Sky becomes white after focusing

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NIKONCOOLPIX

New member
I have a Coolpix P100. I am a local ship spotter which means I take pictures of ships, but I am having a problem:
I mostly use it in Auto but when I focus on the ship, the sky will become white nothing brightness, forcing me to struggle in order to get the sky visible.
I have gone into User settings and changed Active-D Lighting to High (it was off), It seemed to work once I focused on the ship and looked at the screen, but the result picture had the sky nothing brightness.
 

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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
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Dave_W

The Dude
What setting do you have your meter on? Matrix or spot? If your setting is on spot metering then I suspect that's the problem and you should switch it to matrix.
 
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nickt

Senior Member
donaldjledet said:
So Matrix is a better setting then spot?
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Matrix is not always better, but it would be better in a shot like this and most everyday shots. Matrix takes the whole scene into account and some compromises may be made, but it usually does pretty good. Spot only meters at the 'spot'. (usually the focus point, but I don't know if that's the case for all models.) Spot is good if you have a dark subject and its most important to you that 'the spot' is exposed correctly. If you are in spot metering on a mixed scene and you are not aware of it, you can get badly under or over exposed shots depending on whether that spot falls on a dark or light area. Spot meter on a dark area and the rest of the scene can overexpose. Spot meter on a bright area and the rest of the scene can underexpose.
 
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Dave_W

The Dude
nickt said:
Matrix is not always better, but it would be better in a shot like this and most everyday shots. Matrix takes the whole scene into account and some compromises may be made, but it usually does pretty good. Spot only meters at the 'spot'. (usually the focus point, but I don't know if that's the case for all models.) Spot is good if you have a dark subject and its most important to you that 'the spot' is exposed correctly. If you are in spot metering on a mixed scene and you are not aware of it, you can get badly under or over exposed shots depending on whether that spot falls on a dark or light area. Spot meter on a dark area and the rest of the scene can overexpose. Spot meter on a bright area and the rest of the scene can underexpose.
Click to expand...

Correct. Spot is perfect for getting good moon images because it will meter the moon at 18%. In general, it's best to keep your camera on matrix and only switch to spot when the situation demands it.
 
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Mfrankfort

Senior Member
It's probably the camera's attempt at correctly exposing the picture. Since the ship is pretty big, and pretty dark, I'm guessing it's trying to over-expose the rest to make it 18% grey.
 
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