Any idea why my pictures look so dull

[ovaltinemilo]

wow. if you think d90 ISO noise is bad, have you ever ever ever tried the d50/70 or d80 or d200?

iso1600 is still good compared to all those bodies. rule of thumb if your ISO max is 3200, never exceed 1600. if its Hi1 or 6400 never exceed 3200. always 1/2 way mark. never more

Totally agreeable...I find that D70 is good till 1250 ISO depending on lens use. D90 max at 800iso?? tt's weird...probably shooting with alot of shadows...;p

 

[eternalSun]

you already have not enough light to start with...I would think, using your 18-105, try to shoot at 18mm, 1/6-1/10 with your VR on..don't use any in camera NR.

How to really improve your shot more in the future for this location? get a f1.8 lens;p

love your last statement :bsmilie: will get that but must 1st save some money

 

[kutten]

Hi everyone. I've just got myself a D90 not long ago. Went out to take some pictures and realize that most of my pictures are rather dull. Can someone advice me as to what i'm doing wrong? Here's a picture i took in a church. Found the cross rather unconventional

From the histogram, it is considered a "flat Histogram". It looks dull because you don't have a perfect spread of tone (or full range of tones) for depth or richness. Both left and right side has such a big gap. When you do PP, you are trying to spread the tonal ranges to recover the loss of highlight and shadow. Now link this back to your camera; the photo is basically underexposed, need to increase the ISO ...(more noise), slow down the shutter speed some more... (blur image due to hand shake and the shutter speed should not go below 1/60s if you use hand held at 58mm focal length), and you said your aperture is already at the widest ? It looks like there is a lot of limitation here ???:dunno:

Like all the bros suggested. It would better if you use fast lens, or use a tripod, or a flash. In fact the PP process has already given you some hints, if you think about it.

Nope. Was shooting using aperture priority. but i think i set my metering to 3d....should i have used center or spot metering?
What makes you think that this will help under this situation without a tripod ???