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Bright background – dark foreground
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hi guys and gals,
I have recently been taking photos with canon EOS 400D and I cannot seem to get something right…An example of the problem is this…take a photo of say a light gray stone bridge, with cloudy sky in the background..it comes out with a dark black looking bridge and intense white sky, it looks awful! I can do everything else with the camera but cannot sort this problem out. Can anyone advise me please? thank you all EVER SO MUCH! :D
Shane
What you need here is a ND Grad Filter… or Filter(s) depending on the strength of the light differential.
Have a look here: http://www.bryanhansel.com/?p=1029
Alternatively you could take two images… expose one for the sky and one for the foreground… then blend them in Photoshop or the like.
J
thank you J, however, I even found it difficult to expose for the bridge! I am going to get some filters during the week…thanks again
Shane
Hey Shane. Sounds like your a n00B like myself. the your issue has to do with the metering of the camera. when you go to take any image, your camera needs a baseline color from which to judge what is bright and what is dark in your image. eg, if you are taking a photo a black sheet transitioning to a white sheet (such as this one http://www.khiba.com/PSP/FALL01/Testgrad.jpg) ( ideal subject ) you would meter off the mid tone’s of the image, which would be grey. the camera then knows that anything darker than this grey is dark and anything brighter should be well brighter!
now, lets say your taking an image of a black dog sitting on white snow. you are taking an image of the dog so you meter off the dog. The camera now thinks the black dog is the mid tone ( grey) of the image and balances everything else accordingly. this will give a dog that is too bright, and snow thats completely overexposed, with no detail at all.
or if you are metering a white cat standing on a pile of coal, you meter off the cat, the camera thinks the white is the midtone, and so you loose any detail on the pile of coal, its just a black pile of nothing as its underexposed.
the same thing is happening with your stone bridge. you are metering from a color thats not exactly mid tone , but slightly darker than what the actual mid tone is, so the sky is overexposed and bleeched out.
im still learning to overcome this hurdle, but looking for a good midtone to meter from is a good start. if you cant find a mid tone, get a piece of 18% grey card, as this is the color most cameras are calibrated to see as the optimum mid tone. graduated filters are also a way to go if you are bring a tripod and spending can dedicate to spend a bit more time taking each image ( if you dont have a girlfriend/wife sighing about how much time you are wasting on some stupid picture!)
Key to resolving this is understanding how a camera meters. my explanation above is very basic and you should read further into the subject. here is a link with some good info on metering, but its not too complicated either.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm
Sounds like you might have the camera set to spot metering which could be causing you an issue as it will only take an exposure reading from a very small section of the overall image… whereas evaluative metering takes a good portion of the image into consideration when taking an exposure reading.
J
hey guys thanks a million, I appreciate the help…please keep in touch, I really want to learn loads from others. Its quite difficult learning all this alone!!!
Thanks again,
Shane
Greetings, There is always so much to learn and once you think you got it, things change…. Anyway, metering, white balance, shutter speed, apeture etc all work together. Check out this link about calibration targets. I do have the small one and when I remeber to use it, results are worth it.
http://www.photovisionvideo.com/store/shop.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=P&Category_Code=DCT
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