BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Exposure Settings

Photography Question 

Satish N
 

Exposing for Backlit Subjects


 
 
I have recently purchased Canon A620 and started taking some photographs. I am not a good photographer, so I started using with whatever setting come as default. I took some photographs and I see that they are coming out "darker". Is it because that I have taken them in sunlight? In sunlight the flash is not working. It works only in a dark room (indoor) etc. Basically I feel that there is some problem with my taking of pictures. Is it the problem with Camera or is it because of the way I am taking the pictures? Please advise. I am uploading two images for your review. Thanks!


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April 17, 2006

 

Craig m. Zacarelli
  I'm not familliar with that camera but it sounds like you might be having "backlighting" problems. A good rule for taking pics outside in the bright sun is to be sure the sun is behind you and not the subject. It seems your camera is metering the bright light so it's darkening the exposure to compensate for the bright light... which is good - but if your subecj is in front of the bright sunlight, you won't get the right detail. For this, you'd need to be shooting in Manual mode and "meter" the subject but then your background will be too bright and look funny. The best thing is the use fill flash and in automatic mode you won't be able too, unless there is a setting on your camera that will let you use it when you want to. Sunlight is very tricky - that is why the best times are at dusk and at dawn... the "golden" hours.


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April 17, 2006

 

Satish N
 
 
 
Thanks Criag for the quick answer. Here are the images I have taken (in my St. Louis trip)


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April 17, 2006

 

Craig m. Zacarelli
  see the first shot? the blue sky is nicly exposed? ... backlighting.. your camera set itself to compensate for the sky and that means darkening up the subject... if you had metered off the subject, the background would have been all blown out and no detail... a fill flash would have helped.. look at your manual to see how to use fill flash.
Craig-


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April 17, 2006

 

Craig m. Zacarelli
  my guess with the second shot was allmost the same thing, it looks as though your camera metered off the bright white shirt, causing the overall shot to be a tad underexposed. here, metering off his face might have helped. Generally, bright white shirts are hard to shoot. Check your manual for "Metering" a spot meter would have been great but im sure you dont have it... center weighted would probably be the one.
Craig-


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April 17, 2006

 

Satish N
  Thank you Craig...I will study the manual for how to use fill flash. I have learnt good details like backlighting, and fill flash. It's interesting. Thanks for the help.


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April 17, 2006

 

anonymous A.
  Nice camera, this: it has spot, evaluated and centre-weighted option for exposure, and it allows fill-flash with control over the flash output. You should have no trouble using Craig's suggestions.

However, this camera also lets you use manual control and in addition, you can add or subtract from the exposure the camera suggests; that is called "exposure compensation". In the second sample, fill-flash would be ideal, but in the first, the subject might be too far away for it to help. Here you just set +1 on your exposure compensation (this gives the picture double the exposure the camera advised). You can set up to 2 stops over or under (+ or -)but I'd start with +1 for backlit subjects like this and see how that goes.
Good luck.


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April 18, 2006

 
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