I'm curious as to why, when taking photos in the woods my pictures always seem to be bright. The woods are usually quite dim, full of shadows, yet colorful, buy not full of light and dull. That's how my pics turn out tho if I don't use @ -1 exp comp. When I'd compensate I get brighter, truer colors and the pics look like how my eyes see things. I'm sure there is some reason for this, I just don't understand why in a darker environment my camera seems fooled, and producing bright colorless images. I'm shooting a Canon 50D in AV mode and AWB usually, with the 100-400 L Series lens.
That's odd since with my 50D in the woods I have to overexpose to get a good shot. I am using the Canon 10-22mm lens. Maybe your camera is off calibration some. Or maybe its the lens/camera combination.
I suspect that the camera is acting fine, but what is occurring is that you are shooting into enough shadows that that is what the camera meter is seeing. It is thinking that these areas are too dark, therefore it needs to bring up these darker areas to the "correct" exposure. -1 exp comp brings the shadows back down to the tone that you want them at. Without seeing minimally processed uncompensated file I can't be sure but I think that is what is happening.
What Dan said. Try spot metering and see if you get a correct result or underexpose (compensate for the metering) when you have a dark scene you want dark.
Posted by Scott Fricke on July 10, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Isn't it because the meter is calibrated to read 18% gray? ie. metering off a gray card to get correct exposure. When it sees a very dark surface it increases the the exposure time to compensate. In reverse, when shooting white snow, you will get the snow turning gray if you do not compensate, usually around a +1 stop compensation.
This happens when I shoot slot canyons, I usually end up doing about a -1.5 stop exposure compensation.
Edit: Sorry Dan and Harley, for some reason I only read the first two posts before I responded.
I'm wondering how you are metering the scene ? I would use what Nikon call "Matrix" metering which meters the entire scene but if perchance you happen to be on spot metering and the 'spot' is hitting a dark area such as the base of a tree in shadow, the camera will brighten this area to 18% grey and the entire scene will record too bright.
Posted by Jim Bullard on July 11, 2009 at 10:11 AM
Light meters are calibrated to produce an average tone of 18% grey. That is based on the average sunlit scene. In the woods you expect the image to appear darker than the average sunlit scene because it was darker but the light meter doesn''t know the difference. It tries to produce the same 18% grey average. Spot metering (properly used) and matrix metering will get around that to a certain extent but in the end you have to learn how your meter responds to different situations and compensate. Fortunately with digital you get immediate feedback. You don't have to wait for the film to come back from the processor.
Posted by Alain Briot on July 11, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Hi Doug,
With a digital camera, which you are using, all you need to look at is your histogram. Just look at it to make sure it is not clipped in either the highlights or shadows. If it clipped, either over or underexpose as necessary. If you cannot prevent clipping on either side through a single exposure, take a series of bracketed stops and then combine them through HDR or layering.
I personally stopped using a lightmeter when I switched from film to digital and now expose "by histogram". I use the exposure calculated by the camera as point of departure, and then over and/or underexpose to get the histogram I want.
ALain
Posted by Doug Custer on July 12, 2009 at 12:45 AM
Thanks too all who have replied with input. I am not new to photography, but I am kind of new to the "idea of creating the perfect shot", and personally critique every shot that I take. I've only been shooting DSLR for about a year, after I decided to try to get some good shots of Eagles on the Mississippi. The last time I used an SLR, it was a film based Pentax. I know that camera would turn out dark exposures in the woods, and it hadn't sunk in yet that the digital camera tries to "create or process" what it "thinks" is the perfect exposure. Thanks again to all, please be patient with me....I'll continue to learn, with my books, this site, and input from all you guys. You ALL have amazing shots posted, that so far I can only dream about shooting....hopefully I can post some good ones eventually.
Posted by Nat Coalson on July 13, 2009 at 12:26 AM
There's a simple answer to this:
With auto-exposure on modern cameras, the camera will try to "balance" every exposure.
If the framed scene is overly dark, the camera will want to lighten it.
If the scene is very light, the camera will try to darken it.
This is because the camera doesn't know what you are trying to do.
If either case produces results other than what you want, use exposure compensation. As you shoot more, you will find that you are manipulating the exposure A LOT. Even with the smartness of the camera.
And (in general) always use Av or Aperture Priority mode. This is fodder for a whole other thread.
I think that you have discovered the same principle that Bryan Peterson writes about for scenes with lots of green in them. If you have a copy of Understanding Exposure, look at the section called "Mr. Green Jeans" (p. 92 in my revised edition). He notes that, under these conditions, using green areas to meter is actually very reliable as long as you compensate to -2/3. This idea has been very helpful to me as a starting point for shooting in forest areas.
yeap, your meter sees the dark tones as just dark. then it tells the camera to over expose to what it considers a "proper exposure".
you will find the reverse is true if you shoot in a light toned environment.
the meter will see the lighter tones as just "more light" and underexposes
are we havin' fun yet?
Take a picture of a black wall using any of the automatic metering modes. Then take a picture of a white wall with the same metering mode. They'll look almost the same, because the meter seeks mid-range, the aforementioned 18 percent gray.
This is one of the lessons I teach clients by asking them how they would use exposure compensation to take a picture of a white wolf on snow. Many say they'd need to underexpose so the whites aren't blown out, but in fact you need to overexpose by two full stops because an unaltered automatic metering system will render the scene gray.
In your case, with all the darkness in the frame, your meter has brightened it. As long as no highlights are blown out in the scene, it's actually good that it's brighter than it was in real life because there will be less digital noise, and you can easily darken the image in post processing. Exposing this way on purpose is called "shooting to the right" because the data on the histogram moves toward the right side of the scale. Also as already mentioned, a quick look at your histogram will tell you if you've clipped the highlights or the shadows, and if you enable your highlight warning system (so-called "blinkies), any highlight areas that are blown out will blink at you when you look at the histogram.
I don't think it has much to do with digital photography. Instead, it has to do with what in-camera exposure meters do (now and in the past, but who knows what the future holds). In the simple-minded modes like spot or center-weighted, the camera exposes as if the thing in the metered area is a middle-tone. If you expose a dark subject as if it were middle tone, it will look too bright. That sounds like what is going on.
I usually use manual exposure. That was what worked for me with slide film, and I'm too lazy to change. It makes sense to me - I either find something I want to be middle tone in my frame, meter it, and make it so, or I find the lightest area I want to have detail and give it a +1. Precision is less important in my exposure world now because the raw files seem to give a lot of leeway for post-exposure processing.
Discussion
13 repliesI suspect that the camera is acting fine, but what is occurring is that you are shooting into enough shadows that that is what the camera meter is seeing. It is thinking that these areas are too dark, therefore it needs to bring up these darker areas to the "correct" exposure. -1 exp comp brings the shadows back down to the tone that you want them at. Without seeing minimally processed uncompensated file I can't be sure but I think that is what is happening.
This happens when I shoot slot canyons, I usually end up doing about a -1.5 stop exposure compensation.
Edit: Sorry Dan and Harley, for some reason I only read the first two posts before I responded.
With a digital camera, which you are using, all you need to look at is your histogram. Just look at it to make sure it is not clipped in either the highlights or shadows. If it clipped, either over or underexpose as necessary. If you cannot prevent clipping on either side through a single exposure, take a series of bracketed stops and then combine them through HDR or layering.
I personally stopped using a lightmeter when I switched from film to digital and now expose "by histogram". I use the exposure calculated by the camera as point of departure, and then over and/or underexpose to get the histogram I want.
ALain
With auto-exposure on modern cameras, the camera will try to "balance" every exposure.
If the framed scene is overly dark, the camera will want to lighten it.
If the scene is very light, the camera will try to darken it.
This is because the camera doesn't know what you are trying to do.
If either case produces results other than what you want, use exposure compensation. As you shoot more, you will find that you are manipulating the exposure A LOT. Even with the smartness of the camera.
And (in general) always use Av or Aperture Priority mode. This is fodder for a whole other thread.
you will find the reverse is true if you shoot in a light toned environment.
the meter will see the lighter tones as just "more light" and underexposes
are we havin' fun yet?
Take a picture of a black wall using any of the automatic metering modes. Then take a picture of a white wall with the same metering mode. They'll look almost the same, because the meter seeks mid-range, the aforementioned 18 percent gray.
This is one of the lessons I teach clients by asking them how they would use exposure compensation to take a picture of a white wolf on snow. Many say they'd need to underexpose so the whites aren't blown out, but in fact you need to overexpose by two full stops because an unaltered automatic metering system will render the scene gray.
In your case, with all the darkness in the frame, your meter has brightened it. As long as no highlights are blown out in the scene, it's actually good that it's brighter than it was in real life because there will be less digital noise, and you can easily darken the image in post processing. Exposing this way on purpose is called "shooting to the right" because the data on the histogram moves toward the right side of the scale. Also as already mentioned, a quick look at your histogram will tell you if you've clipped the highlights or the shadows, and if you enable your highlight warning system (so-called "blinkies), any highlight areas that are blown out will blink at you when you look at the histogram.
I usually use manual exposure. That was what worked for me with slide film, and I'm too lazy to change. It makes sense to me - I either find something I want to be middle tone in my frame, meter it, and make it so, or I find the lightest area I want to have detail and give it a +1. Precision is less important in my exposure world now because the raw files seem to give a lot of leeway for post-exposure processing.
Pete D.