Over-exposure on light blue flower?

[Jonathan Shl]

I have been taking several photos of some light blue flowers and one - the forget-me-not seems to come out a much lighter blue than I would expect. Would a neutral density filter make much difference?

Or would I need to adjust the camera settings for that shot?

 

[chphotos]

Johnathon, can you post the settings you used for this shot?

 

[onform]

Use manual exposure to get it exactly right. You may need a smaller aperture too as IMHO you have a too shallow depth of field.

 

[Jonathan Shl]

Johnathon, can you post the settings you used for this shot?

I had everything set to auto - a lot of what I am doing with my SLR is wildlife, especially birds and insects so I often need to be quick and from a distance - and for anyone who asks, it's a telemacro shot (300mm lens at less than 1m).

Camera: Canon EOS 550D (APS-C sensor, crop factor 1.6x) - Lens Tamron 70-300mm, set to macro mode
Auto settings:
F-stop f/7.1
exposure 1/400 sec
ISO speed: ISO-3200

 

[steevee]

I had everything set to auto - a lot of what I am doing with my SLR is wildlife, especially birds and insects so I often need to be quick and from a distance - and for anyone who asks, it's a telemacro shot (300mm lens at less than 1m).

Camera: Canon EOS 550D (APS-C sensor, crop factor 1.6x) - Lens Tamron 70-300mm, set to macro mode
Auto settings:
F-stop f/7.1
exposure 1/400 sec
ISO speed: ISO-3200

no expert, but, ya should be aiming for something like:

f/5.6 or lower.
iso 100 or 200

try setting the camera to AV mode. it should work out the correct exposure, for you.

 

[Richard King]

When you see something like this.. go back to basics, pop the camera on manual and

1. set the ISO back to 100
2. Set the aperture to F8
3. zoom out a bit and shoot more of the scene
4. figure out the correct shutter speed for exposure (regardless of motion)

When you have a perfectly exposed shot you are happy with, then adjust the aperture / shutter speed / framing / working distance out to get the creative look you wanted

If the plant is moving about too much.. stabilise it, use a wind break, if there is too much light, or it is too harsh, use a diffuser, if you need to punch a bit of light onto the foliage, use reflectors etc..

I cant remember ever setting my cameras on auto ISO or ISO between a range of A and B. You are the photographer, You take control of the settings, and then you will take control of your photographs (or at least know intuatitivley what to do when things dont go to plan 1)

 

[hairboy]

You don't need ND filter. No disrespect, but you need to learn photographic basics.
Exposure, aperture, shutter speed, focus, depth of field, white balance. These are such basic fundamentals, if you don't understand these, no amount of gear will help you. Learn the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Relationship between focal length and shutter speed. Learn about exposure compensation.

Looking at the exposure you were shooting, at, it seems that it was a quite dark environment for you to need ISO 3200 f7.1 1/400. Still, I would turn the ISO down and open up the aperture wider than that. You could dial down to 800 and f5.6 1/300 or so, which would still give you fast enough shutter speed (just about - depending on your hand holding skill) and a much cleaner image.

 

[hairboy]

I cant remember ever setting my cameras on auto ISO or ISO between a range of A and B. You are the photographer, You take control of the settings, and then you will take control of your photographs (or at least know intuatitivley what to do when things dont go to plan 1)

BTW, auto ISO is very handy in a run and gun situation/or varying light conditions. You want it as low as possible, but sometimes you need it to rise enough that you don't miss the moment, and don't want a grossly underexposed image. It's a useful feature when you don't have the time to change settings for each shot.

 

[Richard King]

BTW, auto ISO is very handy in a run and gun situation/or varying light conditions. You want it as low as possible, but sometimes you need it to rise enough that you don't miss the moment, and don't want a grossly underexposed image. It's a useful feature when you don't have the time to change settings for each shot.

I do know that

I also like to be in control of noise/grain as well as exposure

Personally I have never found that me being in manual control of ISO has meant I have "missed a shot"

On a shot by shot basis I am THINKING ... Exposure balance, DOF, motion,
ISO/noise, ambient/flash balance

Generally before I have pressed the shutter, I have considered most of the above
Back to the OP

If you leave your camera on "auto everything" then you will never learn to be creative. Concentrate on one setting at once, find all the boundaries of it, and move onto the next settings. Automagic is OK for running and gunning, but in reality, you may as well flip a coin as to the results

 

[hairboy]

Richard - Of course you should decide on the look shot by shot. But there are times when having Auto ISO become useful when you are in a run and gun situation where you literally don't have the time to check or change ISO. For example, when I shoot weddings/events, by setting Auto ISO with minimum shutter speed to suit the lens, I know I'll have the shot, even when I don't change to optimum setting. Not ideal, but that has saved my butt when I was caught out by a sudden photo op. If you say you are 100% alert of all your surroundings, good for you. But when I see a features that makes my life a little easier, I'm going to make the most of it

 

[lensflair]

Richard - Of course you should decide on the look shot by shot. But there are times when having Auto ISO become useful when you are in a run and gun situation where you literally don't have the time to check or change ISO. For example, when I shoot weddings/events, by setting Auto ISO with minimum shutter speed to suit the lens, I know I'll have the shot, even when I don't change to optimum setting. Not ideal, but that has saved my butt when I was caught out by a sudden photo op. If you say you are 100% alert of all your surroundings, good for you. But when I see a features that makes my life a little easier, I'm going to make the most of it

Auto ISO is something I've never used, I like to be in control and I didn't like the unpredictable nature of it, but after reading a few threads where people mentioned it I started thinking it might actually be useful.

So I have been trying it out on a D3 for a few days and it is actually very useful. If I am shooting available light I am usually in aperture priority if I am moving around a lot and light is changing. If I have say the 70-200 on I know I can handhold at 200mm down to 1/40th sec due to VR. Now if I drop below that ill have to up the ISO anyway, the auto ISO always stays as low as possible and only increases if my shutter speed is dropping below the 1/40th I've set. I can see the ISO change in the viewfinder and I can open the aperture if I want and the ISO will drop, but what if I'm wide open already? My only choice is to increase ISO if I don't want to go below 1/40th sec. Well I would do that anyway but the camera does it for me and heres the bonus, it will select ISO incrementally in steps smaller than you can select manually. So I have access to ISO increments that I can't get any other way, the camera does it on the fly and tracks changes to aperture and light conditions and gives me the cleanest shot possible.


Now I think I may be turning it off for flash use, I am in manual mode always when using on or off camera flash and I think I may revert to manual ISO. I probably shoot in manual more than aperture priority so I'm going to have to explore that a bit more, but I am so glad I tried this out properly, it will make shooting in a dark church easier, and I'm all for the camera getting out of my way. I can't believe I didn't try this sooner, must be the control freak in me, I have a feeling this may be one of the most underutilised useful features on modern dslrs, even my d300 has this feature so I've been walking around with it for years.

 

[garryg163]

Do what I call the squinty eye test. Look at the picture you produced through your eye lashes. You will see the flower and green reduced to tonal ranges. The prdominant tone on the shot is DARK (Green) the camera sees this in Auto and exposes to make this main tone an average grey, thus over exposing your precious flower!

To retain detail in your flower either expose with the flower filling the frame or if this is not possible, choose an item close to you that has a similar tone and take a substitute reading (In Manual mode) and use this setting to expose your shot. You will then have a shot that is correctly exposed for the item thats the most important to you.

 

[hairboy]

I can't believe I didn't try this sooner, must be the control freak in me, I have a feeling this may be one of the most underutilised useful features on modern dslrs, even my d300 has this feature so I've been walking around with it for years.

You and me both When I first bought D3, I didn't use it properly, so didn't appreciate its benefits. I shoot in A on run and gun, and can't be thinking about aperture every single shot, when I should be looking out for the shots. Auto ISO just lets you concentrate on the job at hand, and makes my work load easier to manage.

What I do now is to have 1 customs setting with this - Auto ISO on, minimum shutter speed gets changed but default is 1/60 sec.

To OP - sorry if we had a sub debate on your thread.