complicated exposure problem / C & C

[Heitz]

I recruited my sister as a model the other day. We had a great time and got some great shots. Personally, I think these are the best I've had so far. But, on some of them, it appears I have a few regions that are blown out, and does not seem to be fixable. In RAW, even if I turn the exposure all the way down, recovery up, a few regions (note her hands in #1 and 3) still appear bright white. This is partially due to my use of flash for fill light, I think. My question is: how bad is it? And also, do you have any thoughts on these shots, in general? Thanks!

1.

2.

3.

 

[480sparky68 67]

In order to use a fill flash in direct sunlight, you need a fill flash that is able to go toe-to-toe with the Mighty Sol.

The first thing I would have done is check for blown-out highlights during the shoot. Many DSLRs will indicate this on the LCD. If you see too much of it, you need to start changing your camera & flash settings. Without knowing what you used, it's hard to say whether you have any more leeway in your exposure. The pix don't have any metadata (at least that I can see).

Whether you shoot raw or jpeg, blown-out is blown-out. Raw isn't going to magically make 'digital white' something it's not (other than a sickly gray). You've got a lot of areas in all three shots that come up as 255:255:255 (pure white). No amount of PP exposure compensation, highlight protection, fiddling with curves, etc. is going to save it.

You may need to pony up for a flash with more horsepower, or check into a simple, budget-friendly reflector.

 

[Heitz]

So, a more powerful flash will lessen the blown out regions? That's somewhat counter-intuitive. Do you mean to say that if shooting in Aperture priority mode, the camera will taking into account the extra power and reduce exposure appropriately?

 

[Derrel]

Hmmmm...how does that go....
Image>Adjust>Color Range> SELECT>>>HIGHLIGHTS


feather selection>2 pixels to 3 pixels
Invert
Use curves to darken the burned out highlights...
Undo invert and save


something like that...

 

[Overread36]

So, a more powerful flash will lessen the blown out regions? That's somewhat counter-intuitive. Do you mean to say that if shooting in Aperture priority mode, the camera will taking into account the extra power and reduce exposure appropriately?

Nope - the camera never takes into account the effect of flash being used in a photograph, save to limit the shutter speed to its max sync speed possible when a flash is connected (and even this can be adjusting in the options menu or when using full manual mode).

Instead you would have to take account for the additional light that the flash would be outputting; either by using a flashmeter to record the flash output at the subject itself; or by shoot and adjust (ie shoot - review the histogram and then adjust the output as needed to ensure a proper exposure).

 

[480sparky68 67]

So, a more powerful flash will lessen the blown out regions? That's somewhat counter-intuitive. Do you mean to say that if shooting in Aperture priority mode, the camera will taking into account the extra power and reduce exposure appropriately?

Your blown-out highlights are due to the sunlight, not the flash. If you start stopping down your aperture to prevent it, you'll end up darkening your fill light. So you need a higher-power flash output to make up for a smaller aperture.