Hoping to get some help with using my lens

HeavyWater · Aug 14, 2012

Went to Germany and shot with my 60D with a Tokina 11-16mm F2.8DX lens (My Favorite Lens thus far

). It's by far the best lens I've used for low light scenarios but in really bright light, I'm having a hard time getting my exposure right. We were outside near a water fountain and the sun was really bright. As I'm looking through the shots, I'm noticing that the background/sky is extremely washed out. I also noticed that as I dropped my film speed, the pictures became more tolerable. I'm thinking that was a major part of my problem was my ISO setting? First picture was shot at ISO 320, f/3.5, 1/800sec. The second pic was shot at ISO 2000, f/8.0,1/2500sec. The one picture of the front of the building (IMG_4306, the ISO was set to 640, shutter was 1/2500 and fstop was 8.0 and the sky was still washed out....to me, seems like some of the colors (red and greens) seem to be muddled. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for the help/advice!

Frequency · Aug 15, 2012

ISO 2000 for bright sunshine...is there any specific reason for that choice?
I like the posing in one; i would trim out either side in #2 and make it a vertical one
Regards

WesternGuy · Aug 15, 2012

Part of what happens to produce the final image depends on the type of metering you are doing and the range that metering is trying to adjust for. In all of these images, you have a very large dynamic range, from dark (e.g., under the tree) to very light, or well lit (e/g., the sky in the third one) If I had to guess, I would guess that the first one was done with either spot metering or possibly partial metering and the "spot" was the group under the tree, thus your background is blown out a bit. This is also why, in my guess, that the second image of the folks and the fountain is not too bad, but the tree to the top left is a little underexposed. As far as the third one goes, again you have run into the situation where your camera has exposed for the building front and the sky is blown out. The only way to correct this sort of thing, that I know of, is to take two shots, one for the building and one for the sky and then merge them in something like Photoshop. Perhaps others may have other suggestions. My 0.02¢ FWIW.

WesternGuy