Exposure Question..

jackdaw

Hi
If i take a photo of a building, and it's a little in shade with a bright blue sky in the background, its hard to get the building in proper exposure as well as the sky , as the camera will take a light reading for the sky or building ...

the way i get around this is with photoshop .. ill take 2 photos and then add
in the blue sky (proper exposure) .. cos i hate photos of buildings/street scene,
that are properly exposed but the sky is overexposed .. is there another way ?
preferably an "in camera" way .. ?

sasar

ND grad and CPL filters might come in handy.

Paulw

You can also use exposure compensation in the camera, and set it to over-expose the image.

This works very well in snow conditions.

Try and see.

Basically you want to tell the camera that the image IS supposed to be very bright.

sasar

Paulw wrote: »

You can also use exposure compensation in the camera, and set it to over-expose the image.

This works very well in snow conditions.

Try and see.

Basically you want to tell the camera that the image IS supposed to be very bright.

This way you would get burnt out sky.

steelydan99

Go into manual on your camera settings
switch the aperture to f4
pick a part of the blue sky away from direct sun
half click your shutter to lock exposure and rotate the shutter speed till the correct speed reads Zero on the exposure meter ( -1 0 +1 ) inside your viewfinder.
thats the correct exposure that the light is hitting that building, what ever the blue sky reads will be the overall lighting all around.
adjust the correct aperture (to what you want to achieve in focus)
and half the stops used to get the same exposure
example
f4 @ 1/500 sec ISO 100 (reads zero on meter)
f5.6 will be 1/250 sec ISO 100 (same exposure as above)
f8 will be 1/60 sec ISO 100 (same exposure)
f11 will be 1/30 sec ISO 100
f16 will be 1/15 sec ISO 100
f22 will be 1/8 sec ISO 100 ALL THE SAME EXPOSUREs

You decide what aperture you want to shoot at and set the speed accordingly.

Got this method from a book called "Understanding Exposure" by Byran Peterson

Well worth a read and invaluable information

Hope my version makes sense.. If i am going out shooting a street festival I will set my aperture to f4 take a quick meter off sky (any sky dont have to be blue) and if it reads f4 @ 1/500 I will then set my camera to f5.6 and 1/250sec and shoot away ,no matter what the meter is telling me inside.
One point to note though. Light will change during the times of day, so quick checks on f4 every so often will show your speed going down as the light fades.. TRY IT..

ThOnda

Exposure bracketing or directly HDR techniques.

PixelTrawler

HDR is great for correcting the issues you are getting....

The camera doesnt have the tonal range of the eye - so you take 3 or more photos at different exposues and blend them either manually, with photoshop plugins or software like photomatix...

You have to be careful with HDR as you can go a bit mad with the effect and the photo becomes very artificial looking... unless you want that effect..

Like here I used HDR to claw back some foreground detail without losing the sky



Whereas here I went a bit bananas with the settings to deliberatly make the shot look almost like a painting or a computer generated image


(please ignore the fact I made the mistake of having the horizon in the middle... still learning, always learning!)

I used to hate HDR but im starting to realise its just another tool to be used...

"In camera" you can switch on exposure bracketing to take 3 shots at once at different exposures which you can then use for blending later (or you can take a single raw and do several copies at different exposures and blend that way too)

jackdaw

steelydan99 wrote: »

Go into manual on your camera settings
switch the aperture to f4
pick a part of the blue sky away from direct sun
half click your shutter to lock exposure and rotate the shutter speed till the correct speed reads Zero on the exposure meter ( -1 0 +1 ) inside your viewfinder.
thats the correct exposure that the light is hitting that building, what ever the blue sky reads will be the overall lighting all around.
adjust the correct aperture (to what you want to achieve in focus)
and half the stops used to get the same exposure
example
f4 @ 1/500 sec ISO 100 (reads zero on meter)
f5.6 will be 1/250 sec ISO 100 (same exposure as above)
f8 will be 1/60 sec ISO 100 (same exposure)
f11 will be 1/30 sec ISO 100
f16 will be 1/15 sec ISO 100
f22 will be 1/8 sec ISO 100 ALL THE SAME EXPOSUREs

You decide what aperture you want to shoot at and set the speed accordingly.

Got this method from a book called "Understanding Exposure" by Byran Peterson

Well worth a read and invaluable information

Hope my version makes sense.. If i am going out shooting a street festival I will set my aperture to f4 take a quick meter off sky (any sky dont have to be blue) and if it reads f4 @ 1/500 I will then set my camera to f5.6 and 1/250sec and shoot away ,no matter what the meter is telling me inside.
One point to note though. Light will change during the times of day, so quick checks on f4 every so often will show your speed going down as the light fades.. TRY IT..

Hey thanks !!

I have that book myself, I'm about 1/3 the way through ..
I can't remember coming across that (maybe i haven't)
what chapter is it in ?

GhostInTheRuins

If your camera has a D-Lighting or D-Range function it can do it 'in camera' as you shoot, that is, it will properly expose both the sky and the building. It can make some of the darker areas grainer though.

Majik_Imaje

I wonder how they did it in the old days using FILM no photoshop.

I wonder how a person can create stunning images with ice all around and no light meter ?

One image = one frame of film, no light meter available or necessary.. How is this accomplished ??

by understanding Exposure Values EV there are 22 EV charts.. by remembering one value, anyone can fill out all 22 charts, in your head using any ISO.

This is a lost art now with computers inside the camera making all the decisions for you. I quit using light meters in 1973, I took the time and practice to learn... "how to read" .......LIGHT !!



Detail is visible in the shade.. The difference between this scene and the scene below is obvious.. The EV used is the same !!

Shade, sun, blue skies, ice