Thanks. These kind of things are like photographs done in a live theater where the stage is dark but the players are spotlighted. The camera auto exposure sees lots of darker background and so opens the camera up to let more light in, way over-exposing the subjects. Knowing this, I set the EV adjustment to the max darker position to make the highlighted plants not burn completely out. After all, in bright sun, they are extremely well lighted. I took this with my little camera which doesn't have manual over-ride auto exposure. Usually when outside I EV- about 2 clicks so the lights are not over exposed, but in these with the dark background (it doesn't matter if the background is darker because of underexposure) I did the EV- the full six clicks that the camera allows, then darkened further with the various processing tools that I use in iPhoto and Photobucket.
All of which tells me I need to study the various controls on my camera more. I keep flash switched off, except in occasional doll portraits, and I manually focus, but I need to try some other stuff too.
Try the EV control next. It's pretty easy to use: usually readily available without going into the menus. If the subject is real bright, move the EV into the negative. If it's real dark, move it into the positive. Just 2 or three clicks in either direction makes a big difference. You can see the change through the viewfinder and chose the best EV setting for each picture too. It's very easy, and easily accessible.
To be honest, that sounds like exactly what I need for both flower and doll shots since they can both come out really light - especially a doll's face - even when the surrounding light levels don't seem that high to me. I'll give it a try and see how I get on. Thanks!
Well, that's the exact predicament I was talking about with the weed picture. Even though the surrounding background, or overall light levels are dark or dim, the camera. taking an average reading of the light, will compensate and brighten everything. So if the dolls face is the lightest part of the picture, but surrounded by darkness, the camera will read an average of what it sees, and probably lighten everything, making the face too light.
You have to realize what the camera has no way of sensing - that the dolls face (if this is your wish and intent) is the only part that has to be exactly the right exposure. This means that you have to tell the camera not to lighten everything because you don't need the dark background illuminated. It can be darker in order to realize the important face at the correct exposure. With the EV, you are doing this by clicking down into the negative side, telling the camera to underexpose it's average reading (be darker) because you don't want the highlights to be overexposed (be lighter) automatically by the camera. (Although in some circumstances, you might want to overexpose - it all depends what you want and what the light is like.)
It's the same at night. If it was dark, but you could see the clouds, and wanted to take a picture of them, you could move the EV to the positive end, which would tell the camera to overexpose everything (be lighter) and so the sky will be lighter and the clouds will appear.
On the contrary, if you wanted to take a picture of a full moon, the camera mostly reads the black night sky, so vastly compensates by over exposing. The very bright moon is just a fraction of the cameras average reading area. So you have to tell the camera to underexpose and let much less light in so you can see the subtle features of the very bright moon which is in extreme contrast to the total blackness around it.. Then you would move the EV into the negative region to darken the moon. It's already fully exposed in full sunlight - it obviously needs to be darkened to get any detail, not lightened, even though it's night time and one thinks it is dark. The moon itself is actually very very very bright.
To put it simply, you can over ride the cameras averaging light sensing by using the EV to tell it to underexpose or over expose to certain degrees. You will become intuitive about this as you experiment, and pretty much be able to estimate how to set your EV for each shot. If you are not sure, you can bracket each shot. This is probably why EV is so quickly available to the thumb, and not annoyingly unavailable within the menus.
EV is quick and fun to use. You can see the results of a few clicks right in the viewfinder, and this makes photo taking much more fun because you are now smarter than all the camera's electronic authority. You have more control than this small robot in your hand.
I found it on my camera and tried it out with some interior shots. The difference was evident immediately. I actually used to do something like this with my compact once I moved off automatic settings last year. I constantly adjusted for light and checked the results, but I hadn't got round to studying how to do it with the SLR. I'll maybe try it again tonight when I take some flower photos and see how the different settings turn out there. That's certainly been very helpful!!
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 01:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 02:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 09:35 pm (UTC)You have to realize what the camera has no way of sensing - that the dolls face (if this is your wish and intent) is the only part that has to be exactly the right exposure. This means that you have to tell the camera not to lighten everything because you don't need the dark background illuminated. It can be darker in order to realize the important face at the correct exposure. With the EV, you are doing this by clicking down into the negative side, telling the camera to underexpose it's average reading (be darker) because you don't want the highlights to be overexposed (be lighter) automatically by the camera. (Although in some circumstances, you might want to overexpose - it all depends what you want and what the light is like.)
It's the same at night. If it was dark, but you could see the clouds, and wanted to take a picture of them, you could move the EV to the positive end, which would tell the camera to overexpose everything (be lighter) and so the sky will be lighter and the clouds will appear.
On the contrary, if you wanted to take a picture of a full moon, the camera mostly reads the black night sky, so vastly compensates by over exposing. The very bright moon is just a fraction of the cameras average reading area. So you have to tell the camera to underexpose and let much less light in so you can see the subtle features of the very bright moon which is in extreme contrast to the total blackness around it.. Then you would move the EV into the negative region to darken the moon. It's already fully exposed in full sunlight - it obviously needs to be darkened to get any detail, not lightened, even though it's night time and one thinks it is dark. The moon itself is actually very very very bright.
To put it simply, you can over ride the cameras averaging light sensing by using the EV to tell it to underexpose or over expose to certain degrees. You will become intuitive about this as you experiment, and pretty much be able to estimate how to set your EV for each shot. If you are not sure, you can bracket each shot. This is probably why EV is so quickly available to the thumb, and not annoyingly unavailable within the menus.
EV is quick and fun to use. You can see the results of a few clicks right in the viewfinder, and this makes photo taking much more fun because you are now smarter than all the camera's electronic authority. You have more control than this small robot in your hand.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 05:06 pm (UTC)