newbie question with canon rebel

hey all. ive got a canon digital rebel and love it. its by far the best digital camera ive ever had and gives you alot more room to be creative with it. heres my question:

i will go out, and snap some pictures off in the manual settings. the pictures look great on my lcd viewer. i take them home, load them up on my computer and they all seem a bit dark. im curious if there is a setting on my rebel that i can make the lcd a bit darker, so they come out a bit more like they look while viewing on my camera. ive experimented with the three different lenses i have, and all have different apertures, and produce different results, but because im looking at them on the lcd viewer they seem to look good and are dark when i get home. typically if i snap off a picture and it looks brighter then, but load them on my computer, and they are just right. thanks!

the only real options you have are to turn down the brightness level of the LCD or since you know the problem and that it always produces dark images, bump up your exposure a tad bit like you said which gives them good results.

Or calibrate your monitor. The camera LCD could be fine and your monitor could be off.

thanks. toning down the LCD on the camera might be a good idea. ive used my friends rebel and using the same exposure as mine produces a different picture, so i bet this would do the trick. thanks!

and i will check out the calibration on my imac. thanks.

Find the RGB curve in your replay and read up on it. Using any camera's LCD screen to judge exposure will be hit or miss as they are not calibrated.

Your exposure curve will show you if your clipping the blacks (going off the left side) or whites (going off the right side) and over time you will get a general feel of what the curve should look like. A brighter scene will have more of the pixels on the right half, darker scene more on the left.

if your monitor is calibrated correctly, the proper thing to do would be to change the EV compensation of your camera. You should have the ability to go a few stops in both the lighter and darker direction. This should allow you to fine tune your images till they come out looking the way you prefer!

SLC

If you're shooting in RAW then you can probably increase the brightness and/or exposure... just don't do it too much or you'll get noise in your shot.

Odin_aa said:

Find the RGB curve in your replay and read up on it. Using any camera's LCD screen to judge exposure will be hit or miss as they are not calibrated.

Your exposure curve will show you if your clipping the blacks (going off the left side) or whites (going off the right side) and over time you will get a general feel of what the curve should look like. A brighter scene will have more of the pixels on the right half, darker scene more on the left.

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looking forward to see your shot on 'Photo of the month: June ' thread u have great shots

Listen to SLCFishing. Calibrate everything to your final output source, whether it be a print or monitor. If you're going to view them on your monitor, make sure it's calibrated. You can pick up a decent calibration tool for $100. Take a few shots, upload them to your computer. Make the LCD on the Rebel come as close to your monitors image as possible.
If it's still not close, you can choose to over expose every image a 1/2 or 1/3rd stop until it's perfect. There should be a setting to permanently over expose or under expose your shots.
Not to condone under or over exposing but it is far better to under expose slightly than over expose slightly. (You can get back shadow detail but can't get back hightlight detail as easily. As a tip, it's best to fix problem when you shooting and not when you're working in photoshop.
Also, listen to Odin_aa. If you don't know how to read the curves graph, read up on it. They're super helpful when you know how to interpret them.
If you're still having problems, get a Nikon. ;-)
Good luck,
Bryan

If you're still having problems, get a Nikon. ;-)

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Oh, them's fightin' words! ;P (Fellow XTi owner)

Where I work, I get to check out any camera system and lighting system I want for the weekend and for free. Last week I had out the Mark II and few lenses. I just can't figure out the Canon. (I don't get to check out the manuals) How do you change the aperture in manual mode or aperture priority mode? I can change the shutter speed with the dial in back but what about the aperture? I think I figured it out once on the original Rebel DSLR (the model before the XT) and it seemed kinda complicated.
As for Nikon, I've owned a ton and find them so easy to use. I can pick up the D200 and it feels and works exactly like my old N80 did.
I'd admit Canon's seems to have nicer colors but the Nikon is more flexible for my needs. And for that reason, I will stick with Nikon whenever I decide to buy a digi cam of my own.
Sorry for being off topic. Can anyone help me?
Bryan

I think some of the Rebel XT's had an issue with exposure. Have you updated the firmware? I think .3 is the newest firmware update. You could also take it back to a Canon store and let them adjust it.

Bryan, to change the aperture in manual mode, at least with the Rebel XTs, you have to hold the Av[+/-] button probably located next to the LCD and then rotate the wheel that you used to change shutter speeds.

EDIT: Just checked the an image of an MKII, it's probably the button located on top of the camera just in front of the top LCD with the +/-. Hold that and rotate the wheel by the shutter

Sweet, thanks OSUR. I was wondering that myself, and hadn't bothered to check the manual yet.

I would hope they'd make it the same button function on all their DSLR's. You're probably right.
Thanks for the help!
Bryan