EOS Rebel T7 Color drowning out details

[mlowitz]

I don't know what this color issue is called...

I have a Rebel T7 and flowers are a significant subject for me. I'm using the 18-55 mm lens. As of late, this is what I've been getting rather frequently where the color is seems to overtake any detail of the petals so it becomes an intense color blob. I haven't changed anything from what I had been doing previously - from time of day to any settings on the camera. It's not every single one, but it does seem to happen more frequently with red.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Thanks

Michelle

[kvbarkley]

Look at a color histogram, you are probably overloading the red channel.  dial in some exposure compensation.

[stevet1]

Michelle,

Another possibility, and this is just a possibility...

I don't know what Picture Style you are using, whether it' Standard or Landscape or Faithful, etc., but you could go into that Picture Style and turn down the Saturation.

Steve Thomas

[johnrmoyer]

Red flowers in sunlight are difficult because the red channel will saturate and clip. Whether this happens depends upon how the camera calculates auto exposure and so might depend upon the amount of green in the frame as well as the brightness of the red. Exposure compensation of about -2/3 in the camera when the photo is made will help. If you are saving a raw file, then the free to download Canon DPP software can mostly fix this.

https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-04_EditImage_0040.html#EditImage_0050_11 tells how to adjust dynamic range. Dragging the line labeled "(3) Drag left or right: Input white point" to the right until all of the red values are 254 or less will bring back the detail. Then it might be possible to adjust brightness by 0.67 to undo the -2/3 exposure compensation from when the photo was made: https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-04_EditImage_0040.html#EditImage_0050_1  Also, it might be possible to increase the saturation until it looks good to you without losing detail in the red areas.

Another way to handle this problem is to save the image as an HDR PQ HIF file, but this is less practical because most software cannot view it even though it will display nicely on most HDR televisions and on some devices with Apple Safari browser.

I hope some of this helps.

An image with saturated red colors:

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on June 15, 2024 ; Lens Model EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +1.4x III ; 1/1250 second ; ISO 640 ; F/9 ; distance about 8.5 meters ; ExposureCompensation -2/3 ; GammaWhitePoint +1.0 ; ContrastAdj 0.2 ; SaturationAdj 0.3

I published this image at: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2024Jun17_birds_and_cats/2024jun15_cardinal_IMG_0405c.html

HIF file works in Safari with HDR screen: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/HIF/IMG_0405c.HIF