[KPsplash]

I recently attended a course shooting action pictures of horses and riders at a one day event (dressage, cross country, show jumping) The course tutor said she always shoots in jpegs at these events because it's faster and also uses the cloudy day setting as it "bumps up" the colours. I tried this and it was moderately successful, the colours were richer but the images required editing in Photoshop to get the exposure right. I assumed it was my inept photography, but at a recent dressage event, I found the same thing. (it was a cloudy day) The photos looked fine on my Macbook pro display, but on my calibrated monitors they looked darker and flatter. They were all recoverable in Photoshop and were some of my best action shots so far, but took a lot of time Photoshop editing.
Why should the cloudy day setting affect exposure, or am I doing something wrong? I just want to get my exposures right so that I don't have to spend hours editing
On the bright side, the sharpness of my images is much improved!

[Unregistered User 8]

Hi KP. " Cloudy day " is a white balance setting and really shouldn't affect exposure. A couple of questions for you though to help us help you !!
How are you metering a scene - spot, center-weighted or multi-segment, and a silly question but I'll ask it anyway, are you sure that exposure compensation is not set? Good luck with this issue.

[CarlJF]

...uses the cloudy day setting as it "bumps up" the colours.

Maybe on his camera if it has a crappy auto WB, but no, unless obviously it's really a cloudy day. And even then, Auto WB and Bright jpg will usually give very decent results.

The course tutor said she always shoots in jpegs at these events because it's faster...

Again, maybe his camera is significantly faster in jpeg, but with a Pentax it's not true. In fact, jpeg can even be slower if you apply lens corrections, filters... It's usually better to shot DNG only and then batch convert them to jpg afterward, applying any correction or adjustments you want. Your camera has in body raw processing, not need to have the jpeg right at the time of shooting. Maybe his camera doesn't do this and he only can get the jpg at the moment he's getting the shot...

So, just shoot in raw only, auto WB, bright picture setting (if want a bit more punchy colors). You can just change these settings when you do the conversion to jpg if need be...

[KPsplash]

Thanks, I have to admit , that's what I thought , shoot in RAW, with Auto WB or bright picture setting. I think her camera was a Canon, but not sure which one, and her shots were ace.. I guess practice and trial and error are more educational than countless photo courses!

No, there was no exposure compensation set, and multi segmented metering as far as I can remember

I do have some issues with screen calibration, my macbook pro is much brighter and bluer than the monitor I use in conjunction with it, which isn't an Apple monitor.

Thanks so much for your help, I'm mentally still back in the darkroom, where I worked as a printer for over 20 years, I'm slowly getting to grips with this digital malarkey