Tips for varying sunlight

[jrrkar]

I am taking pictures at a horse show with a sand ring and dense trees in the background. I am shooting about 20' in front of the horses and the trees are about 100' behind them. The show lasts all day so I get varying degrees of sunlight on the horses and the trees behind them. Does anyone have any tricks for shooting in these types of conditions? I can good lighting on the horses, but the shade in the background makes the image dark. I get a lot of reflecting light off the sand surface which causes havic with the lighting.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Jeff

 

[Bifurcator]

Manual mode, Grey card, RAW, Photoshop.

 

[Flash Harry]

point it at the grass at your feet and lock exposure before shooting. H

 

[William Petruzzo]

Manual mode, Grey card, RAW, Photoshop.

Better safe than sorry

 

[Montana]

Its going to be tricky. I would take some test shots of metering off of various surfaces. And check histogram. Obviously, things will change during the day, so you'll have to remeter occasionally. The distance to subject and then the subject to background should make for very pleasing shots.

Derrick

 

[jrrkar]

Well the ground at my feet is sand, which if it is dry is very reflective. The trees and grass are outside of the ring. I'm using a Nikon D100, would it be better to use the center weighted metering or the overall metering? I'm more interested in the objects closest to the camera.

This past weekend I shot the same location but used a 18-200 Tamron lens as opposed to a 70-300 Sigma. I also changed the metering to center weighted instead of overall. The pictures were not near as crisp as previous. So I don't know if it was the lens, metering change or a combination of both.

 

[Lyncca]

If you were at the far end of the 300mm, that is probably where you lost your crispness. My Nikon 70-300 has the same problem.

 

[jrrkar]

It was actualy the Tamron 18-200 that I was having issues with, and it didn't matter where it was. It seemed that if I had a lot of direct sunlight on the subject, the pictures were decent. Earlier in the day (8am-9am), when the sun was very low on the subject, is when the pictures were not crisp at all. I don't know if the Tamron lens has a problem with that type of light, or if the center weighted metering in combination with the Tamron lens made the problem. I changed two things at this past show so I can't quite figure out the issue. This was also the first show I used the Tamron lens. I liked the range of 18-200 for inside the ring, but I'm hesitent to try it again. I will have to try and compare the two at the same time and see what the differences are.

Jeff

 

[Bifurcator]

For the past 25 years I've only bought maker glass but Tamron used to be pretty bad compared to a maker lens of the same basic spec. What you're describing sends my memories rushing back to the 70's with many identical experiences and observations.

I dunno for sure if this is the case but the feeling and description sure matches!

 

[250Gimp]

Make sure you use the lense hood when shooting in the sun!! If you get going you may forget to watch out for the sun location and you end up with flairs or washed out shots with low contrast, which some times makes the shot seem soft.

Just putting it out there.

Cheers