of film
I think the "washed out" describes my pictures best. The cheap camera shows... well... that I have a cheap camera
That "washed" out look is what I first seen when I looked at all of our pictures. Some are really bad but others are good. Same camera and same settings. The before and after look after changing sizes still looks the same. Melissa was asking around while we were in Moab trying to find out what kind of camera she wants to get next
A camera is just a tool, all but the s***tiest cameras are capable of taking great pix, the most expensive camera is capable of taking s***ty pix. It's not the camera, it's the user, the difference between a snapshot shooter and photographer. It's not that difficult, just need to know the tool and experiment with it to get the most out of it.
This was demonstrated to us in photo class. One of our assignments was to make a pinhole camera, then had a contest to see who could shoot the best pix with it. Google pinhole camera, basically it is a box with a pinhole for the lens, a piece of tape for the shutter and a sheet of film. Some made art with them, whole albums full of nothing but pinhole shots.
Post processing is the most important part. Again don't need to spend a ton of $$$. I use photoshop, it is costly in both $$$ and learning curve. On the road or ocean I use a free program called irfanview, works great, also lots of good reviews for GIMP. Google free Image Editing Software reviews, there are a bunch of free editors and tutorials.
Most of what we attempt to shoot is mid day sun, brutal, the most difficult conditions to get a usable pic. Deep shadow and brutal light, almost guarantee washed out pix. One tip is; if your subject is in the shade, with lots of light around it. Frame another area that is mainly shade/dark color, hold the shutter half down, while holding half down, frame your subject and fully depress to take the pic. What you did is manually force the cam to use the setting of the darker area, without touching any settings, going to manual, etc. Quick, easy cheat!
Hard to tell what is up with your pix, the forum has butchered them. Email me a few that you have posted, in full resolution and will see what is up.
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, but I have pretty much every other perspective on file already...