Exposure problems

staffitaxi

staffitaxi

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Andrea
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I seem to be having countless problems with exposure at the minute. Particularly with whites and highlights being totally overcooked.

Anyone have any recommendations? Want to sort this out before I have problems with snow while I'm away.

I've tried quicker shutter speeds, and messing about with white balance, althought not entirely sure what this is anyway?

Thanks

Andrea
 
I don't know Nikon's, but my 30D has a feature where it will flash parts of the picture where the highlights are blown at you on the review screen. Really helps to let you know if you're overexposing as, as we all know, you can't always see it on the small review picture otherwise.

For snow, if I recall correctly you deliberately slightly overexpose as otherwise the camera's meter gets confused and the snow ends up grey.
 
Sounds like you are metering for the low lights maybe ... :shrug: ... or there are more low lights than highlights ... :thinking:

Try metering from a mid tone/grey shade to reduce blown highlights ... or bracket your exposures and practice until you get it spot on ... ;)

And yes Witchy ... :thumbs: ... Darksiders also have the flashy review mode for blown highlight areas ... ;)










:p
 
Andrea, White balance is there because different kinds of apparently 'white' light, actually give off different colours. Tungsten will look orange, flourescents a sort of green and so on. So the camera has built in ability to balance that out so the resulting image is the same as what the eye would see. Try setting the white balance to daylight, then taking a pic in a room lit with strip lights, then another room with tungsten bulbs, and then a pic outside and you will see the actual colour hues on the resulting image [this is the one things I truly remember from a college course over 10 years ago :lol: ]


As for highlights blown, could be a few things, as venomator said, try metering on lighter or midpoints points in the image and see if that tones them down a bit. :shrug:
 
Take your shot, review it.....if the images shows the flashy bits to show the problem areas, dial in some exposure compensation and retake it using the same point you metered from in the first shot.
 
Thanks All

I have had it set on so it flashes the overblown bits in the screen over the weekend.

It seems to be mainly the sky which is losing out and some ducks with lots of white on them yesterday, the black and white ones were damn near impossible.

It has been hard over the weekend to decide settings. On one hand it was cloudy but it did seem very bright so ended up setting it to direct sunlight but I dont' know if that was right or not.

Unfortunately due to the type of phoography I enjoy you don't get much chance to bracket the shots, you either get it or you don't.

I think I need to get my book on exposure out again.

Thanks for the replies and to CT for the link.

Andrea
 
Perhaps if you show us a couple of the problem pics we can try (I am sure someone here will have the correct answer in understandable speak :suspect:) and point you in the right direction from those Andrea ... :shrug:









:p
 
i am certainly no expert, but i beleive which metering mode in your camera will make a differerence as well.

which mode are you using?
 
Hi Bolerus.

Do you mean setting it to direct sunlight, cloudy day etc? Or is there something else in those menu's I should be looking at without sounding incredibly thick?

I might do as Ven suggested and post a couple later tonight to see if that makes it easier to see where I'm going wrong.

Thanks

Andrea
 
I have a D50, i assume it is similair.

(dotn have ti with me at the moment so i am trying to remember here, i may be wrong)

Go into you menu

on the camera settings (or it may be the one below)

scroll through the menu items and onto the second page.

Some where there will be a metering mode setting. which will have 3 options

matrix mode, centre weighted and spot mode

(I really hope I arnt mixing my technologies in my head, I am very new myself)

these ( i believe) govern where the camera takes its meter reading from . matrix tries to get an average of the whole area in view, centre weighted does the same but pays more attention to the centre of the view where as spot looks at the very centre of the view.

there are a few tricks for getting the exposure you want.

if you want nice skies and detail in the shadow, it is probably best to metre for the sky, (eg point the camera at the sky then either check the settings, hold tha AEL button or half press the shutter and hodl it) then recompose on the buildings or watever.

You will then find that the sky will be nice and cloudy (assuming that there is cloud) but the buildings / ground are very dark. Then open the image up in photoshop, make a duplicate layer, change the levels so you get the detail back, then use a layer mask to delete the extra bright sky / paint in the dark sky.

That takes a bit of doing, the first time, but the more you do it the better you get lol

The problem you do hav ewith that method is that you can get it looking right on your monitor and then it looks wrong on other peoples (like the one I posted today in the landscapes forum)


I hope I arnt talking completely out of my bottom, but that is how I see it any way
 
Hi Dan

Haven't got it with me today. Was supposed to as I need to go and photograph a dog in the pound but forgot it this morning so going tomorrow now instead.

You in tomorrow?

Andrea
 
staffitaxi said:
Hi Dan

Haven't got it with me today. Was supposed to as I need to go and photograph a dog in the pound but forgot it this morning so going tomorrow now instead.

You in tomorrow?

Andrea
Click to expand...

Naaa Wednesdays off for me :D
Im in Thursday and Friday though
 
One thing that helps with overblown highlights is setting the contrast in the menu system to low contrast. All the other advice you have in ooodles from the folks above. :)
 
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