Overexposure Question

[dostagamom]

I have a Nikon D80. I have been shooting my portrait sessions with my 50mm 1.8 lens and I love it. I have noticed that when I am outside shooting I am getting some heavy overexposure areas at times. I have the ISO set to 100, but I am not sure what is wrong. I have checked all of my settings and nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Can anyone help me?
Thanks!!!

 

[Kegger]

I think it's because you are exposing for the subject and it's too slow of a shutter speed to expose brightly lit areas.

Try exposing for the really bright areas and using flash to fill the rest. You can also try using a Circular Polarizer to cut back on some of the glare.

 

[dostagamom]

Thank you so much Kegger...I appreciate the advice...I will try that tomorrow.

 

[kundalini]

My D80 also exposes too hot outside on sunny days. I usually keep the Exposure Compensation set to -0.7EV and adjust as necessary.

A Neutral Density filter is another option, but as Kegger said, a CP filter would be a priority purchase if you don't have one already.

 

[dostagamom]

I will set my EV to -0.7 and try that too...I plan on purchasing a circular polarizer tomorrow. Thank you so much for your help!!!

 

[Flash Harry]

Your camera is exposing subject correctly I take it, in which case the filters & compensation will just cut down exposure over the whole picture making your subject underexposed and possibly dark, the answer in this case is fill flash. H

 

[prodigy2k7]

An example picture would be helpful.

 

[Big Mike]

Often, the light outdoors could be considered 'high contrast'...meaning that the things lit by the sun are very bright and the shadows are fairly dark. Digital cameras and even film have a range that they are limited to. You can't get detail in both very bright and very dark areas, at the same time, with one exposure. If you set the exposure for the darker areas, the bright areas might be blown out (overexposed)...and if you set the exposure for the bright areas, the shadows will be black.

There are several things you can do. You can decide what is most important and set your exposure for that. This comes down to metering and or how you set your exposure.

You can try to even out the exposure...one way is to fill in the shadows with some light. Flash or a reflector are good for this. You could try to diffuse the bright sunlight or find a spot that isn't in such harsh light.

 

[ksmattfish]

It won't help with gross overexposure, but with proper processing raw files seem to me to have a significant dynamic range advantage over the default jpeg processing most DSLRs come with (most of my experience is with Canon).

But the real solution, as Mike said, is fill light to balance or modify the different lighting levels. Strobist.com will teach you everything you need to know.

Polarizing filters eliminate glare, and are great for the color, but they don't even out the exposure.