Struggling with dynamic range

englishpremier · 23 Jun 2012 at 14:35

I'm currently using a Nikon D50, and finding that the dynamic range of the camera is becoming a real pain.

It's most evident on nice sunny days.

For basic landscape shots I can use a GND filter, but when taking shots with foreground objects in but also showing some sky/landscape that's impossible.

Here's an unprocessed example of what i'm talking about.

Obviously I can do some work on this example in processing, but are there tips, tricks or skills I should at the time of capture?

Paul11 · 23 Jun 2012 at 14:38

your always going to have this dilema on bright days , and you cant expose correctly for both the foreground subject and the background, its one or the other

what i do with this situation is expose for the background and use lighting/flash to light the subject

AHarvey · 23 Jun 2012 at 14:39

yes, you have 2 options:

Expose for the sky, then use fill flash to light the bike up.

Take one photo exposed for the sky, then a second exposed for the bike and merge them in photoshop.

Second option is only possible with none moving targets, landscapes etc. For people shots/moving shots use flash.

Rojin · 23 Jun 2012 at 14:44

Take multiple exposures and blend them, or you could use hdr but that can be a bit marmite. Also flash for fill as mentioned above.

http://thehdrimage.com/blends-vs-hdr/

englishpremier · 23 Jun 2012 at 14:55

I figured taking three images, e.g. light medium and dark might be the way to go, but then of course how would you go about merging them? If the camera is handheld they will all be slightly different.

I don't really like HDR.

Used with a flash the D50 has a max shutter speed of 500. A bright sky often needs 4000, so would be horribly over exposed.

K.C. Leblanc · 23 Jun 2012 at 15:16

englishpremier said:
Used with a flash the D50 has a max shutter speed of 500. A bright sky often needs 4000, so would be horribly over exposed.

If it's something you're going to be doing often then you could get an ND filter. But you might find you need a more powerful flash as well.

Have you tried a reflector?

Nexus · 23 Jun 2012 at 15:21

englishpremier said:
I don't really like HDR.

Used with a flash the D50 has a max shutter speed of 500. A bright sky often needs 4000, so would be horribly over exposed.

Adjust your ISO and Aperture then, you shouldn't need a shutter speed of 4000!

gary996 · 23 Jun 2012 at 15:46

K.C. Leblanc said:
If it's something you're going to be doing often then you could get an ND filter. But you might find you need a more powerful flash as well.

Have you tried a reflector?

+1
Yes the reflector would be a good idea and quite inexpensive

stokecity_m · 23 Jun 2012 at 16:32

30 seconds in Photoshop.
Most cameras do the same.

D.P. · 23 Jun 2012 at 17:30

englishpremier said:
I'm currently using a Nikon D50, and finding that the dynamic range of the camera is becoming a real pain.

It's most evident on nice sunny days.

For basic landscape shots I can use a GND filter, but when taking shots with foreground objects in but also showing some sky/landscape that's impossible.

Here's an unprocessed example of what i'm talking about.

Obviously I can do some work on this example in processing, but are there tips, tricks or skills I should at the time of capture?

One thing stands out to me, you took the photo on the wrong side of the bike with respect to the sun. Don't take a photo of the shadow side of a subject, pointing the camera into the sun, Unless you are after some specific effects.

If you have no choice a fill flash works ok but I don't like the look of images this way, but sometimes there is no choice.

Multiple exposures can work very very well. Don't get fooled by the ugly OTT HdR photos, you can combine multiple photos without hideous tone mapping.

Finally, in the future when you want to upgrade cameras consider what DR each camera has, the best cameras out there have 3 stops more DR than the lower end DSLRs, Nikon is hitting well of 14 stops, that is some thing like 4 stops more DR than your D50, so can handle highlight to shapdw ratio 16x better.

Nexus · 23 Jun 2012 at 17:54

stokecity_m said:
30 seconds in Photoshop.
Most cameras do the same.

You can see the detail more, but it's not a pleasing image.

Fill Flash or a Reflector would give a 100% better result.

Jimmy1983 · 23 Jun 2012 at 21:45

Paul11 said:
what i do with this situation is expose for the background

I've seen this many times before, can you explain how this is done?

Paul11 · 23 Jun 2012 at 22:48

Jimmy1983 said:
I've seen this many times before, can you explain how this is done?

this just means that you are letting in the correct amount of light so that the background ie clouds are correctly exposed.

this in turn would mean the subject in the foreground would be too dark because there is so much light behind it, to get a correct exposure of the background you would choose settings (shutter speed/aperture) that lets less light in.

it is best to shoot in Manual mode, so just play around with the shutter speed to see the difference between having the clouds and sky look correct and the bike look dark.. and then correct for the bike to look good which in turn would blow out the sky (as its letting in more light to get the bike right) the sky would be over exposed

in this situation you cannot have both , so its easier to have a correct looking background, sky and clouds and just use a flash to fill in light on the bike (which would other wise be too dark)

An Exception · 23 Jun 2012 at 23:09

LR4

Jimmy1983 · 24 Jun 2012 at 00:26

Paul11 said:
this just means that you are letting in the correct amount of light so that the background ie clouds are correctly exposed.

this in turn would mean the subject in the foreground would be too dark because there is so much light behind it, to get a correct exposure of the background you would choose settings (shutter speed/aperture) that lets less light in.

it is best to shoot in Manual mode, so just play around with the shutter speed to see the difference between having the clouds and sky look correct and the bike look dark.. and then correct for the bike to look good which in turn would blow out the sky (as its letting in more light to get the bike right) the sky would be over exposed

in this situation you cannot have both , so its easier to have a correct looking background, sky and clouds and just use a flash to fill in light on the bike (which would other wise be too dark)

Cheers Paul, thats made it clearer

Rojin · 24 Jun 2012 at 01:24

Even the mighty exmor sensor doesn't get close to capturing the dynamic range that you see with your eyes. Pushing shadows only gets you so far, then you need to think about multiple exposures or alternate light sources.

Paul11 · 24 Jun 2012 at 08:33

to add, you can actuall aim to under expose the background slightly to give a more dramatic look.

here is a shot i took of my niece, the sky is under exposed and if i didnt use a flash her face would have been completed dark

xaldub · 24 Jun 2012 at 10:22

I'm going to go with what D.P said ... if you can avoid it don't shoot your subject backlit. Can be hard, of course, depending on what you're shooting, but in this case the motorbike is a static object and you could have taken the photograph from the other side.

Your only options otherwise would be fill-flash, use of a reflector or a screen to the top right to filter out some of the strength of the sun's rays. But I'm sure you don't want to carry a studio with you .....

GSXRMovistar · 24 Jun 2012 at 11:12

As above, expose for the background and then fill in the foreground with flash. The below example is probably too dramatic (intentionally under exposed background). But if I had metered on the subject the sky would have been completely blown. So set my shutter speed to 1/125 (for flash sync), then adjusted my aperture until the in camera meter was just a tad under correct exposure (f/10 in this case), then setup my flash to also match f/10, then fingers crossed you get an image with levelled exposure across the whole image.

Biker Girl 01 by AndyBakerUK, on Flickr