Blown out photos?! Help please

kaughtphotography

Senior Member
Hi, I currently shoot a D90 and do mainly portrait photography. My go-to lens is my 85mm 1.8 AF NIKKOR. I love it because it's super smooth and usually turns out great images. Lately though, a few of my pictures seem to be blown out, very little contrast. I have changed the ISO, and played around with the settings, but I am a rookie with my camera. I am constantly trying to learn from it, but this has me baffled. 99% of the time, I stay away from shooting in direct sunlight. It happens more often when I am shooting up or on the same plane as my subject and everywhere in between. I'm sure there is a simple solution, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time :)
 

kaughtphotography

Senior Member
DSC_0196.jpg


This is an example of what is happening. I took this to check my light before we started the session and got this.

I added the picture of the baby with the suitcases after I noticed it had happened here too. Both were shot out of direct sunlight
 

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Pierro

Senior Member
I'm wondering whether the camera has chosen to meter down below the pram on the darker area or maybe above the pram, on a similar darker area. It looks like the sun was quite intense, and really bouncing off the babe, which is in real bright white clothing / blankets. If the metering was not on the very bright area, the babe would be way over exposed. Everywhere else except the babe, the metering is pretty damn right. Which says to me the camera metered somewhere else other than the babe.

What metering were you using ?
 

kaughtphotography

Senior Member
I was using matrix, when I guess I should have been using spot metering. Is this correct? As I mentioned before, I am slowly becoming more comfortable with my camera and I will be the first to admit that lighting is something that has been a challenge for me to figure out. What is typically the best mode to use for portraits? I shoot lots of newborns/kids so I have to be quick on the trigger in most of my shoots. The less time I spend changing settings, the more sweet little moments I get to catch :)
 

stmv

Senior Member
do you check your historygram? Blown highlights are easy to see, and also, use the highlight warning setting that will flash the blown areas, so very quickly you can dial down your exposure, and if you get to point that the main subject is in unrecoverable shadow, then you have several options such as,,

bracketing, and mergingi the shots

flash fill of the near by subject,

or reflecting some light onto the subject. ,,

in all cases, the beauty of the display is real time feedback on
what you are getting.
 

N_Addy

Senior Member
I don't think spot vs. matrix is the issue here. Both of those shots look like they were taken in direct sunlight. And I'm guessing at mid-day with the sun directly overhead (so high UV).

Where in the two scenes above did you meter? Normally you would want to set your exposure to the brightest area of the screen. On a bright, sunny day I often have to stop down a bit from there or my D80 will tend to overexpose.
 

Nikon Photographer

Senior Member
I had a look at the Histogram and it seems your images are way over exposed, what settings are you using on the camera ? have you got the exposure compensation set to 0 ? with a little work in photoshop working with the levels brought back the photo to what it should be like ...

DSC_0196.jpg
 

LensWork

Senior Member
Without the full exif data it is very difficult to pinpoint the issue. Here are a couple of suggestions for identifying and correcting future issues:

1. Shoot in raw
2. Open image with Nikon Capture NX2

Doing these two things will allow you to easily identify and correct any issues without destroying the original file.
 

PhotoAV8R

Senior Member
RE: EXIF data

kaught,

You might want to add this information to your posts when you're looking for help with photos. It would make it easier for others to assist your.

Others,

I use a Firefox add-on called FxIF. The exif data doesn't show, however, for the thumbnails above. Click the thumbnail to pop it out and the data is available.

Here's the data for the OP's shots:

Camera Maker: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D90
Lens: 85.0 mm f/1.8
Image Date: 2012-08-25 22:07:09 -0500
Focal Length: 85.0mm (35mm equivalent: 127mm)
Focus Distance: 6.68m
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure Time: 0.0013 s (1/800)
ISO equiv: 100
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
White Balance: Auto
Light Source: Unknown
Flash Fired: No (Auto)
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: Ver.1.00


Camera Maker: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D90
Lens: 85.0 mm f/1.8
Image Date: 2012-08-13 23:26:25 -0500
Focal Length: 85.0mm (35mm equivalent: 127mm)
Focus Distance: 4.73m
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure Time: 0.0020 s (1/500)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
White Balance: Auto
Light Source: Unknown
Flash Fired: No (Auto)
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: Ver.1.00

BWTHDIK
 
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