Went with a friend to a Civil War reinactment this weekend, he wanted to get some shots of cannon fire. After figuring out how to anticipate the shot I felt I had caught some nioce images. We had decided not to take the laptop since we would not have time to check till after the battle. When I downloaded them I found the fire and smoke had just blew the highlites and there was only white. I will not get to take any more till next year but am not sure how to set exposure to catch best image. SHould I just bracket and then combine?
If you set your camera to show the "blinkies" on the preview LCD you can change the exposure on the go. If you shoot in RAW some adjustment can be applied in the RAW converter to compensate. Key is to ALWAYS watch the histogram and blinkies.
Posted by Paul Inglis on April 28, 2008 at 2:34 PM
If your friend has a cannon, its possible he could lend you one to experiment with would be great as you could perfect it by next year or you could try exposure comp say -1/3 EV or more than likely -2/3 EV. Since it all takes place indoors you could also try going completely too manual to ensure more consistent results!
Posted by David Bostedo on April 29, 2008 at 8:37 AM
Kendall - Looking at the histogram is the best possible advice for judging exposure.
If there are no black areas in the image (shown in the histogram) then the shots are overexposed and you could have shot a lower exposure to avoid blowing the highlights. If there are black areas, then the dynamic range of the scene was too much for the camera, and you have to choose whether you want to exposure
As far as technique (and sorry if this stuff is obvious), in a case where you can't meter the scene until it happens (like this) bracketing is a good idea if it's quick - particularly if your camera will auto-bracket for exposure. This will also give you the option of combining exposures, as you mentioned. Otherwise, if you have time, looking at the histogram and making adjustments is probably the best way to go. If you shot in Av mode or Tv mode you probably would have needed to dial in some minus exposure compensation. In manual you could close the aperture or raise the shutter speed depending on what you want for DOF and how brightly lit the scene is.
Discussion
3 repliesIf there are no black areas in the image (shown in the histogram) then the shots are overexposed and you could have shot a lower exposure to avoid blowing the highlights. If there are black areas, then the dynamic range of the scene was too much for the camera, and you have to choose whether you want to exposure
As far as technique (and sorry if this stuff is obvious), in a case where you can't meter the scene until it happens (like this) bracketing is a good idea if it's quick - particularly if your camera will auto-bracket for exposure. This will also give you the option of combining exposures, as you mentioned. Otherwise, if you have time, looking at the histogram and making adjustments is probably the best way to go. If you shot in Av mode or Tv mode you probably would have needed to dial in some minus exposure compensation. In manual you could close the aperture or raise the shutter speed depending on what you want for DOF and how brightly lit the scene is.