Tip on exposure for car show photos in bright sun/mixed shade

[Stephen Lutz]

I went to a car show yesterday. It was a bright sunny day, and around 1:00 PM when I got there. The cars were parked in full sun or open shade. Very harsh lighting for digital photography, especially. Not much exposure latitude to work with and in partial shade I was getting either blown out highlights or deep, black shadows. My solution was to drop drastically on the main meter and shoot with fill flash to open the shadows. I even shot with fill flash in full sun, to pop the grill work on the cars.

Both of these were shot at -2/3 of the main meter and -1 2/3 on the 220EX flash I was using with my Canon Pro 1. (This is an excellent camera to use for static shots, BTW. Sucks for anything action related, though.)

The third was shot with no exposure compensation and no flash. Also a pretty good shot, though.