"Auto" exposure issue

[MinnesotaTony]

So, I've had my XSi for about a week.. Wanted to take some pics of the kids. Wound up with a few I really like, but I have an issue on the "auto" setting - it doesn't seem to expose correctly or anywhere near consistently. Since taking the photos below, I have read a lot more about exposure and found an exposure chart that I find helpful. I've been trying out the M, Av and Tv as well, now.

I guess what I'm wondering is, how to keep the colors from getting washed out - the quilt should be like in the 1st picture. This is obviously just a crop of the washed out colors in the quilt. Everything is washed out, and the camera seems to have set exposure for a dark brown wooden fence in the background. Would changing to spot metering and focusing it on the subject's face help in the second picture?

Or, do I just want to shorten up the shutter speed? change ISO? I suppose this is why I can take control of the camera settings? The first is ISO 200, f/7.1, 1/200. The second is ISO 400, f/5.6 and 1/200. I can't figure out why the camera wanted to let so much more light in.

Finally, I've obviously edited the first one. This was with a free program I found online (paint.net). I also tried using GIMP (very confusing for me). I am looking at Photoshop elements. Any advice either way on that program?

Thanks!

Tony

[Dbl]

Do you have the full photo, it might help to see what the camera was looking at. I have found the most helpful metering mode is Evaluative. It looks at a lot of different things and comes up with a fairly good set of parameters for the camera. Which metering mode is your camera in now?

From what little I am seeing of the child the skin looks to be close to the proper exposure.

If you are going to shoot in one of the auto program modes, and there is nothing wrong with that I would prefer to be in Program mode over Auto mode. Here is the main difference between "A" Auto mode and "P" Program mode. Auto mode does not allow you to make any adjustments to the camera once the exposure is set. Program mode does, you can change aperture, shutter speed or dial in Exposure compensation if you wish to fine tune the exposure. Because you have a bit more control I would use P over A!

So if you would post up the complete shot and tell us a bit about what your camera settings are and we can help from there.

[Dbl]

Oh I forgot about the editing program. I would highly recommend Photoshop Elements, it is basically Photoshop lite, much easier to get familiar with and it is price right. If you don't want the latest version you can pick up an older copy for around $20 to $30. Newest version in the $50 to $60 range.

[mmeyer]

This may sound like a really dumb thing but it happened to me. If your camera is set to bracketing, every shot will expose differently. I had set mine on that one time and forgot the next time and couldn't figure out why every shot was different, at least every series of 3. If consecutive shots are exposed differently you could look at that.

Just a thought. Good luck.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Unfortunately,there will always be give and take. If the highlights are what you want to keep [blanket] you will need to meter off that and expose for it. If you're exposing for the child's skin tones,you will have to let the blanket go-or spend time toiling in post processing.

Easiest solution? Move to a better spot where the light is more even and not so harsh. If you can control the situation and lighting,control it and move people or items. If not,decide what's most important to you and expose for just that.

The light you were faced with looks like very harsh mid-day sun-very tough with a reflective item like that blanket!

[OutlawTorn]

A camera sensor can only handle a certain degree of dynamic range, or the amount of difference between brights and darks - less than the human eye can see. The result is that you may expose for a darker object, like the childs skin, and things much brighter will be blown out or will lose detail.

What you are seeing is the highly reflective and bright blanket being overexposed and because of blown highlights - the result will be loss of detail. My guess is that if you checked your histogram, your "curve" would be falling off (like a cliff) on the right side. If your image had loss of detail due to underexposure, you would see a "cliff" on the left side. The perfect exposure will show a bell curve that tapers to the bottom before the edges of your histogram. The complicating factor is if you truly DO want blacks or whites, then you will have to distinguish what is desireable all black or all white pixels and what is a problem with exposure.

Now, the fix. The easiest solution is to just move your subject into an area where there is less contrast between the lights and the darks. Take a few test shots and check your histogram to see if you are blowing any highlights or lowlights.\

Another fix is to use your flash. Yes, I am asking you to use your flash outside. You can set your flash to just barely touch the subject to brighten it up a bit so your camera sees a brighter subject and will expose for it AND the background properly. If done correctly, you shouldnt be able to tell a flash was used in the picture.

The last and most difficult option is post processing. This is also only good up to a certain extent. If you have areas of perfectly white or perfectly black pixels, there is no data to bring back. You can make the areas darker, but all detail is lost. No amount of pp can bring back detail that is not there to begin with.

[Steve Foss]

I simply leave my metering on any of my camera bodies on evaluative. It's the best overall system for most work, IMO, because it takes in the whole scene and tries to average the exposure throughout. It's not anywhere near perfect but is generally the best starting point, and I use EC all the time to refine exposure, as Dan pointed out.

Key here is examining the histogram after taking a photo. Make sure the highlight warning (blinkies) is enabled so any blown out portions will blink on the LCD, and as along as neither the left nor the right side of the histogram is cut off, you'll be in good shape. If it's cut off on the left (shadows), use EC to overexpose and move it to the right as long as it doesn't get cut off on the right (highlights). If it's cut off on the right (you'll also see blinkies then), use EC to underexpose and move the histogram back to the left.

The thing about using EC is you have to get firmly in the habit of zeroing it out before moving onto the next situation, because what works on one exposure may produce a nightmare on the next one.

There really is no "perfect" histogram. The histogram is simply a reflection of the exposure/scene/light at the time, and a scene with lots of shadows and bright spots, or of a black subject on a white background or vice versa, will show a very different histogram than a scene that's heavy on mid-range with very little shadowed or bright areas.

Also, if you're using CS3 or later, you can recover up to two stops of blown-out highlights whether shooting RAW or jpeg by using the RAW preview screen to get those highlights back. Not sure whether the latest versions of Elements allow this with jpeg captures or not.

There are times I purposely use exposure compensation or manual exposure to move the histogram far enough to the right to blow out highlights, (such as a bright white wedding dress when coupled with darker skin tones). This brightens mid-range and shadow areas, and especially at higher ISO readings will mean a capture with far less noise in those areas. Knowing I can get the blown highlights back in CS3 gives me even more lattitude, and I can produce a final product of better IQ than if I had simply let the camera take control of the capture process.

[MinnesotaTony]

Wow. You guys are great. I ask some questions that the actual answer to which should probably be "Wow.. go buy a book" and instead I get a half a dozen insightful responses within twelve hours.

FYI: I hadn't even looked at the histogram when reviewing the photos before. Tried out a few purposefully bad shots tonight just to see what they look like in review. That will be very helpful.

Also, I wasn't accidentally using the auto exposure bracketing, but did find it in the menus and tried it out. That could come in handy.

As for the final (and main) issue of simply a poorly chosen lighting situation in general - I'll chalk that up to my years of photographic experience beginning with disposable cameras and evolving up to a camera phone. More light = better, right? hmmmm....

Thanks for all the help!

Tony

[Steve Foss]

More light = better, right? hmmmm...

No prob, Tony. That's what we're here for. I'd qualify your above statement to say more even light = easier to get exposure right. It's high-contrast situations such as whites and blacks in bright sun that exceed the dynamic range of sensor or film.

Even light can mean overcast, and for many situations photographers prize a light consistent overcast because of the diffuse, even light it produces. Even light can also mean the sun is low and directly behind you so your whole scene is lit more consistently.