Overexposure/metering grief

Calina

Folks,

I guess you all enjoyed the fine weather for the weekend. I certainly did as I spent a considerable amount of time in a town which is otherwise foreign to my experience, namely Tramore. I spent a lot of time on a southfacing beach and yes, I did get some sun, and I'm wearing make up and lots of cream, particularly after yesterday.

But I'm not worried about myself. I ran into a problem which I don't usually have to contend with because until I got to Tramore every beach I had ever stood on was north, east or west facing. The word "south" didn't feature in any meaningful way either in Dublin, Kerry, Australia or Tenerife when I was shooting sports photographs there.



I had a lot of trouble with this sort of mess over the weekend. Basically spent most of the day shooting into the sun, major problems because I couldn't read the metering information on the camera, it changed with the angle of the shot, if you metered correctly for the sky, you had a silhouetted kitesurfer, fill-in flash is not an option if you're working with a 500mm lens at full stretch. Some of these guys were 30-100m away from me. If you metred correctly for the kitesurfer, the background was guaranteed to be burned out. Leaving aside the disappointment with so many shots being wasted I need to find a way of dealing with this in the future as I don't always get to choose the beach I'm working from. I don't think there's another south facing trip for the year so I've some time to deal with this.

Someone told me once that shooting in RAW gets around problems like this. Can someone confirm or deny that because I have some doubts given the extent to which this is burnt out? Mostly I shoot in jpg for a couple of reasons related to speed concerns, particularly if I'm shooting stop action shots which I usually do when I'm doing this. I'm not alone in this. For the odd occasion where I might have to deal with this, I'd probably get over the lack of workable stop actions. When I did my digital photography course I was advised to underexpose and bring up the detail yet but I've never found that to be particularly effective to be honest.

Bracketing is not an option because these guys move too fast.

I really can't complain about the weather because I got some terrific shots otherwise and I learned that I'm a risk taker photographically which caused me to blow other shots by reaching for too much in some ways. But most of the shots I killed through burning are bread and butter shots which I can do day in day out on a beach facing any other direction.

Anyone got any comments?

Fenster

Raw will give you more control over recovering highlights and shadows but it still honestly can't work wonders as a blown out highlight is a blown out highlight.

Calina

That's pretty much what I thought - that once the picture was burnt out, it was burnt out.

I'll have to think about this a bit more I guess.

Thanks a million for the feedback.

Fenster

A raw file is literally the whole of what your CCD saw and as such there's a huge amount of information in there compared to a jpeg file. I know I shoot jpeg myself if ever I shoot action simply for the sake of getting more photos in, but the tradeoff is the quality stinks compared to raw. It would be worthwhile for you to experiment, see about getting a fast memory card and shooting an event raw.

Calina

I actually have fast memory cards. The trade off isn't capacity - I took more than 1000 photographs at the weekend and wasn't close to running out. The issue is the stop action shots. If I want to shoot them, I can't do them in RAW not necessarily because of the cards, but because of the buffer size of the camera.

But I'll give it a try next time out anyway just out of interest.

Valentia

A neat trick is to take a reading from your hand. Make sure the hand is in the same light as the subject. It will be close enough exposure wise and then put your camera on manual. If you are using a long telephoto you can take the reading with a shorter lens at whatever apperture you want to use and then set the speed or visa versa.

That said there is such a vast exposure latitude in these type of shots the one thing you could do is make three different files from RAW. Different exposures for the three and then blend them in PS. It should help bring down the high contrast a bit.

ThOnda

Was your camera set to "automatic" settings? I do not why, but sometimes the camera can think a little faster and different than the user. It had saved a lot of my pictures. And it is going to save them in future.
If you are going to do it manualy, try different mettering settings i.e. integral, not only spot.
Or just leave to automatic and set just EV to +something (at least +1).
That what I do to make it easier, faster and more stupid. And to enjoy the event a little more :-)

Fenster

Fajitas! wrote:

If it were me, I would have spot metered the surfer, underexposed by a stop and shot in RAW...

My camera is set to underexpose everything really - It's much easier to get detail out of a shadow than a blown out highlight.

350D doesn't have spot metering

Fajitas!

If it were me, I would have spot metered the surfer, underexposed by a stop and shot in RAW...

My camera is set to underexpose everything really - It's much easier to get detail out of a shadow than a blown out highlight.

Fajitas!

Hence me saying 'If it were me'

It does have partial as far as I know though, which would work just as well, if not better in this situation.

Borderfox

you can use bracketing on the first few shots then chimp them to see whats working then adjust if neccessary. RAW definitely is the answer as far as metering goes. I know there are people that say get it right in camera but sometimes especially with a reflective surface such as water it can be handy to fall back on raw.

Polariser's can be helpful too in dealing with some glare.

Calina

Suddenly this is the least of my problems as I am heading into a Windows reinstall on the morrow.

Thonda, no, I almost never shoot on any of the automatic settings. However, I had major, major issues with DOF problems at the weekend also so I am considering - much as it kills me - to switching towards shutter speed control on these to see if it would get me around this issue. The problem isn't really the speed of my reactions - the biggest, biggest problem I had is that I just couldn't even read the metering information on the camera.

Fajitas: The lens in question is a Bigma and it's a marginally dark lens. By default, slight overexposure (per the meter) is a better result - usually. But I couldn't actually even see the meter.

Valentia, I don't know if your idea is really practicable here, unless I'm misunderstanding it - are you suggesting that I shoot in RAW and process three versions of the file? In which case I assume you'd recommend underexposure. If you're talking about three separate shots, then it's really not a runner. They just don't stay in the same place long enough and the light wasn't really uniform to pick one lot of settings and stay with them.

ThOnda

Not having a display on my film camera, I am using the aperture priority and EV corrections. And I am 99.5 % succesful (I've just made up the figure).

What about the information in viewfinder? And what about to take a rest for 5 minutes and look at it in the shadow? I would sell my fifth lens for having a preview! :-)

I don't want to be too strict or rude, however I have to think because I am spending a lot of money on films. You can work with your pictures on the computer, but you need the data. Being didjital doesn't mean to be 100% sure at the moment of pushing the trigger...

Fenster

Calina: Would you consider selling up and getting a 30D. It *is* a huge step to take, but it's probably worthwhile for the bigger buffer and spot meter function.

DaireQuinlan

It might be a good idea to pick up a prime of whatever focal length you're shooting at. Might not be viable I suppose if you're switching constantly, but shooting into the sun might be easier that way, less glass in the way to pick up flare and what not. I think a polariser is probably a must and a hood if you don't have one. Also (I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this one :-) ), have you considered shooting film ? Any good print film will probably give you that couple of extra stops over to capture sky detail if you expose correctly. You'd probably need a good scanner to get everything out of it though, straight lab prints would show all the same problems you're seeing here.

Calina

Fenster,

I'm strongly considering the 30D - believe me. It is on the list of items I want, but I have slightly more pressing requirements (such as a laptop). I could do with the extra buffer anyway. I basically don't know if Canon are angling towards a 40D sometime in the next twelve months but if they are, I'll probably go for it. I realised today that I've taken 12000 photographs with the 350D and I probably wouldn't get rid of it because it's always useful to have a second body around I guess.

Thonda,

I shot film only until about 18 months ago, and I shot it on a twenty year old OM10. My general tendancy - because I have spent a serious amount of money on processing, film and printing during my film years - is to do as much as possible at the point of shooting. I realise that this is marginally off topic as it doesn't really cover "what tactics to apply when trying to avoid highlight burning", but philosophically I would never shoot and rely on fixing stuff later because not everything is reparable. Ultimately, it's worth getting it right because if you do want to do interesting things with the photograph later, you are better off with the best possible photograph you could have shot at the time than with something that "you know you can fix later". That at least is my view on the subject, although I realise that not everyone would necessarily agree.

Daire: I shot film for a long time. The key advantages that the digital system that I work with here is that mostly, the set up is quite light to carry around. I wouldn't necessarily flame you for suggesting film - I can see where you're coming from. Film has a significantly higher turnaround time though. I do have a hood. There isn't a polariser on that lens for the moment as it's prone to underexposure/darkness (ironic, really) but I'll be looking for one. It's a 86mm diam lens though. I'd emphasise though that this is really only a problem on south facing locations which...I hadn't actually encountered before despite taking oh I think about 7000 photographs of kitesurfers last year.

____________________

I appreciate the input from all of you though because it's allowed me to step back and think some more about it without being too introverted about it. The irony - to some extent - is that I like the effect of the burnt out highlights above. But I'd prefer not to accidentally get things like that and be lucky with it.

Thanks a million.

magicbastarder

Calina wrote:

If you metred correctly for the kitesurfer, the background was guaranteed to be burned out.

there's no way around this, unfortunately, when the side of the surfer you're shooting is in a different light to the background.

Calina

magicbastarder,

I guess I pretty much knew that - my main interest was to see if it was possible to fix burnt highlights in RAW because someone told me once that they did overexpose a RAW file and fixed it later rather than underexpose.

Thanks again for everything folks.

Valentia

Calina wrote:

Valentia, I don't know if your idea is really practicable here, unless I'm misunderstanding it - are you suggesting that I shoot in RAW and process three versions of the file? In which case I assume you'd recommend underexposure. If you're talking about three separate shots, then it's really not a runner. They just don't stay in the same place long enough and the light wasn't really uniform to pick one lot of settings and stay with them.

One shot, three (or two if you prefer) versions from RAW. As you can see even when you get get the exposure of the subject right the contrast on the subject is still "soft" while the background is blown to hell. By making an underexposed version, a normal version and, if you wish, a slightly overexposed version you can create a much more balanced photo by merging them. Have a look here (two photos being merged).

I'm not suggesting that you do this for every photo but I'm sure if you have a few keepers it would be worth the effort getting them right.

Calina

Valentia - thanks - I get what you're saying now. I'll give that a try during the week and use it for that circumstance in the future. It's a very useful tutorial.