With a squirrel in these conditions...

[Daffodil]

With a squirrel in these conditions, what could I have done to make the photo better?

I'm fairly new here and I've only been using my Rebel XSi regularly for the past few months, so I'm still learning with it. Yesterday I went to an outdoor event for a high school club I work with, and I wanted to take some photos of the kids in the walkathon, at their booth, etc.--nothing special, just pictures for the kids of them in their event. I had the 18-55mm lens on my Rebel XSi thinking it would cover the distance shots as well as booth activities, plus it's light weight and easy to carry for the day.

When I parked my car there was a friendly and inquisitive squirrel watching me and posing on a bush very nearby. The bush was in a shady area, and directly behind it was a very bright sunny area with water reflecting the sun and light. I tried taking some photos of the squirrel using spot metering and this is the one I liked best, even though I know it's not great. I had the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO, and settings for this photo were f/5.6, 1/80, ISO 320. Post-processing was increased brightness, contrast, and sharpness, and an increase in blue in color levels (since it was more yellowish to start with).

Given the conditions--the unexpected encounter with the squirrel, the back-lighting, the 18-55mm lens, not wanting to use flash--what could I have done to make the photo better? I do like to take photos of birds and animals, and I'd like to be better prepared the next time a back-lit situation like this comes up. Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Marc-Etienne]

There are two main thing that I do when I shoot wildlife. First, is that I point meter (not matrix meter). That way, I know that my camera will do it's best to get a decent exposure no matter the background. Second is that I use selective point focus, usually the middle one, because it makes following animal more intuitive by simply centering and than tune the composition in PP. It this particular case, and in general, make sure that nothing in the foreground is in the way of your subject (like a branch).
Wildlife is so much fun to shoot, good luck!

 

[Overread]

The problem you have is that there is a big difference in the lighting values in the shot - you've the sunlit background areas which are very bright mixed with the shaded squirrel, which is far darker as a result. Add to that also the fact that you're shooting a moving subject so the only option is a single exposure.

So first up the exposure - well you can expose for the bright areas in the background and they'll expose well, but your main subject will end up terribly underexposed.
Or you can do as you did here and expose for the subject and let the background do what it will - which is to overexpose. This is because the overall dynamic range of the photo (the range from the darkest to the brightest points) is greater than the camera's ability to capture. The result is that a sacrifice is made and your background goes which since that is all the sensor can record.

The only way to fix this is to compress the difference of the lighting values - that means either make the brighter zones darker/dimmer or make the darker zones brighter. In this case using a flash (even the dreaded popup flash) would have given you some fill lighting - that is light shot into your shaded subject; thus lowering the difference in exposure between it and the background - the result being that you could expose for the background areas (remember the camera meter only works on ambient and won't predict what flash lighting will do to the exposure of a shot) and let the flash boost up the lighting over the nearer, shaded areas. You can also use reflectors and other lighting aids if the time and the area suit their use.

Overall in such cases a good flash unit is the ideal/preferred approach with wildlife since you can't control them to make effective use of reflectors nor diffusers (to block light entering the overly bright zones). Yes using flash does bring in the factor that the animal in question might run/fly as soon as its used, however the alternative is a shot like you have - where you've got your subject well exposed, but had to sacrifice the background.

The other option is to shoot at times of they day when the natural light is weaker/softer - such as closer to sunrise and sunset. Of course this not only creates a softer, more appealing light, but can also add its own difficulties (you've both less and more diffused light so high shutter speeds become a trickier thing to get hold of unless you raise your ISO up to higher values.

 

[Daffodil]

Thank you for your replies, Marc-Etienne and Overread, I appreciate them!

Marc-Etienne, I know that branch was in front of the squirrel's face in this picture and it's been bothering me too! I had another without a branch but also without the squirrel looking directly at me and without that expression on its face, and overall I liked this one better in spite of the branch. I think I did pretty much what you suggested with wildlife photography--used spot metering (which I guess is the same as point metering?) and selective point focus, and then cropped the photo in post-processing for composition.

Overread, I really felt a lot better reading your reply--sounds like I really did about all I could do under the circumstances to get the photo, aside from using flash which would have helped balance out the extreme difference between background and subject. This wasn't a planned shot and it was more practicing with my camera under the varying conditions that occurred than a serious photo session. I know I totally blew out and lost the background, but I did manage get the squirrel (even though with a branch in its face). And it seems like that was all that was really possible unless I'd used flash. This was taken in the middle of the day when I was outdoors for the event I was attending. As you suggested, the softer light in the early morning and evening would be easier to work with.

Thanks again for the explanations, suggestions, and help.

 

[Overread]

Just remember that spot metering can have its drawbacks - its only looking at the single spot under the middle of the camera to expose from, this means that you have to be careful what you meter from as if you catch the wrong part of a subject it might suddenly over or under expose the whole shot (ef if shooting an animal if it catches on a white feather it will expose only for that white and underexpose the rest - the same would be true of a pure black feather/eye or shaded area only it would now be overexposing the rest of the shot).

There is certainly a place for spot metering; though personally I prefer evaluative which is a little more forgiving in that it takes into account the whole of the frame whilst giving priority to the middle area of the photo.