New user EOS R7- washed out pics

[MargieR7]

Hi legends 

Shooting pics in manual mode ( with an 100-400 zoom) and they all are washed out - no lifelike colour - what am I doing wrong - how do I adjust settings? If I set on auto no problem. 

many thanks! 
Margie 

[stevet1 · Accepted solution]

Margie,

In general terms, if your pictures are too washed out, one or more of three things are going on:

Either your shutter speed is too slow, your aperture is too wide, or your ISO is too high.

If your pictures in Auto are OK, then try this:

Take a couple of pictures in Auto or P Mode. Take a notebook with you and jot down what the conditions were (sunny and bright, cloudy and dull, etc.) and the settings your camera chose in those conditions.

Do you know to pull up the settings in Playback? Does your camera have an Info button? If it does, press the Info button a couple of times during Playback. You'll see the settings that were used.

Now, go back to Manual and plug in the settings your camera used when it was in Auto or P. After a while, you will begin to get a feel for what a good exposure should be in different situations.

The best advice I could give you is to download a copy of your manual in either html or pdf format. If you download a copy in pdf format, then you can use the search function in a pdf reader like Adoboe Acrobat to get answers to specific questions like how to change your settings.

You can get a copy of your Manual in either format here:

https://cam.start.canon/en/C005/

Steve Thomas

[rs-eos]

Before using Manual mode, you'll need to fully understand the exposure triangle. i.e. as you make decisions to use specific apertures, shutter speeds, etc, how you'll need to adjust the two other values to arrive at a proper exposure.

If all this is complicated, strongly recommend using other modes for now.  Want to control how much is within focus (depth of field), choose Av (Aperture Priority). Want to control freezing/blurring action, choose Tv (Shutter Priority). When you become more comfortable with those modes, start using Program (P).

[LeeP]

"...Before using Manual mode, you'll need to fully understand the exposure triangle..."

^^THIS^^

[LeeP]

The better question is why is manual the goal?

A good image is the goal.

If auto delivers a pleasing image then go with it.

Manual is nice to have on a camera, but the reality is that Canon's exposure modes and metering are pretty effective as-is and in my opinion render manual a bit arcane and esoteric 99% of the time.

Having been at this for decades, I was brought up in the "Manual is the Holy Grail and auto is a tool of evil." mindset. I could--and can--sing the virtues of the exposure triangle.

But, I got a Pentax ME early on because it was virtually pocketable and I could take it with me everywhere when I didn't need my "serious" cameras. The ME has no manual mode and +/-2 exposure compensation. It routinely delivered excellent exposures that easily equaled my efforts on other cameras in manual.

Years later, I had a Canon Elan 7e and discovered that it was pretty accurate on PROGRAM of all things!

In my time I've gone from being "manual only" to going with automatic UNLESS I needed to deviate due to tricky lighting. And to some that is pure heresy.

[MargieR7]

Haha Thanks Lee - point taken! 🙂 

[MargieR7]

Thank you Steve this is very helpful:)