Photography in the sun

donkeymusic

donkeymusic

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Carlo
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Hi,

probably a really obvious answer but can anyone help me.

Due to go away soon, and want to make sure i can make the most of the good weather, with this in mind a recent trip to London in the sun, i found that i was capturing too much light so ended up added some nd filters.

How can i overcome this on holidy?

cheers
 
How do you manage to get too much light? Sunny 16 rule says that in full sun your exposure will be f/16 and the same shutter speed as your ISO. So even at ISO800 that's only 1/800sec at f/16, with a couple of stops of shutter speed in hand.

So reduce ISO, and maybe fit a polarising filter if you want to reduce it even more. I tend to have a polariser on pretty much all the time on holiday walkabout, normally loses you about 1.7 stops.
 
As Hoppy says there should be no problem but if you are not experienced with A and S modes you may have entered an extreme value which is causing the problem.

P mode with an Iso of 100 or 200 will give you great exposures in bright sun without ND filters.
 
will have a play beofre i go away, not really used p, try to use a and think i was just allowing too much light to get in so its all looked washed out.
 
I'm a bit perplexed by this one. No reason why a sunny day should give you overexposed pics. Bright sunshine may well give you contrasting areas of deep shadow and bright highlights, but that's a different problem.

Perhaps post a couple of sample pics so the experts (not me!) here can advise.
 
I'm guessing the problem was blown highlights in the sky?

If so Nd grads to balance the exposure would be usefull.
 
PatrickO said:
I'm a bit perplexed by this one. No reason why a sunny day should give you overexposed pics. Bright sunshine may well give you contrasting areas of deep shadow and bright highlights, but that's a different problem.

Perhaps post a couple of sample pics so the experts (not me!) here can advise.
Click to expand...

I think John probably has the right explanation in post #3. If you're on Av and perhaps have 'default' settings of maybe f/5.6 and a high ISO, then on a very bright day you're going to run out of shutter speed. These settings would normally be fine on a dull day, but if you forget to adjust the f/number upwards it will catch you out. Ditto on Tv, you'll run out of f/numbers.

Basically just set a lower ISO, and if you just want to point and shoot, then use P. For creative peeps that want to use a low f/number for shallow depth of field in bright sun, then you will need an ND filter.
 
How high an ISO were you using/big an aperture? Maybe you were hitting the shutter speed limit?

EDIT: Teach me not to referesh the thread... :lol:
 
Are you sure you have'nt just knocked your exposure compensation to +? That would explain your problem!
 
here is one of the photos, before and after i used auto tone in lightroom.

before
4775544024_b33253b9ec_b.jpg


after
4775543778_29c71f64de.jp


the photo data is 1/320 and f7.1and used iso 200.

any ideas?

cheers

on another not is using p not similar to using auto?

Thanks
 
donkeymusic said:
here is one of the photos, before and after i used auto tone in lightroom.

<snip>

the photo data is 1/320 and f7.1and used iso 200.

any ideas?

cheers

on another not is using p not similar to using auto?

Thanks
Click to expand...

What's the problem?
 
several of the photos from the day seem to have a washed out look to them and wondered where i was going wrong
 
What metering mode did you use, and where did you do the meter reading from?

The camera will try and create an exposure that averages out to 18% grey; so if you used Evaluative Metering (Canon term) it will automatically compensate for the bright sky and/or bright stones.

You can experiment with either using exposure compensation to darken the overall exposure, or use a different metering mode, say Partial Metering, and meter off either the Lion or something else which is close to 18% grey.
 
I think toby is right. Overall the pic is not overexposed, but the large dark area of the lion has made the camera brighten the whole picture to get an overall 18% grey. So the sky and light stone is overexposed.
 
gnom said:
What metering mode did you use, and where did you do the meter reading from?

The camera will try and create an exposure that averages out to 18% grey; so if you used Evaluative Metering (Canon term) it will automatically compensate for the bright sky and/or bright stones.

You can experiment with either using exposure compensation to darken the overall exposure, or use a different metering mode, say Partial Metering, and meter off either the Lion or something else which is close to 18% grey.
Click to expand...

Agree with this.

Without using some ND Grads I think you are going to end up with a washed out sky if you want the foreground correctly exposed.

Main reason is because the sky is much brighter than the foreground and the camera has a limit on the dynamic range it can capture on the sensor
 
Is it the sky being washed out you are talking about?

If so - this is because the sun is a lot brighter in the sky than the ground is. So while your camera is metering to achieve a proper exposure on the lion - the sky is much much brighter and thus appears white. To avoid this you either generally need to shoot with the sun to your back - or get a set of filters.

Here's a link that will explain Graduated filters, they darken the skies and leave the foreground alone.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/grads.htm

The roll over images are a good way to see the effect.
 
okay i get the sku would give me an incorrect reading for the whole photo, let me find another example to show you my problem

cheers
 
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