Yellowstone Picture HELP!
I am on vacation with my family at Yellowstone national park.........my pictures are a disappointment. they seem over exposed. I have the ISO set at 100, I mainly shoot in AV mode.
My equipment is an XSI using any of a 70-200mm F2.8 L, 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 and I also have a 2X extender I have used as well.
What is a good setting to have my camera set at. i am shooting everything. Wildlife, landscapes and wildlife in landscapes.
HELP!
My equipment is an XSI using any of a 70-200mm F2.8 L, 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 and I also have a 2X extender I have used as well.
What is a good setting to have my camera set at. i am shooting everything. Wildlife, landscapes and wildlife in landscapes.
HELP!
0
Comments
1) It looks like you may be shooting with a pretty wide aperture, based on some of the blurred backgrounds. With as bright as those scenes are, you may need to stop the lens down some, even if it means losing the blur we all love so much. If your camera has the shutter speed as fast as it can go and too much light is still getting in, you've got no other choice than to close the aperture some.
2) It looks like you've got inconsistent metering going on. Sometimes you're metered on the scene, and sometimes on the subject. Thus, some photos are underexposed and others are overexposed. What metering mode are you using?
Remember that on a bright sunny day without a flash, it's often impossible to get everything exposed correctly. You're faced with a choice between exposing the scene correctly, or exposing the subject (face typically) correctly. If you meter for the subject, the sky / sand / white trees or other bright area is often going to be blown out. But that's often acceptable if your subject is exposed correctly. If you're close enough and do have the luxury of a flash, you can meter for the scene and use the flash to fill-in the subject.
Hope this helps some.
Nikon D300, 18-135/3.5-5.6, 70-300/4.5-5.6, SB800
Good luck on the rest of your trip!
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
Thank you so much in advance
Thanks for that!:D
I NEED HELP!
Can anyone tell me what all my setting should be at just for decent pictures please. Help save my family vacation pictures.
There is no universal "great picture mode." We've got to see the pictures so we can judge what's wrong. The problem could be the lighting, the white balance, the metering, the aperture, the shutter speed, etc. We just don't know unless we can see what you think is awful. It could be a single setting in your camera that's wrong, or it could be that the situation is changing and you're not adjusting properly.
I browsed through your Day 7 gallery, and honestly I didn't see anything horrible. There were some good shots and some not so good shots. I did wonder if your white balance was off. There seemed to be some awfully flat colors for this time of year.
One thing that would be a HUGE help is if you'd enable Camera Info in your gallery. Right now we can't see any EXIF data from your photos, so we're just guessing on how your camera was set.
Nikon D300, 18-135/3.5-5.6, 70-300/4.5-5.6, SB800
http://gusinskyphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/8681076_U2NzE#574326169_28SVn
It just seems I am missing out on one thing to get some decent pictures with the colors you see with the naked eye.
However, enabling camera info allowed me to see that your white balance was on auto, which is fine for your situation. It also allowed be to see there was not extra exposure compensation dialed in, which would have caused over exposure.
It's possible your camera shoots a little "hot" by default. Play around and try using some exposure compensation to reduce the exposure some - maybe a half stop or full stop. (So use minus compensation)
But mainly I think what you're struggling with is just the effects of harsh sunlight when you're shooting in the middle of the day. There's a reason why landscape photographers shoot at 6 am and 6pm. Harsh sunlight will reduce contrast in a scene. If you have a lens hood, use it - that will prevent extraneous light from hitting the lens.
Try getting your family to do something at 6-7 pm and take some shots, you should see a dramatic difference in the quality.
I'm not an expert though - like I said, hopefully others will chime in.
Nikon D300, 18-135/3.5-5.6, 70-300/4.5-5.6, SB800
I glanced through these images and I see several things you can work on.
First, what kind of metering are you using? Most of these would work well with a matrix-type metering (I don't know what Canon calls it) that examines the whole frame and picks an appropriate exposure. If you happen to be in spot metering mode, that could explain some of these shots because spot metering is extremely sensitive to exactly what part of the scene is on the spot that was metering. Meter off something dark and your whole shot gets overexposed.
Second, most of these shots should NOT be at f/2.8. When you have lots of light, try shooting at f/8. This will usually be the sweet spot of your lens, will give you more depth of field and will make focus accuracy a little more forgiving. Assuming your Canon works like my Nikon, my suggestion would be to put the camera in "program mode" rather than aperture priority mode which lets the camera pick an intelligent default for shutter speed and aperture. You can always twiddle a dial and change it from there if you want a faster shutter speed or larger aperture for a narrow depth of field. Program mode will at least not run out of range because it is able to adjust both aperture and shutter speed.
Third, learn how to take a shot, examine your histogram and then adjust the exposure compensation on your camera. When checking your histogram, no part of the histogram should be all the way to the right. You generally want it as far right as possilble without running into the edge and certainly without creating a spike at the right edge. I commonly shoot with an exposure compensation of -0.3.
Fourth, spend a little more time on getting accurate focus. When I look at your images here, I see a number of images that look like they are not sharp because of missed focus.
Fifth, think a lot about lighting. Unless you are trying to achieve some special effect, a strongly backlit image like this one is just rarely going to come out well. You can use your hood and a circular polarizer to help these some, but strong backlit is both a metering nightmare and usually comes out with very low contrast and just looks blaaah.
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