Lighting Question

[Bben411]

Every time I seem to photograph anything containing a source of artificial lighting in the night, the lights (street lights, for example) tend to be overexposed(I hope i'm using the correct terminology). The problem is, I only meet the correct brightness levels for the rest of the photo when the street lamps are overexposed. I'm asking for a bit of advice here, anything is appreciated. I will attach a sample photo below. If anyone can tell me how to upload photos in the easiest fashion it would be greatly appreciated. It's difficult because of the 5mb upload limit of ImageShack.

By bben411 at 2011-03-20

 

[raphaelaaron]

it's most likely that you're pointing your meter at something that is of less intensity (brightness) as the street lights.

so, your camera will calculate the right exposure for the darker areas, and lighter areas such as the light will become overexposed.

 

[480sparky]

The image has a lot of dark areas, and relatively little light areas.

The camera's meter doesn't know this... it only knows there X amount of light coming in. It 'sees' that dark area and thinks "Wow, this is dark, I'd better lighten it up a bit". You end up with a longer shutter speed, larger aperture, higher ISO or a combination of them.

Experience will teach you when your camera is lying to you.

 

[Bben411]

Well this shot was taken in Manuel mode. So, I guess i'm lying to myself as it looks so great on the camera's screen until i get it to the computer. If I give the settings used for the photo could we make sense of where it went wrong? f/7.1, 1/2, ISO-500(which was automatic) The metering was set to the camera's (Evaluative Metering) which I thought was a more broad metering.

 

[RockstarPhotography]

When shooting scenes with large lighting contrast, you want to spot meter various parts and then decide for yourself what the best exposure should be.

 

[480sparky]

Manual mode simply means you took the information the camera gave you and set the shutter, aperture and ISO yourself. The camera still lied to you, you just didn't allow the camera to make the settings itself.

Another method is to 'bracket' exposures when you're unsure. If your ISO was set at 500, shutter 1/2 @ f-7.1, then take 3 shots total.... changing the shutter to 1-1/2 and another at 1 sec.

 

[Bben411]

Thank you very much for the input.

 

[Village Idiot]

It's because of the large dynamic range. The only ways to fix this off the top of my head is to create an HDR photo by taking multiple photos and putting them together in post or by using strobes to correct the scene.

 

[KmH]

You're right that Evaluative metering considers (actually averages) the entire scene. The other extreme, Spot metering mode only considers 2% to 5% of the scene. Depending which camera model you are using spot mode may be limited to being coincident with the center focus point.

Since you used the term evaluative metering, I am assuming you use a Canon camera. Nikon calls their entire scene metering mode Matrix mode.