A few questions about some images. Over exposure.

[JRob]

I have a couple issues with some photos that I need addressed. On the picture below why is the sky so blown out? In my viewfinder of course it was perfectly blue. The settings on my Rebel XT for the shot below were Aperture Priority, F/11, ISO 100, partial metering, 1/15" shutter speed 18mm focal length. What can I do to have the sky not so blown out and overexposed looking? I know these arent the best pics ever but these are some I noticed that stuff on. All help will be appreciated.

Also on the one below. If you have an exif viewer just right click the image for the camera settings.

 

[MarcusM]

Both shots are way overexposed. 1/15 of a second lets in a LOT of light on a sunny day. I would increase the shutter speed by at least 2 stops if not more. You would get better contrast and definition with the gong-thing also.

As far as the sky being blown out, increasing your shutter speed should help, but I don't think there is anyway of completely avoiding it since there is such a huge difference in Exposure Values from the gong to the sky. The gong is sitting in a lot of shade.

I wouldn't expect to get the whole gong perfectly exposed, but at least you can prevent all of the gong from being overexposed. Some parts may be slightly underexposed but I think it would still be an improvement.

 

[ChrisP]

The camera exposed for the primary item in the picture which was a dark object. Thus while it correctly exposed for the object, it overexposed the very light areas. These are tough photos due to extreme strong light and dark low contrast areas. I noticed that you didn't use flash. One option might be to spot meter and expose for the wall in the first photo and use fill flash to get the detail on the bell and the beams. I don't have a Canon, so I don't know what the "Easy Shooting" in the exposure mode exif data means.

 

[tonyage]

i don't believe the XT has spot metering, so i would increase the shutter speed (as mentioned above) and definitely use some flash to fill it in. These images are always difficult to master, so keep working on it

 

[JIP]

I know when you are on a trip (which I assume this was) you can't always pick the hour of the day you are going to various places but this was just shot at a very difficult time. There really is no good way short of tons of PS to make this image look good. Harsh sun like that is just going to cause a contrasty image. If you exposed for the indoor area the sunny area (and the sky) are naturally going to be blown out. And consequently if you had exposed for the sky the inside would have been too dark. This might have been a situation to try an HDR but I can't see that sunny area coming out well no matter what.

 

[Mav]

Fill flash probably would have helped a bit, but yeah, the conditions were very harsh and you still probably would have had a blown out sky. Fill flash plus a lot of negative exposure comp to get the sky back in the picture plus some post processing work to bring the bell (or gong) back into the shot probably would have worked reasonably well. Or yeah, HDR.

 

[JRob]

Thanks for the help.. Ill try what you all said and see if i can get better results.

 

[Crosby]

Fill flash probably would have helped a bit, but yeah, the conditions were very harsh and you still probably would have had a blown out sky. Fill flash plus a lot of negative exposure comp to get the sky back in the picture plus some post processing work to bring the bell (or gong) back into the shot probably would have worked reasonably well. Or yeah, HDR.

HDR? Mav, do you have a link for that one too?
Again, thanks for supporting the ignorant.