but it will never look all that great because it's not just a brightness or color issue - there is image detail just missing.
That's what I was asking.
DavidTO: nope, you've got it wrong this time. I did try changing spot areas to compensate for the color, but it ended up looking crappy. I was posting to ask if their was some other method/way that I didn't know about. Admittedly I didn't clearly state what I have tried. (I was looking for help in fixing that camera phone photo because I knew I couldn't do it )
nikos: thanks for your two cents, sorry I was snappish.
One more general question: I find that glare truly odd, what caused it? Was it the make of my lens (Sigma 28-99mm, I learned that they tend not to be a high quality lens manufacturer), or was it the filter I had on (a Quantaray skylight, I think), or something totally different?
I have only seen this speckled glare in my photos, granted I have only seen a few other pictures from "improvement" challenges. But aren't the things normally circular?
Edit: Nikolai: I did! It's just a peice of junk. Only half an inch wide, hardly does anything... I forgot to use my hand...
One more general question: I find that glare truly odd, what caused it? Was it the make of my lens (Sigma 28-99mm, I learned that they tend not to be a high quality lens manufacturer), or was it the filter I had on (a Quantaray skylight, I think), or something totally different?
:nah It is not the lens. It is not the quality of the lens. You shot into the sun. The best lenses made can't deal with how you shot this scene. The photo looks like you shot it as wide as you could go with your zoom (not a zoom's strong suite). You also didn't shade the lens properly. If necessary, shade the lens with your hands (like you mentioned), in addition to using the hood that should have come with that lens, even if you later have to crop out the top of the shot with your hand partly in the shot.
Better yet, learn to avoid situations like this completely. If in doubt, take a test shot and look at it before you count on taking home photos with problems.
My Smugmug
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Edit: Nikolai: I did! It's just a peice of junk. Only half an inch wide, hardly does anything... I forgot to use my hand...
Apparently you've chosen too wide of a lens with too shallow of a hood.
Shooting into the sun with the wide lens and non-existent hood is a strong recipe for a disaster.
You can recover this type of disaster (to some degree), provided you're on Scott Kelby's or Katherine Eismann's level in PS. But if you're not... I'd say - toss this one and reshoot.
One more general question: I find that glare truly odd, what caused it? Was it the make of my lens (Sigma 28-99mm, I learned that they tend not to be a high quality lens manufacturer), or was it the filter I had on (a Quantaray skylight, I think), or something totally different?
When shooting, just follow three rules related to the sun.
#1: Position so the sun is behind you the photographer (often referred to as over your shoulder).
#2: Reread rule #1
#3: If, for some reason, you don't or can't follow rules #1 and #2, then don't let direct sunlight hit the front element of your lens because that is what causes glare.
Lens hoods, shades, umbrellas, having a friend provide shade for the lens, using your own hand to shade the lens, positioning the camera in the shade while shooting in the direction of the sun, etc... can all be used to prevent seeing glare in your photo.
Glare is caused by reflections of the direct sunlight off the glass surfaces in your lens. When light bounces off one of the lens surfaces and then bounces off something else and gets to the sensor, it causes these glare marks. If some wavelengths of light (e.g. colors) are affected differently than others (which is common with anti-reflection coatings), then the glare often has a rainbow appearance.
If there is no direct sunlight or bright, specular reflections hitting your lens, you will not get any glare. If you have direct sunlight hitting the glass elements of your lens, then you are relying on the anti-reflection coatings in your lenses to try to control/minimize these reflections which cause the glare. Even the most expensive lenses with the best anti-reflection coatings known to man will still have a compromised image in the face of direct sun on the lens. The compromise may be as simple as slightly reduced contrast or it can be as bad as you see in your photo. The more pieces of glass in your system (filters + lens elements), the more susceptible to glare the lens is. Cheap filters tend to have lousy anti-reflection coatings and can be the worst offenders. Zoom lenses nearly always have more lens elements than prime lenses and thus prime lenses are usually less susceptible to glare than zooms.
I always shoot with my lens hood in the sun. I don't know what kind of lens you had, but today's super zooms have pretty lousy hoods to protect from the sun because the hood has to be designed for the widest angle that the lens can shoot and then it doesn't do near as much as it could at the other focal lengths of the lens.
Lastly, you were shooting at ISO 1600, 1/500, f/14. These are not good settings for making the best quality image. It's very bright out, yet you have a raised ISO that just adds noise to your image and isn't required. Second, you shot at f/14 which isn't horrible, but is a smaller aperture than you want unless you have to use it. For this image and at this focal length, I would have suggested ISO 100 (lowest noise), f/8, 1/125. If you set the ISO to 100 and use the cameras program mode, it would have chosen something like this.
Summary. Follow rules #1, #2 and #3 and you will have no glare.
Even if you imagine to escape glare with the sun behind your subject, if your scene is backlit, you will have shadows on their faces and may have difficultly getting the exposure right to show shadow detail. It is possible to take neat and interesting backlit pictures, but it requires careful planning, is not usually the first choice and is certainly not as easy as a front lit subject.
Glare in images is just one of the reasons that manufacturers include a viewfinder or an LCD screen on digital cameras, so that the shooter can see the difficulty with the lighting in the image, and reconsider whether they wish to shoot from that vantage point.
The image can be reviewed at the time of shooting by chimping the image immediately on the LCD screen to verify that you have captured what you were hoping to photograph. If the image is a failure, hit the delete button and reshoot. Learning to use the viewfinder or LCD is a valuable skill that will reduce your dependence on the generosity of others.
Photoshop processing can make good images much better, but cannot make poor images much good, and glare is particularly difficult and time consuming for someone to try to correct.
Reshooting properly, can make the images a great deal better than hours spent by some kind, generous soul after the fact.
Folks who edit images vastly prefer to improve good images, than trying to rescue poorly captured images after the fact.
This thread is devoted to post proccessing/image editing, and not camera technique.
The information you are asking for f stop/ shutter speed/ ISO are fundamental terms in photography - digital or film, and better discusssed in the Technique thread. I have posted about camera settings for shooting without a light meter here
You can find much information about photographic fundamentals all over the web. One place I find quite useful is wikipedia.org
Apparently much of your frustration is due to lack of understanding and knowledge about how cameras function.
Hang around dgrin awhile and learn to shoot in manual mode with your camera. Your images will improve by leaps and bounds.
Using the Auto buttons on your camera guarentees that you will go home with lesser quality images. This is especially true when shooting outdoors in sunlight. People have shot pictures outdoors in sunlight without light meters for almost a century.
Thanks everybody. I've learned my glare/not-face-sun lesson.
jfriend: the camera picked those settings. Maybe I focused on somebody's dark shirt...
Could you point me to a tut that explains what all the "ISO 1600, 1/500, f/14" stands for?
It seems very unlikely to me that the camera picked ISO 1600 without you having told it to do that. The 1/500, f/14 could be automatic once the camera was configured for ISO 1600.
Just so you understand, at ISO 1600 you get more noise, less detail and less dynamic range (range of lights to darks) in the recorded image. That mode tells the camera to apply a high amount of amplification to the signal on the digital sensor and is normally only used in dark circumstances. At ISO 100 or 200, you get a much better picture in all of those areas if you have enough light (which you had plenty).
Comments
1¢ Stop shooting towards the sun
2¢ Stop shooting towards the sun at 1600 iso
Nikos
That's what I was asking.
DavidTO: nope, you've got it wrong this time. I did try changing spot areas to compensate for the color, but it ended up looking crappy. I was posting to ask if their was some other method/way that I didn't know about. Admittedly I didn't clearly state what I have tried. (I was looking for help in fixing that camera phone photo because I knew I couldn't do it
nikos: thanks for your two cents, sorry I was snappish.
One more general question: I find that glare truly odd, what caused it? Was it the make of my lens (Sigma 28-99mm, I learned that they tend not to be a high quality lens manufacturer), or was it the filter I had on (a Quantaray skylight, I think), or something totally different?
I have only seen this speckled glare in my photos, granted I have only seen a few other pictures from "improvement" challenges. But aren't the things normally circular?
Edit: Nikolai: I did! It's just a peice of junk. Only half an inch wide, hardly does anything... I forgot to use my hand...
:nah It is not the lens. It is not the quality of the lens. You shot into the sun. The best lenses made can't deal with how you shot this scene. The photo looks like you shot it as wide as you could go with your zoom (not a zoom's strong suite). You also didn't shade the lens properly. If necessary, shade the lens with your hands (like you mentioned), in addition to using the hood that should have come with that lens, even if you later have to crop out the top of the shot with your hand partly in the shot.
Better yet, learn to avoid situations like this completely. If in doubt, take a test shot and look at it before you count on taking home photos with problems.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Apparently you've chosen too wide of a lens with too shallow of a hood.
Shooting into the sun with the wide lens and non-existent hood is a strong recipe for a disaster.
You can recover this type of disaster (to some degree), provided you're on Scott Kelby's or Katherine Eismann's level in PS. But if you're not... I'd say - toss this one and reshoot.
And yes - extra filters can cause extra glare.
HTH
When shooting, just follow three rules related to the sun.
#1: Position so the sun is behind you the photographer (often referred to as over your shoulder).
#2: Reread rule #1
#3: If, for some reason, you don't or can't follow rules #1 and #2, then don't let direct sunlight hit the front element of your lens because that is what causes glare.
Lens hoods, shades, umbrellas, having a friend provide shade for the lens, using your own hand to shade the lens, positioning the camera in the shade while shooting in the direction of the sun, etc... can all be used to prevent seeing glare in your photo.
Glare is caused by reflections of the direct sunlight off the glass surfaces in your lens. When light bounces off one of the lens surfaces and then bounces off something else and gets to the sensor, it causes these glare marks. If some wavelengths of light (e.g. colors) are affected differently than others (which is common with anti-reflection coatings), then the glare often has a rainbow appearance.
If there is no direct sunlight or bright, specular reflections hitting your lens, you will not get any glare. If you have direct sunlight hitting the glass elements of your lens, then you are relying on the anti-reflection coatings in your lenses to try to control/minimize these reflections which cause the glare. Even the most expensive lenses with the best anti-reflection coatings known to man will still have a compromised image in the face of direct sun on the lens. The compromise may be as simple as slightly reduced contrast or it can be as bad as you see in your photo. The more pieces of glass in your system (filters + lens elements), the more susceptible to glare the lens is. Cheap filters tend to have lousy anti-reflection coatings and can be the worst offenders. Zoom lenses nearly always have more lens elements than prime lenses and thus prime lenses are usually less susceptible to glare than zooms.
I always shoot with my lens hood in the sun. I don't know what kind of lens you had, but today's super zooms have pretty lousy hoods to protect from the sun because the hood has to be designed for the widest angle that the lens can shoot and then it doesn't do near as much as it could at the other focal lengths of the lens.
Lastly, you were shooting at ISO 1600, 1/500, f/14. These are not good settings for making the best quality image. It's very bright out, yet you have a raised ISO that just adds noise to your image and isn't required. Second, you shot at f/14 which isn't horrible, but is a smaller aperture than you want unless you have to use it. For this image and at this focal length, I would have suggested ISO 100 (lowest noise), f/8, 1/125. If you set the ISO to 100 and use the cameras program mode, it would have chosen something like this.
Summary. Follow rules #1, #2 and #3 and you will have no glare.
Even if you imagine to escape glare with the sun behind your subject, if your scene is backlit, you will have shadows on their faces and may have difficultly getting the exposure right to show shadow detail. It is possible to take neat and interesting backlit pictures, but it requires careful planning, is not usually the first choice and is certainly not as easy as a front lit subject.
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Glare in images is just one of the reasons that manufacturers include a viewfinder or an LCD screen on digital cameras, so that the shooter can see the difficulty with the lighting in the image, and reconsider whether they wish to shoot from that vantage point.
The image can be reviewed at the time of shooting by chimping the image immediately on the LCD screen to verify that you have captured what you were hoping to photograph. If the image is a failure, hit the delete button and reshoot. Learning to use the viewfinder or LCD is a valuable skill that will reduce your dependence on the generosity of others.
Photoshop processing can make good images much better, but cannot make poor images much good, and glare is particularly difficult and time consuming for someone to try to correct.
Reshooting properly, can make the images a great deal better than hours spent by some kind, generous soul after the fact.
Folks who edit images vastly prefer to improve good images, than trying to rescue poorly captured images after the fact.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
jfriend: the camera picked those settings. Maybe I focused on somebody's dark shirt...
Could you point me to a tut that explains what all the "ISO 1600, 1/500, f/14" stands for?
This thread is devoted to post proccessing/image editing, and not camera technique.
The information you are asking for f stop/ shutter speed/ ISO are fundamental terms in photography - digital or film, and better discusssed in the Technique thread. I have posted about camera settings for shooting without a light meter here
You can find much information about photographic fundamentals all over the web. One place I find quite useful is wikipedia.org
Apparently much of your frustration is due to lack of understanding and knowledge about how cameras function.
Hang around dgrin awhile and learn to shoot in manual mode with your camera. Your images will improve by leaps and bounds.
Using the Auto buttons on your camera guarentees that you will go home with lesser quality images. This is especially true when shooting outdoors in sunlight. People have shot pictures outdoors in sunlight without light meters for almost a century.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
It seems very unlikely to me that the camera picked ISO 1600 without you having told it to do that. The 1/500, f/14 could be automatic once the camera was configured for ISO 1600.
Just so you understand, at ISO 1600 you get more noise, less detail and less dynamic range (range of lights to darks) in the recorded image. That mode tells the camera to apply a high amount of amplification to the signal on the digital sensor and is normally only used in dark circumstances. At ISO 100 or 200, you get a much better picture in all of those areas if you have enough light (which you had plenty).
Here are a few sites to read about exposure:
Learning about Exposure - The Exposure Triangle
Camera basics: shutter-speed, aperture and ISO
Camera shutter speeds and apertures
I would also recommend you pick up the book, Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson which covers everything you should know.
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