Photography question: how do you get the best exposure in difficult lighting situations?

Question

How does one get good exposure when the subjects in the frame are mostly dark (like a dark scene or a very cloudy day)? Or really bright (like a sunny Summer day on the beach at noon)? What if the frame contains parts that are really bright and really dark (like taking a picture of a tree in the shade, with the background sunny)? Thanks!!!

PS: I have a Canon XT camera, Tamron 17-50MM lens, and Canon 70-200 f4L lens. Thanks again!

Answer 1

1. Zoom in on a part of the picture that's darkish-gray

2. Press and hold the exposure-lock button (AE Lock)

3. Re-compose and snap your pic

NOTES:

- By zooming in, you're defeating the Amazing Multi-segmented Meter, which is what's screwing up your exposures. This works no matter how wild the lighting.

- If you don't know what darkish-grey looks like, buy a grey card. After a while you won't need it any more -- you'll know the tone when you see it.

- You can use the same technique by picking out the brightest part of a pic and increasing the exposure by 3 or so stops. I abandoned this after burning my eyeballs on the sun.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

As Antoni suggested you can decide which is more important and use a gray card.

You can also invest in a 1 degree Spot Meter with the capability of averaging a reading from the highlight areas and the shadow areas.

You can use your camera meter to meter the highlight area and shadow area and count f-stops. Suppose the highlight area meters as f8 @ 1/125 and the shadow area meters as f2 @ 1/125. Count up from f2 and down from f8 and you'll meet at f4 - at 1/125.

You can also do it mathematically by multiplying the 2 readings and finding the square root. Suppose the shadow area called for f2 @ 1/125 and the highlight area called for f16 @ 1/125. 2 x 16 = 32; the square root of 32 = 5.6568 or f5.6. Just carry your scientific calculator with you.

Answer 3

Hi . .I'll second what the previsous respons said about shooting in RAW modfe and bracketing. But here is a tip that works nicely if you mist shoot bright objects like a sunrise ot set . .shoot just laft, right or above the sun and lock the exposure, then include the sun (or bright light) and shoot. you may find that to work well.

Also if shooting christmas lights at night - or neon signs - tip your camera out of focus - all the way and meter the light - then refocus and shoot at that setting. You might ned up with better looking images or at least a better starting point fromwhich to bracket.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Try Trick Photography Special Effects - http://tinyurl.com/HZurrCY2k7

Answer 5

For bright light you can get a filter to filter it out to go over your lense but I don't know about a really dark photo.

Answer 6

how i do it is determine what i want well exposed - shadows or highlight, then i do a hand reading and add a stop,

the easy way is get and use a grey card, links below

http://www.digitalartsphotography.com/instructions.htm

http://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/graycd.html

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