Maybe it's my imagination, maybe it's the conditions these past few days (10 mile visibility), maybe its the lenses I have, but I swear I'm getting quite a bit more blown highlights with my new 300D than I got with my old Sony F707. Yeah, I shouldn't be using the auto-modes in the first place, but any suggestions? I just lowered the contrast in the menu to neutral (I think it was on +1 like everything else), would that help at all? Or am I going to have to leave the exposure compensation set lower in the auto modes? (I'm using full-auto, P, and portrait, and landscape.) Whatever the case, I've been a tad disappointed in my 300D's metering. Maybe my F707 was just opening up its lens (38-190mm f/2.0-2.8) more and that's why I never had as much of a problem with blown-highlights. Or maybe I'm just pickier now with this camera.
(RAW's not much of an option yet, BTW, since I'm using a standard type 256MB CF card until my Sandisk Ultra II 512MB arrives.)
Rob
Don't know exactly how your pictures looked like, but my guess is flawed metering. In a day where visibility is 10 miles, it is always very difficult to set proper exposure. Would you mind telling us about the subject of the photos you have taken?
I think you are using the default evaluative metering and in this case the camera's sensor picked up one darker area for exposure calculation. That is the most likley reason of blown up highlights.
Try this. This works best for a dark subject. On a sunny day you are taking photo of a model seating under a tree and there is lots bright light in background. Tree trunk is likely a midtone subject and the camea would meter it properly. Now lock your exposure ( the little * button) and recompose your actual subject. So here, you will get proper metering for your model, not the metering that considers the highlighted background.
In your case apply this with some personal tweaks. I just try to explain it to my best. Let me know if you have a second though or your shooting situations are different from wht I guessed.
Suman
I'll see if I can upload some pictures of what I'm talking about, but here are two situations that happened just tonight even with me fighting it manually.
First, my two Dachshunds—one brown, the other black—were sitting on the couch, both lying next to each other with their heads stuffed under the pillow. I shot the picture first in P mode with flash. The light beige/tan blanket they were sitting on was blown (blinked in "info" review mode). So I looked at the exposure, switched to M, and stopped the lens down from f/3.5 to f/4. Same result. Switched the shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/80 sec while leaving the apeture on f/4. Same result. Stopped the lens down to f/4.5, left the shutter speed at 1/80th. Same result. I must have changed the exposure ten times and got the blanket blinking pure white in review every time. It's like every time I tried to adjust the exposure the flash would get brighter to make sure I over-exposed the shot. Now, on my F707, I could've turned the flash down, but I don't know how to do that on my new 300D, if I ever can. (No "flash brightness" or anything like that that I saw in the index of the manual.)
Second, my black Dachshund was sitting up and holding my Dad's feet, who was on the couch. I shot the picture first on full-auto with flash and his foot was blown. This time I switched to P and used exposure compensation down a full stop and it apropriately under-exposed the shot. Emboldened, I tried -2/3, and was rewarded with almost the very same degree of over-exposure that I got before. And then the dog moved (or got sick of me ), so I didn't have a chance to try it again. Now, granted, black dog holding a white foot isn't exactly an easy subject, but still...
And these were just tonight. Before my major problems were things like the sky turning out 100% white when photographing my house. Just weird (IMO) instances of over-exposure I wasn't expecting from this camera. Should I just expect this to happen when I'm using the auto modes? Seems kind of unreasonable for a camera that lists for $900 to me, but what do I know?
I'll get some examples up on ImageStation. Maybe I'm just stupid.
If you need a username and password to view them, use "Cameraman12345" and "camera" respectively.
First set of pictures I shot in Landscape mode (as the caption says), which seemed to make sense to me since it was a landscape. The backyard picture wasn't really a landscape (I don't think), but it seemed appropriate. I guess not, huh? The sky is my major bitch there. Exposure bracketing and some Photoshop combination might fix it, but should I have needed to do that?
Then there's the aforementioned "dog sitting up hold my Dad's feet" pictures. Looks like I used Programmed AE for all three.
try AV mode. your flash should aid in lighting the scene, but not dominate it, as it would in P or M mode.
the black of the daschund will just eat light, and reflect back black shine, but the white foot will actually glow, and keeping radiosity in mind, probably help other stuff blow out too....
I would suggest that you pick up a book on exposure at the library or read some articles on the subject. Do a quick google search and you'll find many articles related. Once you understand how exposure works and how your camera meters various scenes, you'll know when and how to override your cameras meter.
It's all about understanding exposure as said above. The 300D is not a point and shoot even though it has some of those types of modes.
There is a book by Bryan Peterson titled understanding exposure which will help a lot.
As for the flash exposures this is a whole different problem, Canon's E-TTL is a lot to learn, but can be mastered as well.
You have a decision to make, learn all about this stuff or go back to a P&S. If all you want are family snapshots, then return the 300D as soon as you can.
If you actually want to learn about this then welcome to the DSLR ranks and let the learning begin. I was in the same boat as you 8 months ago. I chose to learn.
What ohenry said. In every one of those shots, the camera has done what you will come to expect it to - given experience and time.
Try to do some study/research on exposure and how your meter works (ie what it is trying to do) and then read the 300D's manual and apply it to the different metering modes available to you. I'd also suggest trying to learn a little about latitude - your 300D can probably display detail over a range of somewhere between 5-6 stops. Anything outside of that is going to be displayed as black, or as you have discovered - white.
I know exactly what you mean with the 300D's flash - it will automatically compensate for whatever you set the exposure to, giving you identical exposure, no matter what aperture and shutter speed you set, even with the camera in manual mode. The only way around this that I know of is to install the hacked firmware to give you Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC), or to use an external flashgun that has manual control. You can get the hacked firmware from the link on this page: http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/tricks/digital-rebel-tricks.html
The hacked firmware makes the 300D feel like a whole new camera. I couldn't believe how much faster and more responsive it became when I was able to switch it to embed the smallest possible jpg into the RAW files, giving it much less data to transfer to and from the CF card. Caveat - using the hacked firmware will void your warranty, though you can put the proper canon one back on if the camera develops a fault and you need to send it back (assuming the camera is still capable of powering on and upgrading the firmware).
I wouldn't get too obsessed with avoiding all traces of burnt out highlights. It can often be desirable to have some blown out bits, depending on the situation. A picture will often have more impact when printed if some bits are blown out. It does very much depend on the particular picture, though, and how important the detail in the brightest areas is.
I would say : Expose for the highlights, shoot RAW , if using flash use the Speedlite 550 or 420 and forget about the green rectangle or programs.
Having said that, has anybody got a trick for shooting flashlight shots of a black cat?? (Other than studio flash)
All I ever use is Av, Tv or M. Once in a blue moon I might use P. Also when I out the camera away I set it to P so that I can grab a quack shot if necessary.
Since exposure isn't intuitive for me yet, I'll probably use P to get a handle how how I want to start screwing around with the exposure and then tweak it in another setting. OTOH, Tv and Av aren't exactly that hard to use... Well, anyway, I'll figure that out. I made the mistake that second day of owning my camera of not checking how the pictures turned out to see if I needed to re-shoot them. I didn't know the auto modes metered so badly. With that in mind, I'll re-try those pictures on my next day off.
But yeah, I am having similar problems in many theatre situations. Stages are lit for lighing actors, not scenery. scenery is the secondly lit. so, there is a hige contrast in each shot and I blow lots of highlights. EXPERIENCE. you get better every time. read lots and you will get better every time.
The sky in the landscape shot is blown because that scene has more tonal rane than the camera can handle. It's not just the digital rebel, but most cameras in general (especially those shooting slide film) would have a VERY difficult time exposing for this scene.The camera is looking at the trees, and the sky when metering the secene. It tried to come up with an exposure that will give you the best of both worlds. However, the sky is just too bright. This shot is a prime example of why graduated neutral density filters were created. They are the filters that are half dark, and half clear. The dark part goes over the sky, and gives a natural looking exposure.
Does this mean you need a graduated neutral density filter for shooting landscapes? It is a nice thing to have, but keep in mind that you're shooting digital here. In the digital world, there is a whole new bag of tricks. Next time you come upon a scene like this, mount your camera on a sturdy tripod, then take two photos....... one metered for the highlights, the other metered for the shadows. In a scene like this, they will likely be 2 to 3 stops apart. It's a very good idea to shoot RAW so you can fine tune the white balance after the fact. Now that you have one shot for the sky, and another for the foreground, you can place them in layers in photoshop, then create a mask to simulate the grad ND filter.
^ Digital composite of the two above images. Notice how the highlights are retained, yet you can see a lot of detail in the shadow regions. This shot is how the human eye would have seen the scene.
BTW, you'll notice that your landscape shot with the polarizer has a sky that is not blown very much. This is for 2 reasons...... first, the polarizer helps to darken the sky so it doesn't have as much "glare." Secondly, it reduces the contrast of the scene, which helps the camera to properly record it.
Ben Horne wrote:
The sky in the landscape shot is blown because that scene has more tonal rane than the camera can handle. It's not just the digital rebel, but most cameras in general (especially those shooting slide film) would have a VERY difficult time exposing for this scene.
I suppose I should've thought of that.
Ben Horne wrote:
Now that you have one shot for the sky, and another for the foreground, you can place them in layers in photoshop, then create a mask to simulate the grad ND filter.
Any particular technique you'd recommend? I'd just stack the two layers and erase one to expose the other. That would work, right?
Ben Horne wrote:
^ Digital composite of the two above images. Notice how the highlights are retained, yet you can see a lot of detail in the shadow regions. This shot is how the human eye would have seen the scene.
Neat picture, BTW.
Ben Horne wrote:
BTW, you'll notice that your landscape shot with the polarizer has a sky that is not blown very much. This is for 2 reasons...... first, the polarizer helps to darken the sky so it doesn't have as much "glare." Secondly, it reduces the contrast of the scene, which helps the camera to properly record it.
I remember one of the uses of a polarizer (besides reducing reflections) is to make skies appear "bluer." Is that just because it's darkening it? Would an ND filter have done the same thing?
I think what I'll do on my day off is to go out to those bluffs again with my tripod and see what I can do with it. Those cliffs face south-west so I might even be able to get some kind of sunset kind of thing with it, too. Maybe.
Ben, if you're shooting in RAW, why not just expose one image for the highlights and one for the shadows from the one RAW image rather than taking separate images? (Assuming you're not looking at a tonal range around 8 zones or so)
(Other than studio flash)