Difficult Exposure - Sunlight from Window on Model in Room

I am having trouble getting the correct exposure when a model is next to a window with bright outside light. Either the room is correctly exposed and the window is washed out or the window is correctly exposed and room is too dark to see details. Post editing only results in a compromise between too light and too dark which only makes the entire image look washed out. Favoring one results in the other looking horrible.

What is the best way to handle this situation? How would you do it?


I should be able to get it correct in-camera but I am overlooking something.


This is a group photoshoot and I only have a few seconds to get the camera settings correct so I am always in a hurry in these situations.


Two things I know I did wrong. The camera was set on +2 EV during the entire time, my fault. But I should have still been able to compensate for that using the exposure meter since I was in manual mode. The other obvious error is the shutter speed is too low for hand-held but I increased it later when I noticed it.


I used Center-Weighted Metering.

Thank you for your help.

Scrayen said:

I am having trouble getting the correct exposure when a model is next to a window with bright outside light. Either the room is correctly exposed and the window is washed out or the window is correctly exposed and room is too dark to see details. Post editing only results in a compromise between too light and too dark which only makes the entire image look washed out. Favoring one results in the other looking horrible.

What is the best way to handle this situation? How would you do it?

I should be able to get it correct in-camera but I am overlooking something.

This is a group photoshoot and I only have a few seconds to get the camera settings correct so I am always in a hurry in these situations.

Two things I know I did wrong. The camera was set on +2 EV during the entire time, my fault. But I should have still been able to compensate for that using the exposure meter since I was in manual mode. The other obvious error is the shutter speed is too low for hand-held but I increased it later when I noticed it.

I used Center-Weighted Metering.

Thank you for your help.View attachment 208946View attachment 208950

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The big problem I see is that her face and body are badly blown out closest to the light source; so that's going to be unrecoverable. I would have probably checked to see how well Hightlight-Protected metering would work out for a shot with such high dynamic range with the plan being pulling up the shadows in post if I thought that metering mode was working reasonably well. I don't mean any offense but did you perhaps just forget to check your settings before you started the shoot? In looking at your settings I would have done a lot of things differently:


Those settings are just approximations, of course. It's a tricky setting and would require some test shots before getting down to business. Do you know how to use the histograms on your camera? That information would have saved your bacon here.

If you have a RAW file I could take a look and see what I could do with it in Photoshop, but that looks like a lot of blowout to me and there's just no fixing blown out pixels.

And +2 EV Exposure Compensation? Even the background wall is overexposed and clipping.

When such a high contrast, we have to expect some bright and some dark areas. But this one has allowed no dark detail, it is simply well overexposed.

The old time saying was "expose for the shadows", but that only applied for negative film. Digital is positive, more like slides, and that rule is "expose for the highlights".

Or, we could try to avoid (or reduce) the extreme contrast, maybe use a cloth screen to filter the lighting, or chose a different time or place, etc.

I am still an amateur and could not remember everything. Maybe one day it will happen.

Highlight Protected Metering (see how it works) I need to look into this.
AF-S with Single Point (instead of AF-A/Dynamic) Single point? I need to look into this too.

Shutter Speed 1/125 or thereabouts (instead of 1/50)
ISO: 200 or thereabouts (instead of ISO 2000)
These are because none of us could get a descent shot without a super high ISO. So I just took the shot anyway.

Expose for the highlights! Good idea. I just forgot at the moment.


Thanks for the tips.

I am wondering if I should have set the focus points to 51 points and just kept them over a high contrast area. Don't those focus points have something to do with measuring exposure? Opinion?

Your problem is not focus points or ISO or shutter speed.
Your only problem is, that you have way too much light coming in hitting the subject.
You could expose for the light, but then you're going to need to pull a lot of shadows from the dark areas. ( not very ideal IMO)
I would just wait for lower/softer light, if you want that kind of a shot.

Scrayen said:

I am wondering if I should have set the focus points to 51 points and just kept them over a high contrast area. Don't those focus points have something to do with measuring exposure? Opinion?

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I agree with Blacktop, those are not the problem. Gross overexposure is the problem.

The biggest single problem is the +2 EV Exposure Compensation that your Exif shows you used? Why? Possibly it was just forgotten that it was on? Reset that, and even this situation and settings would be about acceptable.

Note that when you see this black +/- icon in the top LCD or the info LCD, then you have some degree of compensation on, somewhere. It's our job to know where and why.



Also, you may not want Vivid color profile for portraits?

I would expose for the highlights - you can usually recover shadows / blacks, but if you have blown out an area, it is gone forever.

If you don't have a reflector, have another person wearing a white tshirt or holding a white towel or sheet etc stand out of shot on the shadow side. You will be amazed at how much that will help you reflect light back onto your subject....

Kevin is on it, in my opinion. If the light from the window is your main light, you need supplemental light to fill in those shadows. A reflector, off camera flash, something. Your description doesn't allow for HDR, and the contrast is too wide to really gather everything in one exposure. Options are to add more light, or lower your main source, in my opinion.


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I would have done one of two things.

1. Expose for the highlights to avoid blowout and play with the light. Let it fall off as it enters the room and play with her body positioning to have the light play on and accentuate her curves. For what she is wearing it could really play well.

2. If you need the room to be better lit then a reflector as a minimum but ideally a large softbox to bring up the light on the shadow side.

Of the two, I would really do the first of the two. Light playing on her curves will bring the eye to all the right places as oppose to a well lit room.

This is a classical situation where you would benefit with HDR as the dynamic range between the highlights and the shadows is very high.

I would use spot metering for the brightest portion without any exposure compensation. Then recovered shadows. There is enough light to use ISO 400 even 100. Even with D3300 which has a lower DR, you can recover shadows from such shots if you shoot at ISO 100. Here is what you can do with D3300 file. The D750 would have less noise and more DR so darker areas will be cleaner. Spot metering on the brightest area.


Out of Camera


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