Overexposing

Jethro

TPF Noob!
Joined
Sep 13, 2011
Messages
99
Reaction score
11
Location
Prague
Can others edit my Photos
Photos NOT OK to edit
Hey guys. So I have this little problem and I hoped you may give me some advices on how to improve and stop making this mistake :)

My problem is that I tend to overexpose pictures. When I shoot I always take a shot of the scene several times with different setting (f.e. different times - 1/800, 1/1000, 1/1600) so luckily there is always one that is exposed okay and if not, I can correct it in the Photoshop since I shoot in RAW. Though I would like to stop overexposing so much. The problem is, pictures always look darker on the camera than they are on the PC, so when I look at a picture on the camera it looks okay. I tried to keep in mind that camera screen makes things darker and adjust the settings to this, but then the tendence flipped to underexposing..

Do you have any tips, tricks and other stuff that helps you expose correctly? I know it is not THAT much of a deal since most of the times it can be corrected in the post-proccesing, but I would like to learn to expose correctly without Photoshop.

Oh, and I shoot with Canon 7D, 50mm/1.8 II and Sigma 17-7-/2.8-4
 
Question is ... is the Camera LCD too dark ... is your computer screen too bright ... is the camera exposure meter faulty ... are you metering the scene incorrectly ?
 
I will have to add that my camera tends to over expose (the meter is reading scenes darker than what it actually is) ... so I have set my exposure compensation to offset it.
 
Have you tried spot metering? Also, SLRs have histograms that you can turn on and see the hot spots on the LCD, so you can correct the problem rather than fill up your card with extra shots.

*edit duh, read fail on my part. Your camera (7d) can do both. Also you have Highlight alert in your menu. If you enable that you can see the problems.

If you shoot in RAW you can fix some of it in Digital Photo Professional.
 
There is a difference between "over exposure" and "too light". Too light is an aesthetic issue, over exposure is a technical issue resulting in lost data.

Many photographer, myself included, believe that the roll of exposure is to gather as much detail from the scene as possible but increasing exposure to the absolute limit without "clipping". Provided you don't have blown hilights, what you see as over exposure is a good thing in order to prevent noisey artifacts - cameras measure light, not the lack of light, so more light means more signal and less noise.

However, if you are clipping over exposure is always going to be a bad thing.

As Gorman points out using warnings like this "hilight alert" is a good idea. I would go a step further and use any built-in histogram options you'd have. You simply cannot ever rely on what the on-camera screen is telling you, this isn't meant to be a calibrated monitor. Instead, you want to go by the numbers of the file itself.

One way to always avoid these surprises is to learn and use your spot meter in manual mode. Spot metering permits you to actively decide what tonal region is exposed how and how other tonal regions will be affected by choices you make.
 
To add, when you spot meter you are looking at what you want exposed correctly. Just as an example, here's a snapshot of my daughter, not meant to be anything special, but it illustrates what spot metering does. This was taken in harsh sunlight source over and behind her, so I spot metered only her face, which would normally end up underexposed if you leave the metering up to the camera, because the camera will see that mound in front of her and your meter for that, when it isn't what you want. Telling the camera what you want to meter solves a lot of these problems. Obviously there are some hot spots from the direct sunlight in her hair, mound is a bit hot, but sometimes you have to let that stuff go to get the exposure where you want it.



MiaBallfield by gormanimagery, on Flickr
 
Nice shot Gorman! This is a particularly tricky situation - though I think there is something you've missed re. spot metering.

Your daughter has a darker skin tone, which permits the proper exposure without compensation. If she were very fair-skinned, her face would have been under exposed. My bet is also if you were closer she would have under exposed and her hair also influenced the meter.

You may already know this, so I am more writing to the OP here. It's not quite as simple as pointing at "what you want to be properly exposed". The camera only knows about how much light is being reflected into the lens, and does not know anything about what light is available, and the meter is calibrated only to a specific value - that which reflects as much as it absorbs - the so called "Middle Grey".

So when you dial in "0" with a spot meter, everything within the spot will be equal in luminance to this "middle grey" - in a perfectly calibrated world, anyway.

Because the lightest region where I'd want significant detail would be the sand, I'd be inclined to meter off it and provide 3-4 or more stops greater exposure, and then apply a curve in post.

If this were posed and I were awesome, I'd meter directly off the specular highlight in her leg and provide 4 2/3 more exposure - placing it on the outer limits of my camera - and compare against her face and the background to visualize the results.

Of course, it's just a snapshot and I'm not awesome, so I don't mean this as any kind of criticism - just more "ideal world" kind of thing. In practice, this is probobly the best case for this scenario, and no matter where you meter from or how you compensate that reading, you'd get similar results so not to block up her face at the expense of highlight detail elsewhere.

I'll post an in depth article on spot metering in a few days. I've also posted a lot here:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...oto-gallery/262171-spot-metering-how-use.html
 
That was my point, just not explained as well. Yes, if I wanted to make sure the highlights weren't blown out, that is where I would have metered. In my mind it's simple because much of how I've learned so far was trial and error, but I'm not always able to tell you why. :D
 
^^ so just curious, did you adjust the exposure when you metered off your daughter, or did ±0EV work out?
 
Yes, I adjusted the exposure when I metered off of her face, in this case, just shutterspeed. I didn't use exposure compensation.
 
I tend to do this, too. Is there a way to fix blown out images post processing?
 
I tend to do this, too. Is there a way to fix blown out images post processing?

Blown out.. usually means a total loss of detail in the "blown out" area.. so there is nothing there to "fix". If you shoot Raw.. sometimes you can pull some detail out of a blown out area, it depends on how much detail was recorded. But if there is no detail (solid white).. then you are out of luck. You can try cloning in some detail from nearby regions in the photos that would match the blown out area... takes a little practice to make it look good, but it can be done.
 
Reading the histogram will save your ass along with the highlight warnings. The key is to know what your histogram should look like. The image posted should be very much to the dark side of the histogram while the highlight warnings should only be blinking on the white of her shirt and possible some of the crown of her head.

The cameras highlight warning system will warn you if there is a blow out or complete loss of ONE color channel. You may have a highlight warning on something that is purely one color because the other colors are missing.

It also helps if you understand your meter and have a good working relationship with it. This may seem silly and like I am talking to a child or it may not...
MANY of us don't realize that the meter is stupid as hell. It knows NOTHING about the scene you are shooting. The only thing the meter knows is that it is supposed to make the exposure say 0 based on the metering mode you are using and the light coming in the lens. 0 to the meter is roughly somewhere between 12% and 18% gray on the light to dark scale.
gray-card.jpg


If you are using evaluative metering it's trying to make the whole scene that bright on average

If you are using center weighted average metering it's averaging the whole scene to that brighness, but making what is in the center more important in the average. Like a weighted test.

If you are shooting spot metering it is trying to make whatever is in the spot average out to that brightness.

I find that when shooting outside grass is often a good thing to meter off of and to set your exposure just slightly brighter than 0 in the case of a portrait.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top