Proper exposure.

Dick on Aruba · April 30, 2006

A little bird told me that in this forum I can find the answers I’m looking for. So, I thought I give it a try.

I’m using Nikon gear, D200 as primarily body and D70 as backup. I have only Nikkor lenses.

My problem is this:
I’m living on Aruba and have to do with a very aggressive sun. It’s extremely bright and the extreme lightning cover a large number of hours in a day (10am ~ 4:30pm)
How do you suggest I can maintain proper exposure? Think on light colored or white animals as well dark colored or black animals.

Your suggestions are more than welcome.

Dick.

GREAPER · April 30, 2006

D200-D70 wrote:

A little bird told me that in this forum I can find the answers I’m looking for. So, I thought I give it a try.

I’m using Nikon gear, D200 as primarily body and D70 as backup. I have only Nikkor lenses.

My problem is this:
I’m living on Aruba and have to do with a very aggressive sun. It’s extremely bright and the extreme lightning cover a large number of hours in a day (10am ~ 4:30pm)
How do you suggest I can maintain proper exposure? Think on light colored or white animals as well dark colored or black animals.

Your suggestions are more than welcome.

Dick.

If understand what you are asking correctly, you need to know what to do when the dynamic range of your subject exceeds your camera's abilities. I have not used a D200, but my D100 have roughly 5 stops of dynamic range.. If the scene I am shooting exceeds that (say a zebra in bright sunlight) I have only a few choices.

If it is a scenic where elements of the scene are not moving, I can stack exposures.

If things are moving in the scene, as most wildlife will be, I can shoot in RAW and post process the image twice, once for the higlights and once for the shadows. I can then stack these exposures. This is liable to introduce some noise.

Or I can expose for my subject and let the rest of the image go where it will. This is also difficult to do and achieve good results. Most recommend exposing for the highlights and using levels to bring up any shadow detail that you can without introducing noise.

I hope this helps.

gtc · April 30, 2006

greetings from sunny australia

if you have spot metering use that for dark or light colored animals-if you have to do a zebra , or something that is in light and shade

spot meter on the dark stripes and then the light ones and average it and shoot or use partial metering over a black and white section,with the dark and light occupying 50% each of the partial metering area

as a rule of thumb you need to under-expose for light coloured animals and over-expose for dark ones.exposure compensation is an invaluable tool .how much you need to adjust exposure is dependent on the ambient light and the reflected light from the subject.

if its really bright you need to use f16 or higher.

a polarizing filter should bring the exposure down by a stop and reduce unwanted glare from foliage .

also,use your histogram,if you have time to do so-do your best to get the exposure right-check the histogram and use exposure compensation to get the best spread across the histogram-the curve should just touch or almost touch the right hand side(the bright side) and across to
the left hand (dark side)

where is aruba?

Art Scott · April 30, 2006

You could always get an 18% grey card and meter of that with your camera or buy a light meter that does incident as well as reflected (same type as camera does) metering...but since your camera already does reflected metering you will want to use incident metering....incident metering will give you the best possible metering solution at anytime.

Dick on Aruba · May 1, 2006

GREAPER wrote:

...
Or I can expose for my subject and let the rest of the image go where it will. This is also difficult to do and achieve good results. Most recommend exposing for the highlights and using levels to bring up any shadow detail that you can without introducing noise.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for your input Greaper.

Dick.

Dick on Aruba · May 1, 2006

gtc wrote:

greetings from sunny australia
...
as a rule of thumb you need to under-expose for light coloured animals and over-expose for dark ones.exposure compensation is an invaluable tool .how much you need to adjust exposure is dependent on the ambient light and the reflected light from the subject.
...
where is aruba?

Thanks for your valueable input.

Aruba...lets see...in front on the coast of Venezuela next to the other Islands Curacao and Bonaire. Between Trinidad and Jamaica, Longitude -70.00 Latitude 12.65

Dick.

Dick on Aruba · May 1, 2006

Art Scott wrote:

You could always get an 18% grey card and meter of that with your camera or buy a light meter that does incident as well as reflected (same type as camera does) metering...but since your camera already does reflected metering you will want to use incident metering....incident metering will give you the best possible metering solution at anytime.

Thanks Scott.

Dick.

Dick on Aruba · May 1, 2006

I did put some of your and other advices to work today and posted some results here.

Thanks again you all.

Dick.

Nikolai · May 2, 2006

Welcome from Sunny SoCal!
With the notable exception of this year we have the situation you have described pretty much 11 months on an average year

:
What can I say:
1) wear polarized sunglasses, use a lot of sunblock, wear wide hat, and drink a lot of water

Well, you know all that:-)

2) Shoot raw
3) Use the spot meter to build your shot around the mid point
4) if RAW's not an option, tweak your camera settings to minimize the contrast and saturation, since you're getting too much of them anyway.

HTH

Dick on Aruba · May 2, 2006

Nikolai wrote:

With the notable exception of this year we have the situation you have described pretty much 11 months on an average year :
What can I say:
1) wear polarized sunglasses, use a lot of sunblock, wear wide hat, and drink a lot of water Well, you know all that:-)

2) Shoot raw
3) Use the spot meter to build your shot around the mid point
4) if RAW's not an option, tweak your camera settings to minimize the contrast and saturation, since you're getting too much of them anyway.

HTH

Thanks Nicolai

JGD · May 5, 2006

Filters
I would advise you to try some nd (Neutral Density) filters. These will darken your picture and let you open up your lens for shallow depth of field that you cannot do in bright sun. I have also used an umbrella for shade.

Proper exposure.

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