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walt-m

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Name
Walter
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Hi all
I have just changed from film to digital, my new camera is cannon 40d
and i am just getting use to all the layout i have taken a few pic,s
in the garden of the birds & flowers but there is two silver birch tree,s
with verry white bark, but when i check the L C D to see what a mess
i made the white of the birch tree bark blinks black also anything white
just keeps flashing black and white.

S o what am i doing wrong please all help and advice much needed.
Thank You
Walter
 
Not familiar with Canons but this looks like highlight/shadow clipping warning? ie where its over/under exposed..
 
When the bright parts of an image flash black and white on the LCD screen it means the shot is over exposed. If you press the Info/Display button it should show you a histogram to confirm this. What you want to do is check the Exposure Compensation that it isn't set too hight and check what metering mode you're using. In any way if you're new to digital it's probably best you read the manual that came with your 40D (or if you don't have one find the PDF alternative online) and give it a good read.
 
hi there...

I'm a canon user too, I have the 450D. The blinking black bits on the LCD are telling you that the white is "blown", basically means its too exposed, you could try quickening the shutter however this would darken the whole image... or change the white balance.

If you have any post-processing software then you could get rid of it using the highlights tool.

Hope this is been of help. :)
 
Bendihossan said:
When the bright parts of an image flash black and white on the LCD screen it means the shot is over exposed. If you press the Info/Display button it should show you a histogram to confirm this. What you want to do is check the Exposure Compensation that it isn't set too hight and check what metering mode you're using. In any way if you're new to digital it's probably best you read the manual that came with your 40D (or if you don't have one find the PDF alternative online) and give it a good read.
Click to expand...

Thanks Stefen I have read the manual but i think that i will have to reread
it a few more times before it all sinks in.

Novic Boy thanks for your in put i afriad that i have a hell of alot more
to learn.
 
norvic-boy said:
hi there...

I'm a canon user too, I have the 450D. The blinking black bits on the LCD are telling you that the white is "blown", basically means its too exposed, you could try quickening the shutter however this would darken the whole image... or change the white balance.

If you have any post-processing software then you could get rid of it using the highlights tool.

Hope this is been of help. :)
Click to expand...

If you want to keep the highlights then you should adjust the exposure compensation to reduce the exposure.

Simply adjusting the shutter or aperture will have no effect since the highlights will still be "blown" - ie overexposed.

Simply press the AV button on the back of the camera and turn the wheel to apply exposure compensation - try going down in 1/3 stops to -1 or -2 EV.
 
As you are new to the camera I am guessing that you are shooting in jpeg.
The flashing bit are pure white no detail, how much is flashing is more to the point?
some will tell you is blown this is not 100% true if you was to photograph a white and blach board it will flash where all the white is when you have a spot on exposure. the reason is there is nothing higher then 255 white.
If you are in RAW no need to worry as you can adjust it after in the computer.
So you see there is no one answer to this.
you can turn off the flashing warning if you want, i have as I know my camera and how it exposes bit like file days when you got to know what iso (asa) to set for each film type it was never the iso thatwhat was on the film
 
yeah i think theres an overexposure warning on canon DSLR's and it can be disabled but i dont know how to do it as i dont own a canon, however someon will eventually come along and give you the solution.
 
Yes you CAN turn it off but the whole point of it is to warn you of blown highlights.

Properly used in conjunction with the histogram the blinking will enable you to get much better photos.

And it has nothing to do with shooting in Jpeg or RAW.

Obviously there are situations where you have to make a choice about getting detail in the highlights and losing some shadow detail or the reverse.

Only you can make that choice but at least, if you know your highlights are in danger of being blown, you can make a more informed choice.
 
Like folks have said, it's better in the long run to get to know how the Canon xxxD metering system works. Then you can choose how to set it up to get the best chances of good pictures in your circumstances. But I've not used the "mostly-auto" modes, so maybe those don't let you set how metering works. You can have control if you pick e.g. Av or Tv.

Sorry if this is too obvious, but it was new to me when I first came across it : Basically the camera looks at some bits of the image and then tries to make them mid brightness. If the meter sees dark stuff it brightens everything. If the meter sees bright stuff it darkens everything. So you'll get different results taking a picture pointing at the grass and then at the sky in the same setting. You can set the metering to look at many places, hopefully evening things out, or just in one place which you can pick, or some combinations in between. And you can tell it "whatever you think, make it 1 stop darker" (exposure compensation). The good news is it's free to try - no film to develop - and almost instant on the back lcd.

petersmart said:
And it has nothing to do with shooting in Jpeg or RAW.
Click to expand...
Maybe that's not quite true? If you shoot in RAW then stuff which looks whited out on the camera display may still have detail in it which you can recover in the Canon DPP software - just dial down the brightness(?) - or Photoshop - use highlight recovery.
 
He's only just made the transition to digital, lets not confuse the heck out of him.

He may still think RAW is a way to cook a steak. :thumbs:
 
parsley said:
Maybe that's not quite true? If you shoot in RAW then stuff which looks whited out on the camera display may still have detail in it which you can recover in the Canon DPP software - just dial down the brightness(?) - or Photoshop - use highlight recovery.
Click to expand...

No, what I said was quite true - whether you shoot in RAW or Jpeg the blinking warns you of blown highlights - and the highlights MAY still have detail in them but I'd rather be sure and simply re-take the shot if possible to be CERTAIN of getting all the details in the highlights rather than hope that Photoshop or DPP will recover them.

.
 
Sorry Walter if this seems unnecessarily complex - please feel free to ignore!

If you set the camera to take pictures in RAW mode, or RAW+jpeg, it uses a lot more disk space and is more effort to process. It's a bit like shooting negatives and developing them yourself vs shooting polaroid. But... just like doing your own negs, you can get more highlight / shadow detail out of them than from a polaroid print.

There's a discussion of this at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos550d/page17.asp

So... flashing bits on the display = definitely blown if you're shooting jpeg, possibly blown if you're shooting raw (only 1 stop of leeway). But getting the camera set up to expose how you want it is the important step.
 
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