Overexposure!

[Ant]

No. I was trying to ensure that the moving propellers were blurred.

After reviewing the exif info on my pics I think I've been the victim of some dubious electronic type shennanigans. :evil:

The viewfinder in my camera is electronic...essentially a little LCD display. When you depress the shutter button halfway down not only do you engage the autofocus but it shows you exactly how the pic is going to turn out....useful for judging exposure.

So I'd point it at an aircraft with it's engine running, depress the shutter halfway; and the propeller blades, which are rotating at speed, look like they're standing still. So I'd drop the shutter speed and try again.....again the prop looks stationary. Eventually I got to an overexposure situation and so gave up. According to the view in my display even a shutter speed of 1/60 isn't slow enough :? So I just started shooting in auto.

However, now that I've reviewd my photos I notice on some of my pics that a shutter speed of 1/80 is perfectly adequate to give prop blur. yet the pre-shot view in my viewfinder definitely showed stationary looking blades.

I can only assume that some sort of harmonic situation was in effect with the LCD display....similar to looking at a fast moving object, such as a fan, in front of your TV screen. The electronic viewfinder was showing me slow blades, leading me to believe that the shutter speed was too fast, when in fact the photograph would have blurred them perfectly well.

One more learning experience I think :roll:

 

[deb]

If you have and EV setting you could set it to -1 or -2 to underexpose the shot. I've used it successfully when pushing the limits of the ISO and aperture adjustment.

 

[vonnagy]

looks like you got a lot good info here. I just wanted to add that sometimes a Polarising filter can knock about a step off the exposure, plus they are great for skies.

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

Not to mention a good ND filter. I feel like an idiot for not thinking about this earlier. ND filters are pretty much sunglasses for your camera, and reduce how much light is coming into the camera. Can drop the exposure anywhere from 1 stop to 4 or more depending on which one ya get.

 

[Ant]

Thanks for all the input guys.

If you have and EV setting you could set it to -1 or -2 to underexpose the shot. I've used it successfully when pushing the limits of the ISO and aperture adjustment.

The EV setting just causes the camera to adjust the exposure by using the aperture or/and the shutter speed. I was in full manual anyway so it wouldn't make any sense to use EV.

As I said above I think I'd have got the shot I wanted anyway if I'd taken the photo and reviewed it instead of relying on the LCD preview with it's wierd strobing effect on moving propellers