I'm so glad that I got to learn from these "professionals". Arent you glad that we dont need the answers, just need to know where to ask?

I am an ardent fan of photography. I'm constantly frustrated with my quality because they just dont seem to give the setting I am looking for (such as home, architectural magazines). I have the 18-55mm lense but I have invested in a 10-22mm about 3 months into this "big" hobby. My friend has let me play with his 17-40mm L lense. It is truly remarkable. (I'm not asking you to spend more money) but based on the lesson I learnt, I only plan to buy L lenses in the future.

I'm not of much help here. I'm in the same boat as you are and I plan to play with some tips from the comment section.

Thanks Loreena...All these tips helped my and I am taking the best photos I ever thought possible. Good luck to you.

MAR

2007

George, I'm late too! It looks like you're not going to auction off or sell your Rebel (dang!). I'm looking for a good used one! I'm glad you got your questions answered and I'm glad I found your post and this group. I think I can really benefit from the posts here!

H Lisa,

On the contrary...I have fallen in love with my Canon Rebel since receiving all the great advice from the members. Just read the awesome comments. I am now taking some incredible interior photos thanks to the support from the Active Rain community.

MAR

2007

What great comments - a perfect example of how comments can expound and really help on the post. Thanks to all of you!

Thanks for your comment John...yes the support I received just blew me away!

I'm glad to hear people feel like their questions are being answered. That's what a group like this should be for; a safe place to explore and learn. :)

Credit to the people who have the courage to ask the questions also. sometimes it can be intimidating beginning a statement with: "I don't know". It takes some moxy and also leads the way for other folks to ask the questions on their mind also.

Cheers, -B

P.S. Just for kicks...here are some butterflies. ;)

Thanks so much Bryce....I was overwhelmed by the supportive comments I received.

MAR

2007

I am using a Canon 20D, which is just a step up from the Canon Rebel, so they are similiar. Indoors I never use "AUTO" mode. The ISO speed may be auto-set too low and cause dark pictures. Set the mode to "P" and set your ISO to 400. Anything lower will be dark and anything higher will be grainy.

Your Canon 420EX is a good flash, I use the same. For inside shots use bounce flash, angling the flash forward and up to the ceiling. Most ceilings are white, so this provides good light dispersion for room photography. Direct forward flash will illuminate the object in direct focus but other areas will be underexposed.

Another problem is the standard 18-55 mm kit lens is not wide enough for real estate room photography. Because of the sensor size in DSLR cameras, except the high end professional models costing $5000 up, the actual lens acts as a 29-88 mm compared to conventional SLR film cameras. This is great for most photographic conditions from scenic shots to portrait photography. For rooms you need a wider lens.

I considered the wider Canon zoom, but the cost was prohibitive. I bought a Tamron 11-18 mm, which is equivalent to a 18-28 mm film camera lens. Getting down to 18-24 mm is critical for room shots.

I also recomment a tri-pod or a mono-pod for indoor shooting.

Many of the other reader's suggestions are good, but I like to keep it simple. Shoot in "P", ISO at 400, tilt-bounce the flash, use a wider lens, and shoot away. You do not need to readjust settings for each shot. It is simple. I get excellent results.

There are a lot of point and shoot low priced cameras that will do the real estate photography well as many readers have pointed out. However I do action sports photography and wildlife photography so I needed a good DSLR with lens interchangability.

If you have a DSLR, this is the simple solution.

Thanks Mike, I already am getting great indoor photos from all the great advice I was given. I am working with the aperature and film speed settings and I love the photos. Thanks for your input....I appreciate it.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?

George Tallabas - Idaho Real Estate

Nampa, ID

More about me…

RE/MAX Advantage

Office Phone: (208) 466-0002 x 104

Cell Phone: (208) 880-2333

Email Me

Find ID real estate agents and Nampa real estate on ActiveRain.

Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.