my mum (with light background

[chopperward]

hi there,

i have recently purchased a canon 20d and am quite new to photography. what do you think of this subject with light background? not really interested in views on composition as main concern is to try and get as good as exposure as can.

what i did was zoom into subject, locked ae, focussed on subject and snapped. also over exposed by one.

any feedback on how i could control the harsh light some more would be grateful.
thanks

[LauriePriest]

Filters or different shutter speeds/ appature settings, its over exposed by far too much.

I dont know how digital light meters work but i use a gray piece of card in the area of the photo i want well lit to capture my settings from. I do this as in a picture such as this there are areas of light and dark in equal proportion so it captures at an average which can result in over exposure.

Another example of such problems occuring is if your capturing in snow, the camera ( with standard 35mm slr atleast as far as i know) see alot of white and assumes its very bright and automatically presumes a high frame speed is needed when actually the frame speed could be slower. So allways be careful how you go about setting up the exposure settings.

[Dzerzhinski46]

High contrast situations are bad. You have two options in this case: overexpose, or underexpose. Overexposure, like your photo, has detail in the shadows, but the highlights are blown out badly. Underexposure has detail only in the highlights, the shadows are dark and contain no detail. It is really just a matter of personal taste as to whether you want over or underexposure. Underexposure will give a silhouette, which could be pleasing in this case. There is no magical solution to high contrast situations. Experience will guide you eventually. Try both methods. See which looks better.

Drew

[Piet]

Try using your Flash. The flash will not outshine the sun but you get a better exposure on the subject itself.
Piet.