Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Pelotons in Sepia: or how my camera tripped me up

The Amgen Tour of California (http://amgentourofcalifornia.com) came through Davis and the route passed near my home. I was all prepared to take some action photos with my digital camera. I pulled out the owner's manual for the camera to read how to set up for continuous shooting, I even tested it out in my living room. The pictures looked a little washed out but I figured it was because I was shooting indoors.

The day stage 2 of the race came to Davis the weather was very overcast. As the peloton came through I'm happily shooting away. I took over 100 exposures. I downloaded them and was disappointed in how washed out they appeared. What was going on? Yes, the day was gloomy and very overcast and grey, but these pictures looked brown. All the other pictures I have taken with this camera have been fine. I showed them to my significant other. He said it looks like the camera was set for sepia. No, couldn't be, I always use full color, full resolution, etc. OK, maybe he had something there, so I decided to check the camera. Sure enough, the setting was for sepia. Now, why would they even offer that option when you can achieve it quite well with photo editing software.

I guess I'll have to wait until next year and hopefully I'll remember my lesson and check all the settings on my camera before I try to record history.