Digital photography brightness???

Question

I am using a Megxon C480 8 MP camera. I have just put in a new 1GB SD card BUT still when I take pictures they look nice and bright on the camera screen but when I upload to the computer they are darker????
I am using a HP75 monitor and everything is great apart from the fact that I have to increase the brightness on each photo.
Is there any test I can do?
If I change the brightness to each photo then when I picture share the photos may be too bright for them???

I never use a flash and the pictures are being taken on a bright day.

They are just random photos I took yesterday some have filter effects. I would be interested in any commentsas to what to do and if you like the effects??

The site is here

http://public.fotki.com/poshrat/brightness_test/
The picture hottie eye has been brightened.

Answer 1

What type of pictures are you taking?

A lot of people make the mistake of leaving their flash on Automatic all the time, then try to take pictures of things that are so far away that the flash can't possibly illuminate it enough - but hte camera thinks that whatever is being photgraphed will be illuminated by the flash, so sets itself accordingly. Therefore the pictures are dark.

Next time you see the crowd at a concert or sports game or whatever, and there are flashes going off in the crowd, remember that for each flash you see, someone has got a picture that's far too dark (apart from the well-lit back of the head of the person in front).

Only use the flash for things that are close - anything more than 3m away and a built-in flash won't cope.

Answer 2

If your camera doesn't display a histogram you will have a hard time working this out.

First you need to make a photograph of a known color/exposure target. A "gray" card is a standard target. You can find them at camera stores. It is 18% gray. (You might also be able to use a "step wedge" card that has a pure black, middle gray and pure white patch.) When you make a photo of this in an even light...I would use sunlight...you should be able to quickly see if the camera is under exposing. The gray and/or the white patch would be very dark.

Take a look on LCD and see what it looks like. (Too bright..too dark...just right?) If you have a histogram the spike should be near the center of the graph. If it is on the far left your camera is under exposing the image. But you say the image appears good on the LCD....you might have the LCD brightness turned up so you can see the photo in the display on bright days. So, now lets say you have a properly exposed image and a properly displayed image on the LCD.

When you get back to your computer the good photo now appears dark on the monitor....this would probably make it a monitor problem. Most monitors give a fair representation of average .jpg images. If you feel like correcting these images will make them too bright when sent to a friend's e-mail.....do a test to see if that is the case. If it does happen I would guess your monitor is way off.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Make sure your whitebalance is correct on your camera first. I'm not sure of the Megxon so you'll have to check your manual for that. Try purchasing a grey card to help with this solution.

After you take a photo check out the histogram on the image (again, not sure how to do this on your camer, check the manual). Make sure that the spikes are towards the center of the histogram, if they are to the far left, your image is dark and your camera LCD display is just brightening them for you to see. (this is the best option to troubleshoot your problem)

Also, what exposure settings are you using? On a cloudless day around 3pm with a bright sun try the following setting
ISO: 100
Aperature: 22 (or two stops below)
Speed: 1/500

Also your monitor may be off in it's coloring. Using the wrong color profiles, you could be sending the wrong information to the printer. If you have adobe photoshop, use the adobe gamma wizard located in your control panel to help set the correct profile to your monitor and then make sure that you are printing with the matching profile (open up your new document with the profile you created with the adobe gamma wizard).

if you have $79 you can order actual hardware that will do this for you and produce results 100x better from Color Vision. http://www.colorvision.com/profis/profis_view.jsp?id=581

Answer 4

hottie eye is too bright, the previous two eye shots look OK; sounds like you need to calibrate your monitor settings on your computer - there will be controls for this in your screen / monitor control panel (I won't go into this - look it up in your online help) and a guide to help you set it properly.

Basically you should trust your digital camera in it's default settings when it comes to brightness etc - just keep it on automatic. You can't trust the LCD for brightness, and unless you understand how to read the histogram it's best not to fiddle.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Quite simple adjust your monitor.

Answer 7

You can't trust your LCD on your camera. Use your histogram.