D700 Seeking ideas on contrast correction

Although I've been shooting for many years I continually run into to new challenges. This time I could not avoid shooting in a heavily shaded area, with bright mid-day sun
in the background. I really didn't think too much about it during the shoot, but in processing the images, the background was washed out to a point where even post processing techniques won't correct the problem. The foreground/subject matter for the shoot is exactly what I wanted, good saturation, focus, etc. but again the background was a washout. I will most likely run into this situation again but don't have a clue how to adjust the camera, or how other techniques may help avoid, or minimize the contrast issues. Any advice, tip would be greatly appreciated.

The first thing I would consider would be using the flash to balance the background with your subject. Or, use some kind of reflector to bring more light in. I don't see other choices at the moment unless youi want ot go with HDR if your subject is not moving.

Marcel, would spot metering help in a situation like described where the back ground washes out foreground details?

Example is this picture of a walking bridge that I took that had some real interesting details yet the background washed it out.

KWJams said:

Marcel, would spot metering help in a situation like described where the back ground washes out foreground details?

Example is this picture of a walking bridge that I took that had some real interesting details yet the background washed it out.


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Well Kent, the spot metering would help you to understand how contrasty the scene is and it could give you better details in the shadow, if that's what you want to emphasize. But in this case, if you shoot RAW, you could use ARC to make one copy exposed for the highlights, then one for the shadows and then combine them with your PP program. But, sometimes there is no interesting detail in the highlights (just white). So then it's not to bad just to get what you want from the shadow and be more forgiving about the lost details in the highlights.

Have a look at what I was able to bring out just with a little exposure, contrast and saturation adjustments.


Hope this helps.

Amazing! That is pretty much exactly what caught my eye and compelled me to take the picture. Thanks.

I was with my family and on our way to dinner so I wasn't able to fiddle with my settings after I reviewed the shot and saw that the water and sky was nothing but blinkies. When thinking about it later I wondered if I changed to spot metering would solve the problem.

Dave, I didn't mean to step on your thread.

Not at all Ken, lots of knowledge passes back and forth, and I can glean useful ideas
from the conversations. I think what I'm going to do is go back to the location, shoot
the background (same time of day) without the subject and then merge the two layers in PhotoShop. What do you think?

Would be interesting to see your results. I was playing around with bracketing shots yesterday and had some interesting results in the camera with the overlay.

My thinking is to try get the exposure as right as possible in the camera and not have to do any post editing. Not sure if that is even possible.

The post by sarah5baker has been deleted because it contained spam. An advertising by a flooring company. She has been invited to post again at any time without the advertising.

Shooting digital is much akin to shooting slide film in the old days. Digital, and slide film, do not have the same dynamic range that negative (print) film offered. Without the use of fill-in flash, reflectors or HDR as has been suggested by the others above, the best solution, as was with slide film, is to expose for the highlights and develop for the shadows. In digital terms, this means exposing in-camera so that the highlights are not washed out, then in post-processing you should be able to bring out some detail in the shadows.

So in other words.......bump up the WB and correct in post processing?

Thanks for the reminder! I think that I was so enamored by the subject matter (a 1934 LaSalle Rumble-Seat Coupe, and a 1940 LaSalle Coupe) that I blew the basics of camera set-up and awareness of the shooting environment. I spoke with the owner a couple of days ago, explained the situation and he has
agreed to let me repeat the shoot - and hopefully, thanks to all of the suggestions, not the mistakes.

I am a little late on this thread, but it sounds like you have (or had by now) an ideal situation for a high dynamic range (HDR) shot as Marcel previously mentioned. The D700 will allow you to bracket up to 9 shots, which will enable you to have a proper exposure in the background and on your foreground subject. If you're familiar with HDR then I've said too much; if not you should investigate this method further.

Thanks Chris, Looks like I have some studies ahead of me! Thanks for the tip !!!!!!!!!

Dave