Digital cameras forum: Bad Lighting Conditions

A good example of problem lighting.
Sometimes the lighting is such, that it is impossible to capture what your eye is seeing.

Even knowing it will probably turn out bad .. take the photo anyway.
Sometimes you are surprised by the results ... and sometimes not.

The sky was apparently very dark with very bright breaks in the clouds. That will confuse the exposure meter and usually result in a dark photo. Very much like a "back-lit" photo.

You did a good job with PhotoShop.
The building is the important part of the photo and you pulled it out of the darkness.

If you were faced with such lighting again, you might try using "spot" metering.
Most cameras default to Center Weighted Average Metering.
But many cameras will let you set the metering to "spot" metering.
Then the camera takes its exposure information from whatever is in the center of the scene (the building). That way, the camera would ignore the extremes of lighting in that troubling sky. The sky is what really caused the problem.
You would likely still need to use PhotoShop on the sky.

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=metering

Good job on saving a photograph.
A lot of history with that building.

Joe

Hjfok,
I do not know that much about filters at all except A-1, A-2 ,B-1 and B-2.
That is about it for me and using a polarizer filter.

What the heck is your Singh Ray graduated ND filter all about?
What is the cost on that filter?

HDR: I am still configuring that also. That is difficult to master.
I guess shooting in RAW would be the best way to go with HDR.
(Jump shoots in RAW with processing HDR also.)

Hjfok, so where are your new photos to show? I always enjoy viewing them.
Can you send us some more underwater shots?
Have you ever met up with a Morey Eel? Not my cup of tea to do so at all. Yikes!!

Thanks,

-Kevin

Jump, thanks for your link to your website.
I do have a Nikon 50mm F1.2 lens.
I need more experience with filters and how to use them like you do.

-Kevin

Singh Ray is one of the several manufacturers for high quality filters. However it is the only manufacturer who makes a variable ND filter with 2.6 to 8 stop reduction of light. It is also the only manufacturer who makes a reverse graduated ND filter.

I use the vari Duo ND filter with a built-in polarizer mostly for the HD video (with my 5D Mark II), very harsh daylight and when I need to use a wider aperture or slower shutter speed in bright daylight. The variable ND filter function is excellent for HD video when there is change of lighting, I just adjust the ND filter intensity without adjusting ISO, aperture or shutter speed. The only other thing I need to change is the manual focus. It also allows me to shoot HD video in wider aperture for the bokeh effect in bright daylight, without using some crazy high shutter speed.

The vari ND filter can also be useful for HDR, since I can adjust many different stops by just turn the filter. I don't need to keep adjusting the exposure compensation or mess around with the bracketing. Just turn the filter dial and use my remote control to fire the shots.

The reverse graduated ND filter is darkest in the middle, specifically designed to take shots of Sunset in the horizon, where the middle part of the photo is the brightest. It helps to decrease contrast.

A normal graduated ND filter also helps to decrease contrast between the sky and the foreground.

The Singh Ray vari N Duo filter costs more than $400 each, the reverse graduated ND and graduated ND filters cost $120-$200 each.

I had some photos from a recent Easter party in a local park. I used the Singh Ray vari-N-Duo filter so that I can use a wider aperture and fill flash on my son's photo (it was a very sunny day, taken around 1pm).

I also try out my new EF 100mm f/2.8L IS lens, but I shot these with only one hand. My other hand was holding my son's drink and I was running after him while taking snapshots on the fly. The hybrid stabilization works quite well, considering I am holding the camera with only one hand doing close up shots.

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u45/hjfok/Easter%202010/?albumview=slideshow

In fact, he brought along some assistants, a photograph processor, a lighting set-up men, and a local guide. That was what I heard from another friend who went there with him. Any way, I respect his efforts for shooting all those beautiful pictures. I really enjoyed them very much, too.

Sorry to hear your health keeps you from the hobby you enjoyed.

If you got your hands on a Digital SLR you would be delighted.
It has brought new capabilities that you would enjoy.

You no longer have to think about the cost of film and developing.
It makes bracketing much less costly.
Although I see too many people who don't bracket when they should.

I am familiar with the neutral gray card but never used it.
I missed out on some shots because I didn't use it.
Maybe some people will dig out that gray card and give it a try, now that you brought it up.

I used to take slides with my SLR film camera (Canon AE1).
If you are able, you might think about getting a 35mm slide scanner and turning those slides into digital photos.

Then you can turn those digital photos into a slide show and burn them into a DVD.
Then you could make copies for your friends and relatives.

I did that with several thousand 35mm slides.
It took a lot of time but I got to enjoy all those photos again while doing it.

And thanks for the reminder about the gray card.

..

This time I can use 2 hands instead of one, but still shooting on the fly with my five year old chasing after me to go to the nearby theme park.

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u45/hjfok/Spring%202010/?action=view¤t=8a289836.pbw

your pictures obviously show how quick you get yourselves familiar to the new 100F2.8L IS. I love every picture. Post more. Feel free to visit my recent trip to Spain. Here's the link :

http://yuth1127.multiply.com/photos/album/75/Hola..._Espana.._

Sorry that I typed in Thai. Just enjoy the sceneries. Those places were in Bacelona, Madrid, Zaragoza, Toledo, Cordoba in Spain,and lastly Lisbon of Portugal

I dislike tethering digital techniques to old film techniques when the film techniques aren't self-evident from how the new equipment works. Using something like the "sunny 16 rule" with those fixed settings for aperture and "film speed" will work in most cases, but don't make the best use of your digital equipment (and if you're still using film, try using "sunny f11" rather than f16 if you're shooting sports rather than landscapes; you need the speed more than the depth of field).

Your digital camera has all of the possible "film speeds" built in to its program, and a sophisticated light metering program to make it possible to just point and shoot, so your real problem is determining which subject must be in focus. As you've seen, as long as focus and depth of field are satisfactory, photoshop or Gimp can fix the contrast. If you want to control contrast in-camera, you can use your spot meter (if you have one) as follows: meter from a dark element in the picture if you want the darks to come out lighter; meter from a light element if you want to brights to tone down darker; meter from something reasonably medium (such as grass) if you're afraid high contrast will fool the camera.

Depth of field is a tricky issue, but your "landscape" preset on most cameras will take care of that for you. Focusing on the most distant object in the background will effectively also choose the correct aperture for clear focus near and far (but at the cost of slow shutter speed). Extreme low light conditions make using a tripod or monopod a consideration.

I was just watching my Ken Burns "Ansel Adams" dvd this week and thinking back on all the obsession and passion about using his "zone system" to get full-range prints in the era of film. Today's digital cameras provide the raw material for programs like Photoshop to accomplish all the "dodging" and "burning" easily and with precision, where the limitations on contrast come from lcd screens and not from printing paper...

I use this term because people know what it means. The Sunny 16 rule gives one some idea about settings based on incident lighting rather than the reflective reading from the TTL meter of the camera. The Sunny 16 rule is not one fixed setting. You modify it according to how much shadow detail you want to expose. If you need more shutter speed, then it also helps you to calculate the aperture needed. It won't be very useful if all you know is setting it at f/16 and use 1/ISO shutter speed as it gets defined in a textbook. For example, one tough metering situation is to use the camera meter to take a correctly exposed photo in sunny snowy day. If you want to get the right exposure of someone's face (which is usually in shade), then you may want to bump up 2 to 3 stops to get the right exposure of their face. So you may want to consider f/11 (or f/8) with 1/50 at ISO 100. But if you are photographing someone skiing, then you need faster shutter speed and can consider f/8 with 1/400 to 1/500 at ISO 100. The advantage of digital camera is that you can review this quickly. If this rule does not work, then you can tweak the manual settings easily to fine tune it and use the histogram.
Don't get me wrong, I do a lot of spot metering too. Spot metering has its strength and weakness too. What works best depends on what you want to shoot. There is no one-for-all formula to get the right exposure. The camera is very good in most cases but some tough situation may still need to use our head to figure out the setting. We often are in a rush to snap the shot with little time to think, so thanks goodness the camera has a sophisticated system.

I went skiing last week, and after skiing decided last minute to drive to here to catch the sunset. I was in such a rush, did not even have time to stop by the hotel to grab the tripod or filters. I made it there just in time to catch the last light.

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u45/hjfok/Mono%20Lake%202010/?albumview=slideshow