 Mary Gundrum |
Help!! How do I shoot in aperature mode? I'm back again! I am trying to shoot in aperature mode and I am unable to make it work! I am able to figure out manual but with taking pictures of children I don't trust I will have the time to change settings during a shoot. For some reason no matter how I set the aperature and the ISO it is always overexposed with hot spots. Is there some secret to making this work? I like setting the aperature so I can control the depth of field. I would appreciate any of your responses! I just got a 50mm f1.4 lens and I use a Nikon D50. Thank you! Mary
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Dreaded Critic |
A Neutral Density filter will evenly reduce the light entering, reducing the chance of overexposure.
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robert G. Fately |
Mary, a ND filter is not the solution, as it will do nothing to help hot spots (which I presume are overexposed areas in the shot). Aperture preferred mode is simply one where the camera allows you to set the f-stop and then, based on the ISO and lighting, will set the shutter speed automatically. But blown out areas (the overexposed 'hot spots' are usually the result of some portions of the scene being just too overly-lit compared to the rest of the image area. You see, a digital chip is like film in that it has a limited range of light intensity that can be recorded simultaneously. This is called the dynamic range, and for CCDs it is generally about 8 stops or so. That means that the brightest spot can't be more than 512 times as bright as the darkest area. I suspect that this is the problem you are hitting - that there are just portions of the scene that are too brightly lit by the sun which end up getting overexposed. Just so you know, when moviemakers shoot inside offices, for example, and the noontime sun is very bright outdoors while the office interior is relatively much darker, they will actually place ND filter plastic over the office windows to tone down the outside light. Of course, unless you are really loaded, you're not going to be able to do that - so you mgiht want to learn how to spot situations where this sort of problem will arise and see if you can reposition yourself of the kids to avoid them. Hope that helps
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Bob Cammarata |
With manual settings, you must meter something neutral to get whites white (and not blown out), and still maintain some detail in the darker areas. When shooting in a really bright sun it can be tough to balance those extremes. You can move everything to a shaded area where the light is more manageable...or maybe just eliminate white clothing and props and use bright reds greens and blues instead.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Turn the mode dial to A. Check and see if your exposure compensation is set to overexpose things. Check your manual to see definitions of each of those.
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Dreaded Critic |
Dreaded is here to explane things to all. read what mary wrote " quote 'I am able to figure it out in manual' unquote" this let's you know the DYNAMIC RANGE IS NOT TO WIDE (not yelling here), now if she has blown out areas of kids playing, it is assumed other areas of the photos are also over exposed but not to the extreme of the problem areas, mary does not want to hassle of adjusting to a negative exposure compensation (a two step process), now remember the Quote" with this in mind, the ND filter combined with her aperture priorty expertise will allow her a little more leverage to get the DOF she wants, remember the quote. Dreaded protege of Ansel
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Dreaded Critic |
Greg you beat me to the exposure compensation thing here buy 26 minutes, you took the glory from dreaded, that wasn't fair , you should be more long winded.
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Dreaded Critic |
actually it didn't take 26 minutes to write that response , I received a phone call midway through the composition.
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Mary Gundrum |
Oh my goodness, yes I am so embarrassed, the exposure compensation was set to 2.0+ That would be my problem!!! Thank you so much for the advice, I was getting all frustrated! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! By the way Bob, I am taking pictures of a family with 8, yes 8 children and they are all going to wear white. We will be outside and those are the type of photos I don't feel as comfortable with, so I appreciate the advice about spot metering, for some reason I always thought I had to meter it on a bright area, but now that I think of it, that would not make sense. Thank you Gregory and Dreaded for solving my problem and Dreaded, I believe I will be looking into that filter since almost all of my shoots will be outside this summer (this is new for me)! Mary
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Not what you really need just because you're shooting outside. If anytime you're overexposing, then you need to use the correct exposure. If you wanted to use a slow shutter speed, and due to being outside the light was so bright that even at a small aperture you still couldn't get to a slow enough shutter speed, that would be a time to use a neutral density filter. There's also a graduated ND filter that fades from clear to gray for cases such as when the sun is low and puts the ground in shadow but you have a bright sky. A graduated ND cuts the light from the sky to balance it with the shaded foreground. If you just overexpose something why put a ND filter on the lens. Change the aperture or shutter speed.
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