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westie4us
Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:58:18 EDT
 Shooting in bright sun

I took several photo of these birds on a very bright sunny day. It looks like the whites are blown and the reflections on the ducks in water are detracting.I used a polarizer filter on my 18 200mm lens to help with the glare.My settings were 1/500 sec F5.6 ISO 100 focal length 112mm. I've cropped and resized this for loading to Pixartweb. Haven't post processed yet. What could I have done differently with my camera settings to improve my pictures in bright sunny light.
Since being a member on this forum i have learned so much about digital photography and have so much more to learn.I'm really grateful for your kind words and suggestions.



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Mark
Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:56:46 EDT
 Re: Shooting in bright sun

Shooting any subject in direct sunlight, particularly one with white or reflective areas, can be very challenging. Several years ago I shot a white tiger in dappled sunlight (ouch!) and tried to correct some of the images in Photoshop without much success.

The fact is, once you've blown the whites (or any of the RGB channels), you can't really recover any details there. That's because pulling down the exposure (levels) won't reveal any data that isn't there :-)

However, here are some techniques that can help you reduce blown highlights or improve your chances of recovery:

1) Shoot RAW. This adds a little more work in post-processing, but RAW files often contain more dynamic range (DR) than JPEGs. My Nikon D3 has very deep RAW files and I've been able to recover a full stop in the highlights that would have been lost forever in a JPEG file.

2) Underexpose slightly or use EV compensation. Most DSLR's allow you to dial in exposure compensation from plus or minus 1/3 EV on up. If you're shooting in direct sun and don't trust your metering, set about -2/3 EV to underexpose the image and protect the highlights. You can then easily (and selectively) adjust levels in post-processing to retain detail in both the highlights and shadows.

3) Use your histogram! Unlike shooting film, you can get instant feedback about your shot on the camera's LCD. Most DSLR's can display a histogram that will reveal blown whites ... the histogram will appear "cut off" at the right end. Some cameras even flash blown areas in the image (we call those "flashies"), clearly indicating that you should re-shoot with slight underexposure.

Hope this helps!
westie4us
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:21:05 EDT
 Re: Shooting in bright sun -Thanks

Thank you for the detailed info on exposure Mark. From what other users of the Nikon D80 have mentioned it's common to have to adjust the compensation.I not always remember to do that. I will have to remember your advise to view the highlight screen and histogram.I've not tried working with RAW files. I never see the RAW files displayed when loading my pictures on my computer tho I know that my camera shoots RAW and JPEG at the same time.Do I need to buy a program to convert them to?
Mark
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:16:04 EDT
 Re: Shooting in bright sun

westie4us wrote:
Thank you for the detailed info on exposure Mark. From what other users of the Nikon D80 have mentioned it's common to have to adjust the compensation.I not always remember to do that. I will have to remember your advise to view the highlight screen and histogram.I've not tried working with RAW files. I never see the RAW files displayed when loading my pictures on my computer tho I know that my camera shoots RAW and JPEG at the same time.Do I need to buy a program to convert them to?

If you have a recent version of Photoshop, it will display and convert RAW images (Nikon's file suffix is ".nef") via Bridge and the RAW Converter plug-in.

Otherwise, you can use any of Nikon's RAW converters, such as ViewNX or CaptureNX. I think ViewNX is bundled with the D80. If not, you can download it from Nikon's website for free.
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