Exposure.....its getting me down!

Shoit · 28 Aug 2006 at 08:48

I have a D70s with the standard 18-70mm lens, which i've had for about 8 months. I'm generally very happy with the results but in certain lighting situations i'm having real problems with exposure.

Yesterday I was taking some shots around sheffield in a wooded valley and could not get a balance between the sky and the main body of the shot. Whatever I tried, I could not get a balance of contrast in the clouds and good colour/contrast in the foreground. If the foreground was exposed correctly then the clouds were burnt out.

I've read quite afew articles and some information in some photography text books so am starting to understand the problem a little more. Does anyone care to enlighten me as to how they deal with these situations? I know there are techniques that can be used in post processing but I'm interested in getting the shot as close to printable as possible straight from the camera to minimise time spent staring at the screen later on.

Kev

[OZ] · 28 Aug 2006 at 09:06

This is a common problem. Here's one way of helping to sort it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_ND_filter

http://members.aol.com/kevinoneil/nd.html

robertgilbert86 · 28 Aug 2006 at 09:08

I get the same problem with my D50-burnt out sky or dark foreground :/

If you have a tripod or steady hand, take 2 shots, one with the exposure set for sky, and one with exposure set for forground (use the Ev Lock), then combine them in photoshop.

danza · 28 Aug 2006 at 09:55

I went out at 5:30am on Saturday morning to snap the dawn/sunrise on the Sussex Downs. It was really, really foggy until the sun began to break through, and the fog began to roll down the hills into ravines and valleys. There were some breathtaking sights, but I have the same problem with sky contrast. I came to the conclusion that an ND grad is probably the way to go, but at the mo I'm skint so I'll stick to photographing other things for a while!

My camera is a Nikon D100.

bigredshark · 28 Aug 2006 at 10:15

robertgilbert86 said:
I get the same problem with my D50-burnt out sky or dark foreground :/

If you have a tripod or steady hand, take 2 shots, one with the exposure set for sky, and one with exposure set for forground (use the Ev Lock), then combine them in photoshop.

or just take 1 raw and adjust it to give you 2 shots later on.

ND Grad filter is the standard way of tackling the problem though

robertgilbert86 · 28 Aug 2006 at 11:47

bigredshark said:
or just take 1 raw and adjust it to give you 2 shots later on.

ND Grad filter is the standard way of tackling the problem though

Good point, I forgot to include that

Amp34 · 28 Aug 2006 at 12:39

bigredshark said:
or just take 1 raw and adjust it to give you 2 shots later on.

ND Grad filter is the standard way of tackling the problem though

So you would just take a photo with contrast and brightness in the middle of the 2 and then copy the photo and increase contrast/brightness one one and decrease contrast/brightness on the other?

bigredshark · 28 Aug 2006 at 12:42

Amp34 said:
So you would just take a photo with contrast and brightness in the middle of the 2 and then copy the photo and increase contrast/brightness one one and decrease contrast/brightness on the other?

No, I'd take it in raw and adjust the exposure, contrast and brightness you could do with jpeg...

King_Boru · 29 Aug 2006 at 14:00

As mentioned above you need a graduation filter. They range in strenght 0.9 being the most common I think. Suggest you look at the Cokin system. Very good filters indeed.

King.

Psilonaught · 29 Aug 2006 at 15:29

i just take the RAW into Photomatrix to bring back the foreground and deliberately underexpore the image in the first place.

nero120 · 30 Aug 2006 at 15:47

I had the same problems when snapping at the Notting Hill Carnival at the weekend. The sky was so bright that to expose properlyfor the foreground would blow the sky out. I underexposed a little, but still the results were not as good as I'd have liked.

I have a polariser but did not use it on the day, would this have helped? Or is it better to get a neutral density grad filter?

King_Boru · 30 Aug 2006 at 15:56

get a skylight filter on there with a UV filter, can help sometimes. Make sure they dont appear in the snaps as stacking filters can be seen in the images.

nero120 · 30 Aug 2006 at 16:18

King_Boru said:
get a skylight filter on there with a UV filter, can help sometimes. Make sure they dont appear in the snaps as stacking filters can be seen in the images.

A skylight filter is just a coloured UV filter - why would that help expose the scene properly?

[OZ] · 30 Aug 2006 at 16:27

nero120 said:
why would that help expose the scene properly?

What he said ^^

King_Boru · 30 Aug 2006 at 16:31

Back at college I was having the same problems was told to try it. Moved to grad filters eventually. Just passing on old techniques/advise. Its not mine personally....

nero120 · 30 Aug 2006 at 16:58

King_Boru said:
Back at college I was having the same problems was told to try it. Moved to grad filters eventually. Just passing on old techniques/advise. Its not mine personally....

Fair enough. To be honest, Id rather not use more filters anyway as it just means more fiddling about. I guess its okay when you have a fixed scene to shoot, but when you're trying to capture moments it makes it much more difficult. I guess the only way is to underexpose and recover later, or use fill flash it the distances are quite close.