Exposure balance?

[MBX]

Hi

I often encounter the issue where i have a nice exposure on my scene but then there's a bright light that's overexposed. However if i turn down exposure because of that light it also makes my scene too dark.

Is there a way to be more specific in balancing out exposure for certain parts of the scene?

Imagine you're in a room and there's a light on the table. It appears much brighter in the camera but the surrounding space looks ok. Now you try to turn down exposure (iso) because of the lamp but then the rest gets too dark.

I'm using a 5d m-ii with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.

Any suggestions?

 

[Doylem]

The human eye is way more sophisticated than any camera, adapting instantly to changes in lighting. So something that 'looks' OK to us may present problems to a camera: specifically, the ability to record very dark/light areas simultaneously. There are many 'work-arounds': grad filters, HDR, exposure bracketing, some PP tweaking, etc. But a very bright light is going to be a 'blown highlight' in many situations; it's a problem we can't always solve.

When shooting night shots outdoors, I try to shoot while there is still some light in the sky, which helps, incidentally, to 'even out' the lighting, so the camera will record more-or-less what we see (much better, IMO, than with a black sky).

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Hi

I often encounter the issue where i have a nice exposure on my scene but then there's a bright light that's overexposed. However if i turn down exposure because of that light it also makes my scene too dark.

Is there a way to be more specific in balancing out exposure for certain parts of the scene?

Imagine you're in a room and there's a light on the table. It appears much brighter in the camera but the surrounding space looks ok. Now you try to turn down exposure (iso) because of the lamp but then the rest gets too dark.

I'm using a 5d m-ii with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.

Any suggestions?

My suggestion would be to learn how to use you camera from a book specifically written for it, instead of the manual.
http://www.google.com/products?clie...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQrQQwAw

I bought one for my Canon 40D written by David D. Bush, and it helped me quite a lot. I still use this book every now and then to dig something or a setting I have forgotten. There also are numerous training DVD's for your camera, but I personally prefer reading text on paper than viewing on a TV.

While you wait for the book (or DVD), you can dig around here:
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=TipsAndTechsAct

 

[Phrasikleia]

The human eye is way more sophisticated than any camera, adapting instantly to changes in lighting. So something that 'looks' OK to us may present problems to a camera: specifically, the ability to record very dark/light areas simultaneously. There are many 'work-arounds': grad filters, HDR, exposure bracketing, some PP tweaking, etc. But a very bright light is going to be a 'blown highlight' in many situations; it's a problem we can't always solve.

When shooting night shots outdoors, I try to shoot while there is still some light in the sky, which helps, incidentally, to 'even out' the lighting, so the camera will record more-or-less what we see (much better, IMO, than with a black sky).

I think Doylem summed it up here pretty well. I certainly don't want to discourage reading up on a camera to get the most out of it, but there is only so much any camera can do with a very high-contrast scene. Your best bet (really, in all cases) is to time things right at the moment of capture so that you have the most favorable light possible. With night shots, that time is usually the first 10-20 minutes after sunset, while there is still some hint of blue in the sky. Once the sky goes black, you're dealing with a very high-contrast scene that will be difficult to capture and will make for a less interesting photo.

 

[anubis]

Answer: your eye has an instantaneous dynamic range of over 13 stops. Guess the instantaneous dynamic range of your camera?

 

[zachsilvey]

The highest end professional DSLRs and digital medium format cameras only have a exposure latitude of 5 stops and the human eye has about 11 to 22 .

If you have a very contrasty scene there are a few things you can do to get an even exposure

1)Use fill flash to fill in the shadows

2)Shoot 3-7 exposures +-1-3 stops and create and HDR by combining them in post (generally Photomatix).

3)Choose the important part of the scene and expose for that part.

 

[Edge100]

Hi

I often encounter the issue where i have a nice exposure on my scene but then there's a bright light that's overexposed. However if i turn down exposure because of that light it also makes my scene too dark.

Is there a way to be more specific in balancing out exposure for certain parts of the scene?

Imagine you're in a room and there's a light on the table. It appears much brighter in the camera but the surrounding space looks ok. Now you try to turn down exposure (iso) because of the lamp but then the rest gets too dark.

I'm using a 5d m-ii with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.

Any suggestions?

Fill flash

Experiment with gelling your flash to get away from the "flash" look; you can really get some fantastic results like this.

 

[ChrisA]

If you have a high contrast scen and can't convert it is a lower contrast scen by adding fill light (with a flash or reflector) then the best exposure is the one that does not blow the highlights. The only bright areas yu should allow to go whilte are self luminous objects such as light bulbs.

Yes the scene will be to dark but you fix that in Photoshop later. You can fix "dark" but blown hillights are not correctable

You can make your photoshop work easier if you shoot in RAW format

What you've run into the the main problem with digital cameras, very limited dynamic range. Film handles this better but still took effort to get it right.

"HDR" is a method where you take multiple shoots of the scen using different exposures then merg them together. It works only for static scenes that don't move between the shoots.. Even leaves blowing in the wind, ripples on water and clouds and miss up an HDR shoot.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

If you have a high contrast scen and can't convert it is a lower contrast scen by adding fill light (with a flash or reflector) then the best exposure is the one that does not blow the highlights. The only bright areas yu should allow to go whilte are self luminous objects such as light bulbs.

Yes the scene will be to dark but you fix that in Photoshop later. You can fix "dark" but blown hillights are not correctable

You can make your photoshop work easier if you shoot in RAW format

What you've run into the the main problem with digital cameras, very limited dynamic range. Film handles this better but still took effort to get it right.

"HDR" is a method where you take multiple shoots of the scen using different exposures then merg them together. It works only for static scenes that don't move between the shoots.. Even leaves blowing in the wind, ripples on water and clouds and miss up an HDR shoot.

You are correct, and so the two posters before you. That's why I consider it so important learning how to use the camera instead of reading the owner's manual. For example, he needs to learn about the metering mode of the 5D II.

 

[zachsilvey]

What you've run into the the main problem with digital cameras, very limited dynamic range. Film handles this better but still took effort to get it right.

This is a hotly debated topic on many photo forums but the general consensus is that most of today's dslrs are at least equivalent to 35mm print film in exposure latitude and that most certainly includes the 5D Mark II.

 

[compuwar]

Fill flash

Experiment with gelling your flash to get away from the "flash" look; you can really get some fantastic results like this.

Exactly!

What you've run into the the main problem with digital cameras, very limited dynamic range. Film handles this better but still took effort to get it right.

Can you provide a reference that backs up the assertion that film has better dynamic range? Personally, I don't believe it's been true for at least 5 years, and every test I've read in the last several years has had digital holding better DR over a scene, for instance:

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2/

(Last updated July 2005)

Kodak Gold 200, in this test, showed 7 stops of information, Fujichrome Velvia 5 stops, and the Canon 1D Mark II, over 10 stops of information! Further image analysis shows at least 10.6 stops are recorded by the canon 1D Mark II camera (the full range of of detail in this image, Other testing of the noise level versus intensity shows the Canon 1D Mark II has 11.7 stops of dynamic range.

Conclusions

Digital cameras, like the Canon 1D Mark II, show a huge dynamic range compared to either print or slide film, at least for the films compared. Jpeg digital camera images suffer from posterization and the problem is significant for highlights and darkest portions of an image. Digital camera transfer functions, like that in the Canon 1D Mark II camera, are similar to print film.

While digital cameras like that tested here show superior intensity detail and signal to noise, slow speed films have higher spatial resolution.