I could use a bit of advice. PLEASE!

[lindystearns]

I have a few exposure troubles, I think. Can you help me at all? Thanks for ANY help..

[Stagecoach]

Hi Linda and welcome to CiC.

Very simply you have exposed for the background and not the dog. If you had of exposed for the dog the background would more than likely have been blown out and clipped.

One solution is to use fill in flash for the dog but to have that set up and ready for this 'instant' in time would have needed some forethought.

As for the image, good capture catching him in mid flight.

Grahame

[NorthernFocus]

Hi, Linda. As Grahame said the camera's meter adjusted for the bright sky and water which dominate the scene. So the dark dog and trees across the way are under exposed. If you share what equipment you were shooting and how you had your settings we may be able to provide some advice on how to prevent this sort of thing in the future. This is a very common difficulty when shooting with auto settings on a camera.

[lindystearns]

exposure program: Manual
no flash
focal length: 68mm
Exposure time: 1/1000
f/13
ISO: 160
White balance: auto
Metering Mode: Matrix

Thanks to both of you!

[Stagecoach]

Linda,

Opening up and looking at the image in in ACR it can be seen that the histogram is well clipped at both the far right and left suggesting that the dynamic range of the scene was too great for the camera sensor. But, what I also notice is that there is a lot of colour noise in the image which I find surprising considering the ISO used and from experience of Nikon matrix metering knowing that it measures a scene like this reasonably well, albeit the dog would not be exposed correctly.

This suggests to me that you may have already undertaken some PP work on the image to increase the exposure.

I see you were in 'Manual' exposure so how did you determine your exposure settings of 1/1000s and f/13. Did you set these centring the meter whilst pointed at one part of the scene and then re-composing (re framing) to capture the dog.

Grahame

[Mike Buckley]

Rather than add another cook stirring the soup, I'll leave it up to everyone else helping Lindy. However, it might help to mention that she used exposure compensation value of -2.33.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Linda,

We had exactly the same issue discussed in this thread here:

SOOC - Disappointing Exposure Issues - Please Help

In short, it's not an exposure problem - it's a processing and display issue; the dog is (in essence) "downwind" of the light source. The information probably will have been captured, but no monitor is going to be able to display something like that if the background is exposed correctly (which it is) without compressing the dynamic range of the scene using your post-processing software.

Was the image shot as an NEF or JPEG file?

[Stagecoach]

Hi Linda,

The information probably will have been captured, but no monitor is going to be able to display something like that if the background is exposed correctly (which it is) without compressing the dynamic range of the scene using your post-processing software.

Was the image shot as an NEF or JPEG file?

Colin,

If the background was exposed correctly (in camera), which you are saying it is, why do we see so much colour noise in it?

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

If the background was exposed correctly (in camera), which you are saying it is, why do we see so much colour noise in it?

Let me put it a different way:

There's at least one, but possibly two, things going on here. Assuming that nothing other than the exposure has been shifted in the image that we see then you're always going to have an issue displaying reflected tones that are in the shadow of what is effectively an incident light source. On top of that, the entire shot may have been lifted in post-processing (which would explain colour noise) - but if you look at the EXIF, Sunny 16 would have required around 1/320th at that aperture to correctly expose a front-lit reflective object - but the sky isn't a front-lit reflective object (it's in essence incident light), so the shutter speed is going to need to be faster (which it is), but then again, it's probably within 2 hours of sunset, so that rule gets tweaked a bit anyway -- but I don't think the initial exposure was probably too bad.

Either way, fixing it is going to either need a flash, or a dollop of fill light slider. It's primarily not an exposure issue - it's a dynamic range management issue. There's no way anyone will ever be able to get a shot like that looking as one would expect SOOC (until we start seeing monitors with 10+ DR anyway). But the bottom line is that I don't have all the info I need to be 100% certain - which is why I asked about the original capture. In essence though, it's no different to having the sun behind a subject when shooting. Quickest fix would probably be to just shoot the dog from the other side.

[Stagecoach]

Rather than add another cook stirring the soup, I'll leave it up to everyone else helping Lindy. However, it might help to mention that she used exposure compensation value of -2.33.

Mike, I had spotted that and was working on the suspicion that the meter could have been centred overlooking the fact that -EC had been dialled in previously.

[Colin Southern]

Mike, I had spotted that and was working on the suspicion that the meter could have been centred overlooking the fact that -EC had been dialled in previously.

Assuming that the shot hasn't had the exposure grossly increased in post then it really doesn't matter what any EC was set to. I'm assuming that the "exposure problem" referenced by the OP is lack of detail in the dog then, again, it's not a situation that changing the exposure is going to fix if one of the requirements is to also have a correctly exposed background.

On the other hand - if the entire image was grossly under-exposed and has subsequently been increased in post then yes - that'll reveal a truckload of noise in the shadows if any DR compression is done on the image (eg "fill light slider").

[Stagecoach]

I'm assuming that the "exposure problem" referenced by the OP is lack of detail in the dog then, again, it's not a situation that changing the exposure is going to fix if one of the requirements is to also have a correctly exposed background.

And that appears to me to be the crux of the matter. We do not yet know exactly what the OPs expectations and concerns were/are with regard to exposure of this specific scene/subject and it results.

But I suspect it will simply be a lack of understanding that in camera you basically have two choices, whether you want the dog 'or' background exposed best.

Grahame

[Nicks Pics]

I am not attempting to give technical advise, but sometimes when I have similar issues with my pictures I tell myself that although it would be nice if this or that area were darker/lighter, better lit etc. that might not have really been the case at the time the photo was taken. In other words, although there may have been some camera trouble in that case, the problem may be largely due to that the scene was really not best lit from that direction, looking sort of towards the sun, the water was brighter and the dog was shadowed, if it had been taken from the other direction, the dog would have been nicely lit, and the water would not have been so glaring, but then... maybe you weren't standing in a boat.

[davidedric]

No need to add to the comments, but to avoid confusion, in Lightroom at least, the "Fill Light" named slider disappeared with the arrival of Process 2012 (I think), the nearest equivalent now being "Shadows" .

(edit) I've just noticed the sloping horizon. You know how it is - once you've seen it it drives you mad. Easy fix, Linda.

[Stagecoach]

I am not attempting to give technical advise, but sometimes when I have similar issues with my pictures I tell myself that although it would be nice if this or that area were darker/lighter, better lit etc. that might not have really been the case at the time the photo was taken. In other words, although there may have been some camera trouble in that case, the problem may be largely due to that the scene was really not best lit from that direction, looking sort of towards the sun, the water was brighter and the dog was shadowed, if it had been taken from the other direction, the dog would have been nicely lit, and the water would not have been so glaring, but then... maybe you weren't standing in a boat.

Fully agree with what you have said Nick and it is of course a difficult scene to tackle but it's the learning how to best tackle this specific scenario in camera that could turn the shot into a winner.

Any reasonably experienced photographer should understand that you are not going to get the dog and background both exposed perfectly and in this situation I would suspect the majority would want to know how to get the dog better exposed at the cost of the background.

Grahame

[AB26]

Linda,

2c worth of information. Knowing when to use what metering mode in your camera will solve the problem.

Next time try SPOT metering and keep the “spot” on the dark side of the dog. The BG might get blown out but the dog will be correctly exposed.

Keep trying and use the in camera settings to master exposure.

[Kodiak]

I had labs too!
I never needed to take a leash along for the walks but a small flash…
That was my favourite solution.