BetterPhoto Q&A
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why are indoor pictures overexposed

	geeze, it's bright in here. I used my Smith Victor lights and set my camera on "portrait" mode. I've tried setting the aperature and shutter speed manually too and it's not much better. Crystal G. Collins

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February 18, 2004

I would suggest that one of the problems you have here is too much white for the camera to handle - majority of white clothing and a white background.
Did you try metering off the gentlemans shirt for any shots?
I think that would have given you a better result.

Have you used a grey card and a light meter for obtaining your exposure?
This will also help to give you a more accurately coloured photo.

In your photo editing software - depending upon what you are using -
you can make a duplicate layer and apply it over the top of the image - multiply in photoshop will darken the layer - you can vary the opacity of the darkened layer to suit your needs.

Regards,
Davin
www.davin-photography.com

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February 18, 2004

Assuming it is the lighting, try moving the lights further away from the people. The shadow behind the lady on the left side of the picture indicates that the background was quite close behind them. The background being white is feeding even more light back into the lens of your camera.

1) Move the lights further away from the people being photographed. Start off with just 2 lights and take some test shots. Putting a diffuser in front of the light source will help to absorb some light as well as diffuse the light more. If your light source has an adjustment to lower the output power, try lowering that.

2) Use your camera and take an exposure reading from the lady's shirt. From the looks of the picture, the guy's blue shirt is the only thing relatively close to correct exposure. If you were to meter against his blue shirt, most everything would be even further washed out. You want to meter your camera off of something which is medium in brightness and is white so that you can get the camera to find a good middle ground for the picture.

Multiplying the layers on the image can bring out more detail, but if the details have been literally burned out by exposure to too much light, there is nothing to bring back.

But I would say that your problem is too much lighting in too small of a space. This in turn is forcing your camera's exposure to be over exposed regardless of settings.

Also check to make sure you are using ISO 100 or ISO 50 with your 10D settings.

Good luck!

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February 18, 2004

There's no glare so she's not getting too much reflection from the background. It's looks like a plain over exposure.

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February 18, 2004

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February 19, 2004