Correct Exposure on a Wedding dress in broad daylight

[abril1127]

How do I keep this Halo from appearing? Is it a lens issue? Or a exposure issue?
I took my old wedding dress into direct sunlight today to try and figure it out. (ya that will make your neighbors think your nuts!) I set up my grey card to get proper exposure according to the histogram. But I still got the white glow/haze. Is it just that I want to shoot wide open? I get that it's light reflecting off of the white dress but how can I keep it from happening?

[bondarnes]

What you have here are two white areas and neither is properly exposed. The areas receiving full sun are very overexposed thus creating lens flare (halo). The areas not receiving direct sunlight are slightly underexposed. I will assume that your gray card did not receive direct sunlight. In short your problem is that the exposure range of the scene exceeds your sensors ability to capture it. Film could better handle this situation, but no one uses that anymore. A reflector or an auxiliary flash will give you a fighting chance. My suggestion would be to get over shooting wide open in full sunlight or find a camera or film with an ISO of 25. YMMV

[CaptainTom]

hand held light meter
incident reading
underexpose by 1.34 stops

perfectly adequate.
shoot in RAW
adjust

[abril1127]

So being wide open does have something to do with it? I noticed at 5.6 (wide open for that zoom range) on my 18-200 it had the halo it but at 5.6 on my 50mm 1.8 it had no halo but at 1.8 it had the halo.

Thanks you two for your replies.

[abril1127]

Here's the original with no crop for those of you that are interested.

[ChristopherCoy]

Originally Posted by bondarnes

My suggestion would be to get over shooting wide open in full sunlight or find a camera or film with an ISO of 25. YMMV

Just to play devils advocate... wouldn't a large board or something to cause shade solve the problem too? Or is that not the point of the experiement?

[abril1127]

Well the point was to get a better understanding of exposure and light/reflections. I have had this problem off and on before and wanted to fully understand why.

I have a wedding coming up at 2pm outside in a rose garden, no tree's. So I wanted to be better prepared for the harsh lighting.

[ChristopherCoy]

Originally Posted by abril1127

Well the point was to get a better understanding of exposure and light/reflections. I have had this problem off and on before and wanted to fully understand why.

I have a wedding coming up at 2pm outside in a rose garden, no tree's. So I wanted to be better prepared for the harsh lighting.

Ahh! Makes sense...


ETA: 2PM?!? And its 11 now? And you aren't running around the church yet???

[abril1127]

ROFL The wedding still a couple weeks away. No church just a Garden Arts Center.

[venchka]

You are seeing lots of things going wrong. All at once.
Don't use your lenses wide open unless you know what to expect. Test.
Bracket your exposures. Test.
Composition. Practice. Test.

[Todd]

Try using the spot meter in the camera or a handheld light meter. Handheld meter would be the best choice, if you don't have one then use the spot meter and bracket your shots.

[CaptainTom]

April
I applaud your effort to understand this problem.
Don't shoot wide open if you can help it. It's kind of like getting your eyes dilated, everything is fuzzy and has a halo.

Apply the sunny 16 rule when outside in the bright sun. I'd even subtract 1/2 stop if I'm dealing with a white dress.

Shooting RAW will help. Underexpose rather than overexpose. You can fill with flash. I.E. If your sunny exposure is f16, shoot at f22 and use your flash. Watch for flash synch. If you understand the relationship of aperture vs. shutter speed, you can adjust accordingly.

Don't shoot with any of the automatic settings. The camera has a wonderful computer, but that's all it is. It's calibrated to take the average situation and make it more average. In extreme situations it just makes them BLAH.

[Bennie]

I agree with Captain Tom. Use the "Sunny 16" rule. It's a good starting point.

[venchka]

What Captain Tom said.

Which is what Wayne said.

There are only a few ways to photograph a white dress correctly.

[boldimagery]

Figure out what the brightest portion of your image's exposure is, and then use fill flash to bring up the shadows. That way the shadows aren't harsh.