Guide me please

[Photobee]

Hi All,

I have Canon EOS 300D. Yesterday I was out with my family taking photographs. All of them were in whites. It was too bright a day. My photoes have too much brightness. Skin tones are too bright. White tee shirt is almost invisible. Face is is too birhgt. Almost unrecognisable. The sarroundings like Green leaves, tree and flowers are look natural. Following were my settings:

WB : Sun
ISO: 100
Eposure : default.

Photes under shade were seem to be ok.

Can some one guide where I went wrong.

Regards
Subbu

 

[rebbot]

Exposure compensate by EV -0.3 or more? for skin tones, try experimenting with custom WB?

 

[Astin]

U shoot in automatic metering or manual metering?
Yr situation sounds like everything was white, and hence it fooled your camera automatic meteing.....

 

[rebbot]

maybe post up a pic or 2 as a sample here?

 

[dennisc]

bright? could be ur aiming at something darker, like skintone --> face. Like when I'm shooting my black cat, on a brightly lit room, my cam says 4 secs. My guess is you are aiming at the background trees, which should be darker. poof

 

[Photobee]

Automatic meetering.

 

[snowspeeder]

Try setting your EV to -0.3 to -1.0 under bright conditions.
Avoid metering against darker objects. Cos with a slower shutter speed, your images will be overexposed. Try using centre-weighted metering to have more control over your metering. Surrounding lighting conditions can be tricky, hence it is important to understand your cam and try different ways to best photographing your subjects.

 

[Photobee]

How do i post attachment. I dont find an option to post a image.

 

[Astin]

Automatic meetering.

Which metering mode did u use? P mode, Tv mode or Av mode? I think u also need to select centre spot metering or average area metering.....

 

[Photobee]

Most of the time I was using Av mode. Some time Tv mode. I did not check meetering. Thought, It is normal condition and camera must be capable enough to handle this basic lighting situation.

Next time I will do meetering in the bright sun and the subject is in whites..

Thanks.

 

[Photobee]

I havent bought any filters yet. Is it recomended to have any filters for such situations apart from camera settings to get close to live photographs.

 

[Cactus jACK]

How do i post attachment. I dont find an option to post a image.

attached is a link to one of the ways to post images...

http://forum.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=94574

Most of the time I was using Av mode. Some time Tv mode. I did not check meetering. Thought, It is normal condition and camera must be capable enough to handle this basic lighting situation.

regardless of mode, you have to be very concious about how (spot vs centre-weighted, etc) and where (light, dark, avg, etc) you meter, esp when you have extreme lighting conditions in your composition.

 

[Photobee]

H All,

here is the sample photo.
http://gallery.clubsnap.com/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/20719

 

[denniskee]

in auto metering mode (evaluative or average), the camera will meter the whole scence (it breaks the scence into a few sector, exactly how many depends on the camera), then it will derive the "correct" exposure setting after average all the readings.

in your case, about 75% of the whole scence are greenery, this causes the camera to up the exposure (as the plants in your shot is correctly exposed). unfortunately, this causes your subject to be over exposed.

read your camera manual, it will explain to you when each mode can be used to better meter the scence and your subject.

 

[student]

I think Denniskee's reply is the most coherent, IMO.

Let me start with a very basic issue. The contrast level in a scene that you are trying to photograph CANNOT be altered by any camera's settings or metering system, especially for color photography.

Sometimes for a subject such as a person against a very bright background, you may reduce the contrast difference between the person and the background by giving more light to the person, using a reflector or a fill flash. In the example you show of a young boy in a white T-shirt against green foliage, a fill flsh is not the soution. So you have to take the scene as it is.

Whether you underexposed or overexposed the overall this scene, the contrast will always be the same. The camera's sensor (film or sigital) have no idea what you are photographying. It is only recording light.

If you use a spotmeter, ad meter the white shirt, so the shirt is not all white, (meaning less light recorded from the shirt), the rest of the scene will ne corresponding darken. When you use a default auto metering, the meter wants everything to be equivalent of a "grey", what is called 18% grey. The is the defaulted "correct" exposure the meter (any meter) determines. Generally green leaves are equivalent to 18% grey. So when the meter looks at this scene which is dominated by leaves (18% grey), it chose to have a combination of aperture and shutter speed to allow the amount of light to give a 18% grey image. Therefore the leaves are properly exposed. But the shirt, being 2-3 stops lighter than the leaves, maintain it inherant contrast relationship with the leaves, so it becomes blown out in the final image.

So in effect, there is nothing much you can do to alter the contrast at the taking stage. I am no digital expert. But I think contrast can be changed at the post-processing stage. So I would suggest going close to the boy, meter the shirt, then open up one and half stops over the meter recording, lock the metering, step back and click. The leaves will be darker. But I think you can brighten the leaves digitally.

 

[+evenstar]

I think Denniskee's reply is the most coherent, IMO.

Let me start with a very basic issue. The contrast level in a scene that you are trying to photograph CANNOT be altered by any camera's settings or metering system, especially for color photography.

Sometimes for a subject such as a person against a very bright background, you may reduce the contrast difference between the person and the background by giving more light to the person, using a reflector or a fill flash. In the example you show of a young boy in a white T-shirt against green foliage, a fill flsh is not the soution. So you have to take the scene as it is.

Whether you underexposed or overexposed the overall this scene, the contrast will always be the same. The camera's sensor (film or sigital) have no idea what you are photographying. It is only recording light.

If you use a spotmeter, ad meter the white shirt, so the shirt is not all white, (meaning less light recorded from the shirt), the rest of the scene will ne corresponding darken. When you use a default auto metering, the meter wants everything to be equivalent of a "grey", what is called 18% grey. The is the defaulted "correct" exposure the meter (any meter) determines. Generally green leaves are equivalent to 18% grey. So when the meter looks at this scene which is dominated by leaves (18% grey), it chose to have a combination of aperture and shutter speed to allow the amount of light to give a 18% grey image. Therefore the leaves are properly exposed. But the shirt, being 2-3 stops lighter than the leaves, maintain it inherant contrast relationship with the leaves, so it becomes blown out in the final image.

So in effect, there is nothing much you can do to alter the contrast at the taking stage. I am no digital expert. But I think contrast can be changed at the post-processing stage. So I would suggest going close to the boy, meter the shirt, then open up one and half stops over the meter recording, lock the metering, step back and click. The leaves will be darker. But I think you can brighten the leaves digitally.

Quite agree.
In Singapore, we have a sort of advantage in metering. Just point your camera at the grass or trees by the roadside, take a reading, and recompose your shot. The colour of the leaves and grass are mid-tone IIRC, just make sure your subject and the part of the plants you meter on are of the same light. (Learnt these from my photog instructor. Found it very useful for much of my daytime shoots)

 

[catchlights]

Hi All,

I have Canon EOS 300D. Yesterday I was out with my family taking photographs. All of them were in whites. It was too bright a day. My photoes have too much brightness. Skin tones are too bright. White tee shirt is almost invisible. Face is is too birhgt. Almost unrecognisable. The sarroundings like Green leaves, tree and flowers are look natural. Following were my settings:

WB : Sun
ISO: 100
Eposure : default.

Photes under shade were seem to be ok.

Can some one guide where I went wrong.

Regards
Subbu

You can spot meter, zoom in or walk nearer to the subject. Take the meter reading from the subject’s face (presume is average Asian skin tone, not so fair or tan), using this reading for making exposure (either AE lock of manual metering), the face will be correct exposed.

If you want the subject and the background exposed nicely, sometime you have to find a spot, which the lighting not so contrast.

Hope this help.

 

[LittleWolf]

The camera's sensor (film or sigital) have no idea what you are photographying. It is only recording light.

The problem with the 300D in automatic mode is that the camera does "guess" what one wants to photograph, depending on bright/dark patterns in the image and where the focus is - from the user's point of view a complete lottery game. Using selective metering helps, not so much because it is selective, but because it is the only way to disable the "intelligent" guessing system in automatic exposure modes.

 

[Photobee]

Thanks a lot guys. Its really helpful!!!! let me try this out and come back with my results!!

Thanks again

 

[denniskee]

hint,

1) if subject and photog under similar lighting, do you need to zoom in to meter subject's face (see (2)?

2) if you know roughly how much off set your palm is to greenery (middle tone), but you dont have greenery in sight, what else can you use?