Help needed on Camera settings please.

Byrhtnoth

Byrhtnoth

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Simon
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Hi
Im new to photography and in need of some advice on the creative camera settings. I am using a Canon 400D with EF-S18-55mm kit lens and a tripod.
I took this photo this morning at 6.45am set on "Program AE" with the ISO set at 1600. The shutter speed was 1/125 with the aperture at 9. It is straight out of the camera as im not used to photoshop yet.
The boat and marshes in the foreground have lost all their detail :shake:

Which settings should i have used to keep all the detail with the low light conditions? :thinking: or what im i doing wrong? :shrug:
Should i have used the "TV" setting and gone for a long shutter speed?

I would be gratefull for any comments, help or advice. Or pointing in the right direction for info on learning about shutter speed, aperture and iso.


Maldon on the mud
IMG_0101.jpg
 
Welcome to the forum.
It looks as if the cameras meter has read for the sky, thus making the forground a silouette.
Either add a stop or 2 exp comp or take a meter reading from a mid toned part of the picture and use exp lock, recompose and shoot. You might end up losing detail in the sky, in which case you will need a neut grad filter.
Obviously this is only a quick outline as to what needs to be done.
Dean:)
 
Avoid iso 1600 if you can, stick to 400 or less unless you want the graininess to be there.
Cameras have difficulty with scenes that have a very wide range of light, so as Dino says, if you want the forground to be visible you need to expose for it, your 400d will have an exposure lock button like * if you aim at the boats and press that button then recompose you will get a shot with the foreground ok but the sky likely burned out.

A grad filter can help you or you can take two shots and copy the sky from one to the other in your graphics prog.
 
Yep...get yourself a grad grey filter which is darker at the top to tone down that sky and you will find the foreground lighter.

I love Maldon on the mud.... (near Chelmsford me!!) :D
 
Thanks for the quick replys, i think next time i shall take a lot more with different exposures. Forgot about the exposure lock button :bonk:
Looks like i will be purchasing a Corkin grad grey filter as well.


I love Maldon on the mud.... (near Chelmsford me!!)
Click to expand...

Your just a short row down the river then Janice! :wave:

I shall post a few more pics for c and c over in the Landscape section, as i want to learn from my mistakes.
Thanks Simon.
 
Hi Byrhtnoth

As has been said, all you need to do here is compensate somehow for the exposure on the sky. There's a few ways to do this, but I'm no experienced photographer so please see others comments too.

1. Take two exposures - compensate the exposure method
Take the first shot as you have done, and the Canon will AE (AutoExpose) as it has done, for the sky. Then read the manual, and see how you can compensate the exposure maunally, once you have found out how to do this, drop the exposure down two or three stops, and take another photo. This should then expose the foreground correctly, and overexpose the sky. This method assumes you're using a tripod so you can take exactly the same image with different exposures. Then, import the two images into Photoshop and use a combination of masks and tools to place the top half of image 1, onto the bottom half of image 2. Voila.

2. Take two exposures - use exposure lock
This will be a tad harder because you would need to move the camera in the process and thus trying to get back to the exact spot in space where you took the first shot would probably not happen. Regardless... you take shot 1 as above, then read the manual and find out how to lock the exposure, then move the camera and point it at the foreground, lock the exposure, and while keeping the exposure locked move the camera to the position it was in shot 1, and click away for the seconds shot. Very difficult to get the same spot, and I'd suggest this wouldn't produce a very good result.

3. Use a Neutral Density filter or Grad filter
A ND filter is simply a 'light blocker' that you position over the frame to cover a certain area that you want to compensate for in terms of exposure. So, say you had a 1/2 and 1/2 ND filter at -2. This would be a fitter where the top half of it would block two stops of exposure, and the bottom half would allow normal light through. So, if you placed this over your lens, positioning the mid point of the filter to rest on the lower part of the skyline... when you took the picture, the top half would be underexposed two stops, and the bottom half would be correctly exposed. If you had metered as you have done already - for the sky - then this would produce an image where the sky AND foreground would be both correctly exposed. You may have to play with the exposures etc, but it will give you a good result.

Hope that helps...
 
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