rebel t3i sky

[mordylich]

Hi All,

I recently bought a canon rebel t3i, my first SLR, and am finding that a blue sky usually comes out white. This occurs whether the photo is taken indoors (in front of a window) or outside, and it occurs in Auto modes and in program modes.
I've been told that the camera can't accommodate the range of the dark foreground and bright sky and therefore over-exposes. I don't understand, though, how I rarely had this issue with my previous, much cheaper, point and shoot casio camera. What can I do to fix this?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Forkie]

You've been told correct! Cameras cannot see the same dynamic range as the human eye, so when photographing a scene with a dark foreground and bright sky, depending on the spot that you meter from either the foreground will be properly exposed and the sky blown out or the sky will be properly exposed and the foreground practically black.

To compensate for this, you have a couple of options,

1. You can create a HDR image. Take a series of shots at different exposures so that both the foreground and sky are exposed properly through the series and merge them in a HDR program.

2. You can take two shots; one of the foreground properly exposed and one of the sky properly exposed and composite the two, or

3. Set your camera to Matrix Metering (I think it may be called Evaluative on Canons); your camera will expose for the whole frame, but you wil loose a little of exposure in one direction or the other

 

[mordylich]

Thank you. How is it then that my simple point and shoot did such a better job of metering? Also, does distance from the subject, aperture, or focus length affect the metering?

 

[KmH]

It didn't. The Casio edited the photo differently. Essentially the Casio did everything for you, but also gave you no choice in the final outcome.

The T3i leaves a lot more of the editing up to you, so you can exercise your artistic intrepretation.

If you don't want a camera to give you that much control over the final image, you may want to get another P&S camera.

 

[zhound]

I also recently got a T3i. I find myself shooting in manual mode if I want the sky in the frame.

This image was taken at f8.0, shutter speed at 1/640. A little color correction was done in post. Probably not the best exposure but you get the idea.

Hope this helps.

 

[ph0enix]

Hope this helps.

I don't think it does. The white balance in this photo is off and I don't see any blue sky.

 

[KmH]

And the foreground is under exposed, while parts of the sky are over exposed.

 

[zhound]

You're right. That was bad. Here's another one hoping it will be better. As I mentioned, it wasnt the best exposure.

1/320 f8

 

[Forkie]

Thank you. How is it then that my simple point and shoot did such a better job of metering? Also, does distance from the subject, aperture, or focus length affect the metering?

As KmH said, your point and shoot does a lot of processing when you take a shot to make taking photos as easy as possible. This is why they are so popular - there's almost no effort involved in getting the shot.

DLSRs are more difficult to operate, but you have the advantage of being able to be much more creative with your photography. You'll need to decide whether ease or freedom are more important to you.