Elizabeth River

[Drizzt]

Just took this about an hour ago. Thought it was rather nice, wanted to see other's opinions. You guys are helping me really get into this, I really appreciate it.

[mattp]

I think this could make a nice shot - but a couple of things spring to mind. Firstly - straightening the horizon, which is easily done in PS. The second thing is that the brightest part of the sky has blown out, and I'm not sure that you are going to be able to recover any detail there. When you over expose with digital it seems to look worse than when you overexpose with film - just one of those annoying things. Otherwise - I think personally I would like to have seen the darker midground interest sitting on the horizon - rather than having the horizon cut though it, but I imagine that sort of composition isn't easy from the deck of a ship. Other than that I reckon you could do some interesting things with this in PS, but that's best left to your own imagination.

Look forward to seeing more - take care

matt

[Drizzt]

Quick question for you Matt, then off to stand watch. In a situation like that when you are taking a shot directly at the sun, were should I be taking my meter off so that I don't blow it out, I am noticing that I have an extremely bad habit of making what I feel could be a really good shot not so good.

[mattp]

Now the mistake you are making there is that I know what the hell I'm doing

I think that digital doesn't have the same range that film does, so taking pictures with a broad range of light to dark can be really difficult. As I undertand it is generally better to underexpose than overexpose with digital, as you have more chance of being able to retrieve information from dark bits when it comes to PS than you will from the blown out portions. If this is true then your exposure reading ought to be off a brighter part of the scene - and I guess that may have been the way to go with your photo.

However, there are plenty of people here who know way more than I do so I'd hang on until one of them chips in with suggestions!

Take care

matt

[drg]

The type of camera you're using might also play a role as to how much control you have. Matt made some good suggestions and I'll add one or two.

If you have exposure control (bright to dark) try "darkening" the picture, that will "underexpose" it and allow for more detail to be extracted in editing.

A Vivid or Intense color setting also might help as it will in efftect do some of the same things that "underexposing" does but also should intensify the colors available to adjust later.

If you're shooting digitally-

If the camera that you're using has something resembling a spot meter, take five images one after another and meter on the 1 brightest part of the sky, 2 the darkest part of the sky, 3 the items in silhouette, 4 the water not generating direct or bright glare, and 5the water that is closet to the middle of the frame (in this case).

If you cannot select how the meter reads directly, try various settings and you might try a snow scene if thats all you have.

From these types of exposures you can learn what the camera will most likely do.

If you're using a SLR, let us know and then there's a range of very definite solutinons.

[Drizzt]

Thanks for the tips. I'm using a 10d with the cloudy preset WB. I shot it 1/250 F/16 using ISO 200 still learning the ISO thing get confused easily. This was also my first time using RAW format trying to do all of mine like that from now on.

[Dzerzhinski46]

I like the silhouette in this picture. But as was mentioned, the highlights are slightly blown. I have heared that digital sensors have about the same latitude as slide film, which is very narrow. drg made some very good suggestions. Personally, I would meter the brightest spot because the shapes are the most important part, not the detail. You could also meter the brightest part, then the darkest part, average the two and then shoot. I would also suggest you bracket your shots in a high contrast situation like this. Good luck, and nice picture.

Drew

[Drizzt]

Thanks again for the suggestions, luckily I'll probably get another chance at this shot as they are dredging out the river for the next few weeks, I just like the softness of the light, it actually came out better before I posted it on here, I'm still getting the hang of settings to downsize pics onto hear. For some reason they seem to be loosing some over the quality.

Tim

[mjs1973]

Hey Tim, I think the others have given you, and everyone else, some great tips here. Seeing that you shot this in RAW, you should be able to adjust the exposure on you computer. One of the great things that RAW lets you do. The program you used to open, and convert your RAW image, should allow you to adjust the exposure up and down, and that will give you a pretty good idea of what they are talking about.

Also, you should have an exposure lock on your camera, looks like a star *. So if you point your camera at the brightest part of the image, take your reading, press the lock button, recompose the shot that you want, and take the picture. (That might sound like a lot, but it's not.) That should help keep your highlights from blowing out. While on vacation a couple weeks ago, I had a very hard time with bright skys blowing out on me. It can be very frustrating, but you just have to keep trying new techniques till you get what you want. Good luck!