Taking pictures with bright background

[-Sean Casey]

What is the best way to take pictures with something that has a bright background?

Example: My wife shows horses, and I usually takes pictures during the shows. Sometimes it is a thin overcast day, and so if I set the camera up so that my target object looks clear, then it causes horrible over exposure on the sky since it is basically a single bright white background. When it is clear out it is not a problem, just on these hazy days. I could bump up the speed, or lower the ISO, or go with a small apperature size, but then my target is under exposed and I have to try to compensate in processing, which is what i'm trying to avoid. Or am I basically screwed and just need to figure out ways to take pictures with no sky in the background?

 

[darktiger]

What camera??? Canon's are known to overexpose and nikons are know to underexpose.

 

[fugu]

Use a flash if you're close enough to the subject. It's called fill-flash.

 

[-Sean Casey]

Konica Minolta A200. Distance varies between 5 to 100 yards. Moving target. If it helps I'll post a sample picture for an example of the problem.

 

[PS-RagE]

You want to meter the horse/rider and not the whole frame. Try using center-weighted metering and reduce the size of the circle if possible. Your skies are going to blow out but the subject should be ok.

 

[darktiger]

A CP filter would prob help....Might want to lower your contrast a notch. Also might want to choose a faster shutter speed...

 

[-Sean Casey]

Didn't think about the contrast settings. I think the next time around I'm going to bring my laptop with me so I review the pictures better and make adjustments as needed.

I may also try setting it to auto and see what the camera comes up with. I usually dont use auto since it takes forever for the camera to figure out its settings and seems to use battery faster, but if it does alright for a picture I can just copy the settings it uses and save them as a preset.

 

[Tim_axe]

As darktiger mentioned, a circular-polarizer could help on clear days, but this apparently isn't when you have the problems.

The overcast/clouds are a problem...


It is probably an issue of dynamic range. There is too much difference between the white cloudy/overcast sky, and the darker horses...so no on-camera settings will fix it. You have to change your technique (fill-light).



One thing you could do would be to get a large gold/silver reflector, and use that to reflect light back at the subject (illuminate them, correct exposure now brings subject & sky closer together). The effect should be much stronger than an small on-camera flash, and the horses may not be too bothered by it.

Then again I know nothing about horses. But this only really works for portraits where you have time to set everything up. A dish isn't too much to carry around, but you'd need an assistant to do it...

 

[fugu]

Konica Minolta A200. Distance varies between 5 to 100 yards. Moving target. If it helps I'll post a sample picture for an example of the problem.

That'll be tough if they're out to 100 yards. Might want to change where you're standing so things aren't so back-lit.

 

[-Sean Casey]

Reflecting items might not work too well. Some horses are weird and will spook at their own shadow, plus if the are doing any jumping it could be a distraction to both horse and rider. Not sure I'd like to distract people riding on a 1200lbs animal.

So from the sound it, I can try dropping contrast, (maybe drop sharpness down a bit too?), and just suck it up and keep doing the processing later.

Anyhow to give you an idea of the pictures I'm taking here are a couple:

See how bright white the sky gets? This ends up slightly washing out the rest of the picture so it looks kinda faded. Pictures taken in other environemts (clear sky) look much more crisp. Luckily my wife was not participating in this last show or I would only be able to give her crappy pictures. Instead I just used it as a time to practice taking pictures.

Link to full res image
Full resolution *WARNING VERY BIG IMAGE*

I have a feeling a better camera would handle this better but this was the best I could afford when I got it. In a year or so I'll spend 2500 and get a nice DSLR and a couple lenses, but until this this A200 meets most of my needs.

 

[-Sean Casey]

Settings used:
Resolution: 3264x2448x24
Color: sRGB
Focal Length: 28mm
F-Number: F/3.2
Exposure Time: 1/1250
ISO: ISO-200
Metering: Pattern
Exposure Compensation: 0 step

In theses shots I see a lot more noise with ISO 200 then I do on a clear day for some reason. I would normally use 100 or 50 ISO, but then I would have had drop shutter speed down to 1/640 or 1/320 to keep the images at the right brightness, but then there is too much motion blur.

The distance on this shot was roughly 10 yards.

 

[Tim_axe]

It actually isn't too bad. You have the right balance of detail in the shadows/subject and blowing out the highlights/background that a little bit of photoshop work can help you make the most of it. (I'm not the best, but I can help out a bit)


Since you are asking for help & have posted the full file, I will take it that you'd like to see what could be done with your image to help improve/salvage this practice shoot & learn something for future events...

What I did:

Unsharp Mask - 10 pixels radius, 15%
Levels - 10, 1.10, 200
Saturation - +15
Hue - +8 (trying to balance the flesh tones)
Crop - 5x7 (standard print size)

(+ web resize procedure sharpening)

Sure when you zoom in to 100% the noise is visible and is even hightened by the sharpening. But unless you are printing a 10x15 inch print it should be acceptable. I've taken worse noise with a 3.3mpixel camera and got a good 8x10 print out of it.


Just remember that you will always need to do some work to get the best out of your pictures. The conditions aren't always perfect, and you may have some vision that the camera can't always capture, but with enough time in the darkroom & decent material to work with, you can get what you want...or at least have something better. Cheers.

 

[[TQ]]

As was stated, your best bet is to use a flash. However there are going to be days out there when it doesnt matter.

I dont even bother with fill flash on most overcast days as the backround is going to be a gray/white (often blown out) anyways.

Fill flash makes blue skys POP though

 

[-Sean Casey]

Thanks for the help everyone. Glad I have a free licence for Adobe Creative Suite CS2 from work (CS2 is pretty nice) since I'm going to suck it up and start working on that aspect.

 

[sulfur_lad]

(hope this hasn't been mentioned but I'm sleepy and want to hit it soon hehe)

You could help yourself out a bit to start before doing the post-processing by using a graduated 2-stop neutral density filter - think of those cool shades your grandma wears with dark at the top and light at the bottom. If you line the fade on the filter up with the big contrast line you're going to have in your shot (e.g., the treeline to sky line in your photo), the filter will act as an artificial contrast adjustment, bringing the two areas closer together. The idea is that you apply the 'sunglasses' to the sky, which will then come in a little darker while the camera is still metered for the subject: the horse and rider.

A good place to look to try it out is the cokin filter system: cheap but it works. The filter you want is the P121. They make a lot of cheesey special effects filters which are not worthwhile, but this one is a good tool to have. Works good on sunsets, too.

As a side discussion, you can do awesome fixing in photoshop, but the fixing is always made even easier when you have an easier image to start with. E.g., even though the fixing job on the photo is excellent, there still appears to be a kind of fog around the rider's head because the sky is so white, and you quickly lose detail in the treetops.