exposure control problem for beginner

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albedo_0_39

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garry
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Here's a classic scenario for a beginner, such as me, to overcome
assume that I have a view of a long garden, ie grass, flowers etc. All down the one side there is a 6ft fence and it is very sunny. The fence casts a strong, dark shadow all down the garden, threst of course is bathed in sunlight. I stand at one end of the garden, looking all the way down. For exposure purposes (ignore exposure compensation for now), if I point the camera at the area of the garden that is sunlit and take a reading, then shoot. I would obvious get an image where the shadowed area (along the fence) would appear nearly black. Whereas if I take a reading, pointing at the shadowed area along the fence (ie pointing into the shadows at the grass) then shoot. I would get an image that would show a lot more details from the shadowed area but would over-expose the sunlit area. Could someone please give me good, clear guidance how to attack this problem properly

thanks for any help in advance
Gaz
 
a) wait for the sun to move round
b) take both pictures and use HDR (see elsewhere) to merge the two
c) use RAW, expose for the bright side and fix it in post processing
 
I'm with you here, never sure what to do for the best. :thinking:

Shooting RAW does help, but if the dark areas are very dark, they might be noisy when lifted. ND grad filters can help sometimes....you can rotate them to cope with vertical as well as horizontal shade/bright areas. I generally find I use the shadow/highlight command in Elements to rescue my mistakes!!! :lol: I select the area I want to change with a lasso, feather it a bit to blend edges, then use shadow/highlight GENTLY, to lift the dark, (or darken the light, whichever works best in the particular shot).

Hope this helps......I'm learning all the time and a better tog might have other suggestions.
 
ok. even with the use of filters, such as ND, is it likely that (not only in the garden scenario) the exposure level differences would be so great between the shadow and the sunlit areas, that filters would cope? I mean , if you were out in the Peak District (or similar) on a clear, very hot, sunny day how much dfference is likely between very bright areas (ie skies, clouds, top/peaks of hills), and dark areas (valley/dips in shdaows etc)?
 
That would depend on the strength of the light source and the position it was in. You're unlikely to get a camera to expose a heavily shadowed area and a brightly lit sky in the same image correctly with the use of filters. Don't forget that you can use more than one ND grad if it wasn't enough and stack them up.
 
You will never be able to overcome this problem "in camera". IMO the best way to deal with it would be to take 2 shots on a tripod - one exposed for the shadows and one exposed for the rest of the garden, then merge the two shots in Photoshop (of any other PP software). Photostar is correct in saying that if you have to lift the shadow too far in RAW it will end up very noisy
 
so, from what Grendel has just mentioned I can assess this as follows

take the two shots at the correct exposure levels to begin with so that any modifications done in software afterwards are minimal and thus are not likely to need a lot of work, ie shouldn't spoil the shots as a result.

whereas if I had taken one shot, with filters, I would probably have to do more "corrective" work in software , which would evidently lead to "spoilage"
 
I suspect the problems with trying to do it all in camera are:
a) finding the right (enough) ND grads to fix the problem
b) the "join" between under and over-exposed is unlikely to be a straight line, so aligning the "step" would be "interesting"

Photoshop and various other bits of software can fix it relatively easily
I do suggest a tripod so you get the two shots from the same place!
 
Yup I'd pretty much agree with that albedo. Ultimately you want to do as little work in software to "correct" a shot as possible. The more you have to lighten lost shadows or darken blown highlights, the more obvious it becomes. SO if you start with 2 reasonably well exposed shots (highlights and shadows) and merge them the tweaks you will have to make are minimal, whereas if you shoot one shot exposed for the highlights it will be very difficult to recover the (almost black) shadow
 
In very bright sunlight it's not at all uncommon for the variance in brightness levels to be too much for your sensor to cope with - or film for that matter.

The answer really is to wait for a brightish but more overcast day/ time., which is far more likely to produce a pleasing result anyway - that would be my choice, although as others have said, you also have the Grads/ HDR options too. Definitely shoot in RAW to give yourself the most control in processing.
 
Agree with CT on this one, NDs are worth a try, although awkward to use 2 at 2 different angles. Agrad would be better than a hard to mask the transition I suppose, but without seeing the shot it's difficult to do other than generalise.
 
Sorry, should say a soft grad would be better than a hard one.
 
Take a reading for both shadow and sunlight areas, calculate how many stops difference there is. Now use settings in the middle of the two shifting towards the highlights or shadows depending on what bias you'd prefer.
 
Grendel said:
You will never be able to overcome this problem "in camera". IMO the best way to deal with it would be to take 2 shots on a tripod - one exposed for the shadows and one exposed for the rest of the garden, then merge the two shots in Photoshop (of any other PP software). Photostar is correct in saying that if you have to lift the shadow too far in RAW it will end up very noisy
Click to expand...

this makes perfect sense having seen how the post work is done. simple (but possible silly) question, how do you expose on the different area's. I ahve always done it by using the AE lock button but then you have to move the camera and trying to re-align it on the tripd so its spot on with the other is a nightmare.

have i missed something?
 
rwotton said:
this makes perfect sense having seen how the post work is done. simple (but possible silly) question, how do you expose on the different area's. I ahve always done it by using the AE lock button but then you have to move the camera and trying to re-align it on the tripd so its spot on with the other is a nightmare.
Click to expand...

Well using a tripod the easiest way is to make a note of the two different readings before you set up on the tripod as long as light levels don't change in the meantime obviously

have i missed something?
Click to expand...

Yep - a hand held meter.:D
 
Grendel said:
You will never be able to overcome this problem "in camera". IMO the best way to deal with it would be to take 2 shots on a tripod - one exposed for the shadows and one exposed for the rest of the garden, then merge the two shots in Photoshop (of any other PP software). Photostar is correct in saying that if you have to lift the shadow too far in RAW it will end up very noisy
Click to expand...

I agree with Grendel here and I would probably do this method. However, if the scene was a small garden, I suppose you could try an external flash to brighten up the shadows.:shrug:
 
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