exposure problems

[kimberley]

I just cant seem to get to exposure right, the water is blown out how can I correct this> what am I doing wrong?

[PeteQ]

Kimberely, can you help us out with some more information. ISO, aperture, shutter speed, metering mode, etc. Then everyone can start to try to see if they can help you out.

[kimberley]

iso 100 250 2.8

[PeteQ]

Ok, which brand and model of camera and which metering mode (spot, center weighted, matrix)

Something like this: Nikon D70, ISO 200, 250/f8, spot metering (metered off of the teddy bear)

It looks like the metering tried to meter for the tree or the girl and in doing so allowed the background highlights to be blown out.

[markperez]

sometimes there is not much you can do with one shot. You got the little girl correct in exposure but if the water is 2 or more stops higher in exposure then you are not going to get in one shot. As a work around you can expose from the little girl (like you did) then take a second shot but this time expose for the water. Then in an application you can combine the 2 shots and mask in the correct parts of each photo to make one nice photo.

Also a circular polarizer might have helped here but I am not sure about that

[kimberley]

Canon Digital Rebel ISO 100 250/f2.8, evalutaive

[RandySmith]

Kimberly,

Are you wanting help in taking a photograph that won't have blown out highlights ? Or are you wanting some help doing some post-processing of your image ? Both are complex and have their own set of suggestions and recommendations.

Hope I can help.
Randy

[kimberley]

both....I can make it work in photoshop, but I would like to not have to relyon PS...

[CaptainTom]

In this situation some sort of auxillary light is necessary. Because the subject is at least two f stops darker than the water, what you would have to do is figure the exposure for the water by pointing you camera directly at the area and taking a reading.
Now, you have to add enough light to the sugject to correctly expose it at the same f-stop, shutter combination that exposes the water correctly.
This is usually done with an auxilliary flash unit.

[RandySmith]

Kimberly -

I agree with Tom and others that some sort of "fill" in light needs to be used here ... A suggestion when taking photo's, is to try to not have a bright light source like the sun directly behind your subject, that puts your subjects face directly in the shade. Either move your subject or move the camera position, somewhere around 45degrees from the bright sun. A cheap "FILL" is to use a white foam core board to reflect the light back onto your subject. If done correctly, it will look very nice.
Randy

[snidow]

I was going to say about the same as Tom, you need to "fill" the darker area to balance out the lighting. Our eyes can "see" more ranges then the camera can record, so it's tough learning what's going to go dark or burn out when looking at a scene but when ever you have such strong back lighting then you need to supplement it to get the details in the darker area. In the photo you show, you exposed for the shadow area so the high lights are blown, if you had exposed for the high lights the shadow area would have been too dark. Only way to over come this problem is to use more light in the shadow area.

[kimberley]

thanks guys, Im getting a flash sometime this week.

I hoping this will help I go to this location alot and have lots of problem with my exposure, I hoping the flash will help and me learning more will help also....I hope I this all comes together someday.

[engstrom]

kimberly, a flash will really help pictures like the one you posted above. Just remember to take your exposure off of the bright background, either by filling the frame with the background and then using auto exposure lock (AEL) or by using spot metering and metering only off the background, or filling the frame with the background and making note of what the aperture/shutter speed is and then switching the camera to manual mode and dialing in those values. If you're using a flash though make sure your shutter speed doesn't go above the flash sync speed (typically 1/250 of a second).

[Justin]

What the other guys said :)

But really, it's not too hard to merge two shots, one exposed for the water and one for the model, in photoshop using the mask technique mentioned in one of the other threads on here. I tried it for the first time the other night and it works fairly well for how suprisingly easy it is. It would be worth trying... I can find the link if you'd like. Things to keep in mind when doing this, use a tripod and make sure your aperture or focal length don't change between the two shots. What I do is focus the lens and then click it over to manual so it won't change. I then shoot aperture priority and bracket my shots by changing shutter speed. This way aperture is fixed so the DOF doesn't change.

If you _really_ wanted to get fancy, you could take a series of shots from underexposed to overexposed and combine them using the High Dynamic Range feature of PS... but I'm still learning that and the work load seems quite a bit higher, although the control and info you have in the file is incredible.

[LoungeLizard]

OK...I think everyone has suggested the right things - and I use the AEL all the time. This weekend, however, I had a problem doing so and am wondering if anyone can assist.

I was using my 20D with a 580ex flash unit and the camera was set to Aperture priority (Av). I metered the background as I normally would and pressed the "*" button (AEL). The flash pre-flashed and the words "FEL" showed up in the corner of the viewfinder. When I then repositioned my camera and pressed the shutter released - it would re-meter!

Anyone know what I was doing wrong?