Mixed Lighting Exposure Question

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Blue_Esq

Senior Member
Hello all! I'm pretty new to this whole gig and getting my feet under me with my new D5300. I was shooting yesterday and ran into a couple of situations where there was a huge dynamic range between the shadows and the bright sunlight. I set up the shot below and was pretty happy with the composition. I am pleased with the exposure on the building (it's green brass for reference), but I feel like the background is overexposed. Aside from HDR and bracketing the shot, is there any way to compensate for the huge difference in light?

131.jpg
 
J

J-see

Senior Member
As long as you're not clipping the highlights, you can always lower the exposure of those parts during post-processing. That's the easiest method.

I usually adjust my exposure with post in mind when taking these shots. If needed I underexpose to ensure I am not clipping-and afterwards normalize those parts.
 
J

J-see

Senior Member
I just checked the shot in LR and could lower the exposure by 4 1/2stop before it started clipping the darks too much. That might partly be because of processing but I think you had quite some room to grab more highlights by underexposing the shot a degree.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Blue_Esq said:
Aside from HDR and bracketing the shot, is there any way to compensate for the huge difference in light?
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Short answer is, "no". All cameras have a certain dynamic range and if it's exceeded the shot gets blown out in proportion to how much the dynamic range of the shot exceeds the dynamic range of the camera. Your options are to use HDR, or expose for the highlights (meaning expose the highlights correctly since there's far more data contained in the highlights than in the shadows and mid-tones) and then bring up the shadows and mid-tones as best you can in post processing.
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F

FastGlass

Senior Member
Expose for the highlights and use flash to fill in the shadows. Sounds easy but if it's a huge space it's almost impossible unless you have a number of speedlights. I was in a situation up in Maine last year similar to what you have here. I was in a huge cave on the edge of the ocean looking out. I wanted to capture the inside of the cave so I exposed for the bright sky and set up a speedlight. Not even close. So I took a bunch of bracketed exposures but didn't turn out seeing I didn't have a tripod. Maybe next time.
 
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Blue_Esq

Senior Member
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I took my first stab at post processing (Gimp 2.8) to edit the shot. It seems like I was able to recover some of the overexposure, but there are some areas that are still blown out. I lost some detail though. I need to lear nto use it better.

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Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
Blue_Esq said:
Hello all! I'm pretty new to this whole gig and getting my feet under me with my new D5300. I was shooting yesterday and ran into a couple of situations where there was a huge dynamic range between the shadows and the bright sunlight. I set up the shot below and was pretty happy with the composition. I am pleased with the exposure on the building (it's green brass for reference), but I feel like the background is overexposed. Aside from HDR and bracketing the shot, is there any way to compensate for the huge difference in light?

View attachment 133504
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Ok this is my fault as I know in my head that a DR is a lot of things including exposure and colour temp.
 
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Blue_Esq

Senior Member
I'm not sure what you're asking for, Scott. It was shot in monochrome. As such, there is no color. As far as resolution, it was shot in jpeg fine. I see no need to shoot in RAW right now since I don't know how to manipulate the images yet anyway. If you don't like the shot, that's fine. Referring to it as "crap", though, when I have admitted that I am only a newbie is a bit harsh, man.
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Blue_Esq said:
Hello all! <snip>... Aside from HDR and bracketing the shot, is there any way to compensate for the huge difference in light?

View attachment 133504
Click to expand...

In this particular case I'm afraid not. HDR (multiple bracketed shots) are probably the only way to get around this type of situation. You can alway try in post processing the raw file (has more tonal range) and get a better result, but for extremes like this, HDR is the best bet. You should play with it because there are ways to get the details without the picture looking like a cartoon.
 
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Blue_Esq

Senior Member
Thanks, Marcel. I've been playing with HDR, I was just wondering if there was anything that that I could do without resorting to that. I figured that it might be the way to go and probably should have used it for that shot. I want to perfect my technique as much as possible without resorting to the fancy tools. Thanks again.
 
Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
Blue_Esq said:
I'm not sure what you're asking for, Scott. It was shot in monochrome. As such, there is no color. As far as resolution, it was shot in jpeg fine. I see no need to shoot in RAW right now since I don't know how to manipulate the images yet anyway. If you don't like the shot, that's fine. Referring to it as "crap", though, when I have admitted that I am only a newbie is a bit harsh, man.
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Ok I should have phrased my question much better... Why take a photo with so much overoexposed. The dynamic range does not matter.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Scott Murray said:
How can you compare monochrome DR? You cannot.
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That doesn't answer my question.

I don't know what you mean by "compare" but we measure DR in all cases by luminosity. And all digital images are monochrome, or shades of 1's and 0's if you will, to begin with and is what makes them "digital" in nature. Color is a function of the output device.
 
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D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Scott Murray said:
How do we get a dynamic range with out colour? Or honestly a high res file? I feel we have nothing and this is crap. Show me a photo.
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Okay Scott, let's be nice here. This guy is new and says he is a beginner. We were all here at one time ourselves and needed help. This shot is interesting and I think he did a good job with what he had to work with.

Blue_Esq, you would be better off here to shoot in RAW since you would have more information to work with. For now why don't you shoot in RAW +JPEG Fine large. That way you can play with the RAW processing and still have the JPEG to fall back on. The free program from Nikon View NX2 does a great job with RAW files in getting a decent results.

Also in Monochrome you are going to have more difficulty in see what the sky really looks like. So in Monochrome the shot you have is probably as good as you are going to get. Was the sky clear or cloudy?
 
Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
Are you defining dynamic range as the ratio between the maximum and minimum measurable light intensity?

Because if you're not, I'm curious how you are.
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I am defining dynamic range as what we see and capture. The Dynamic range to me is more than what has been shown. as even if we are looking at shades of grey there are bits missing. And to claim its due to the DR then it makes me see that they know nothing about how DR works or even any colouration around them.
 
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Blue_Esq

Senior Member
Thanks for the advice, Don. At the time that I was shooting there sun was blinding. it was around 11:30a.m. so it wasn't quite overhead. As you can see from the shadows, it was a little off to the left of the building. My failure was not exposing for that light and exposing for the light under the rotunda.
 
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