A question for photographers

Legacy_user · 4 November 2018 at 12:07PM

I've got a Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III that I just use only on one of the two basic "automatic" settings as I'm not experienced or knowledgeable about photography and I was trying to take pictures of a sheltered back window that did have the sun shining into it and the pictures all came out like the one seen here in this link.

This was/is a £500 plus camera and is there something wrong with the filter or is this something that happens? I can't imagine just having sunlight during the day reflecting could do that could it? I did purchase this second hand and the chap said it was all ok I've had it for a year or so and never had this problem before so any help or advice would really be appreciated

onomatopoeia99 · 4 November 2018 at 12:43PM

You are asking far too much of the automatic settings to deal with direct sunlight, even reflected off glass. Normally I would expect the camera to plunge everything else into darkness as the sun would overpower it, but maybe yours is trying to do some kind of compensation and makes an even bigger mess of it.

Go back when the sun is not reflecting off the window ...

that · 4 November 2018 at 12:51PM

I am not a camera guy. Google white balance.

Film handles a greater variation of whiteness compared to digital.

The idea is you set the brightest light to say a value of 255 and the darkest to 0. all the different brightness are in between.

in your photo the camera has found a source of brightness that probably exceeds its measured brightness value so that becomes a maximum of 255 too.

brightness can be controlled in various ways: electronic sensitivity, speed of shot, or size of aperture

Le_Kirk · 4 November 2018 at 12:59PM

Here is your picture: -
https://framapic.org/hHJEKDLWjymb/4ikA80BzRyJ5

Looks to me like it is underexposed because the "automatic" in the camera saw lots of light. If you don't want to learn the manual settings, then try to fox the camera. Is there a facility to half press the shutter release button? This normally focuses and determines the exposure setting (F stop and shutter speed) before firing to take the picture. Point the camera at a section of the building that is less brightly lit, half press the shutter release, then, with the shutter release still half-pressed swing the camera back to where you want to take the picture and press shutter release all the way down.

boliston · 4 November 2018 at 1:52PM

it looks like the exif info has been stripped - what shutter speed and aperture and iso was used?

Heedtheadvice · 4 November 2018 at 1:57PM

Underexposed?

Surely you mean overexposed saturating the image sensor.......
Fault either with the ccd sensor/processing or
the exposure control or

maybe the camera sensitivity setting too high to cope with the light

or the camera on manual and exposure incorrectly set
?

Saver0811 · 4 November 2018 at 1:58PM

Always use Flash !

System · 4 November 2018 at 2:31PM

Thanks for all the helpful replies. The picture was taken using the "Automatic" setting so I just point and click.

The sun was shining and reflecting off of the window but it's just normal sun in a British winter/early spring so the sun couldn't have been extremely powerful. I took several pictures of the same location and each one was the same.

System · 4 November 2018 at 2:36PM

that wrote: »

I am not a camera guy. Google white balance.

Film handles a greater variation of whiteness compared to digital.

The idea is you set the brightest light to say a value of 255 and the darkest to 0. all the different brightness are in between.

in your photo the camera has found a source of brightness that probably exceeds its measured brightness value so that becomes a maximum of 255 too.

brightness can be controlled in various ways: electronic sensitivity, speed of shot, or size of aperture

Perhaps it was too much for the automatic setting? Although it's a £500 camera so surely a bit of winter sun wouldn't cause it to be unable to take a picture

When I looked at this location I didn't have to squint and the sun wasn't in my eyes. So I'm just using simple logic here. If my eyes can look comfortably at it then I would have thought that this camera which has got quite good reviews for a small point and shoot style camera could manage it.

System · 4 November 2018 at 2:51PM

beanfarmer wrote: »

When I looked at this location I didn't have to squint and the sun wasn't in my eyes. So I'm just using simple logic here. If my eyes can look comfortably at it then I would have thought that this camera which has got quite good reviews for a small point and shoot style camera could manage it.

Your eyes have pupils which would've closed a fair bit to restrict the amount of light coming in. Cameras can't do this as well as a human on their own. Automatic settings tend not to work well if there's a dark area as they'll try to keep exposure and white balance enough to see the detail in the dark area but that can end up with bright areas being over-exposed.

System · 4 November 2018 at 2:59PM

Thank you Tarambor, so on the balance of probability and considering this is the only time it's happened eg one location would it most likely be the fact I used automatic settings?

A question for photographers

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