Ok, I need some help... My boyfriend borrowed my camera for a gun shoot last Saturday and after reveiwing the pictures we have some questions. He took some pictures while standing under the shade of a tree, aiming out into the sunshine. The pictures came out dark. Any advice or reasoning as to why this happened and how do we fix it?

Thanks

My initial reply would be: Take an incident meter reading off your subject and set your aperature and shutter speed accordingly.

I have a funny feeling that's not going to help you.

How about some details of the scene and your equipment?


Colonel Hurtz

Scene was on a shooting range.. men with machine guns.... set up was a Canon 30D with auto flash with the 28-135 lens.

Quoted: The pictures came out dark. Any advice or reasoning as to why this happened and how do we fix it?

Simple. I'll take a gamble and assume the camera was in P (program) mode or the little-green-box mode. It made decisions for you and didn't do a good job. Since you were shooting (the camera) outdoors I'll assume there was bright sunlight. The camera tries to make everything 18% gray (I won't get into that). Due to the amount of light coming into the lens, the camera decided to increase the shutter speed to prevent the images from being overexposed. It worked. Unfortunately they turned out underexposed.

The fix:
A) Learn to shoot in manual mode where you make the decisions. Learn how the shutter and aperture settings work together to control the exposure. Use the in-camera meter to read the scene and adjust your settings accordingly. Spot meter if you can. In a situation like that you don't want to use evaluative/matrix metering.

B) At a minimum use shutter or aperture priority so you're at least making half the decision.

To fix after the fact, try the Shadows & Highlights filter in Photoshop. It has saved a few of my shots before.


ByteTheBullet  (-:

Another fix-it tip (assuming you have PS):

1) Add a curves layer adjustment (don't change anything, just add it)
2) Change the blend mode to screen
3) Adjust the opacity (33% is roughly a 1-stop adjustment)

If you need to darken an image, replace 'screen' with 'multiply' in step 2.

Use spot metering mode.  The bright backgrounds were giving the incorrect exposure setting when using evaluative metering.

Set the camera to spot metering, and either lock the exposure off the shaded grass or someones shaded face, and shoot away, or else set the exposure carefully with each shot by making sure the meter is pointed at the face before the 1/2 button press and reframing...

Sorry, this stuff seems so simple until you start to type it out.  

Idiot isn't the "I" word that I would have used...He's really incredible!!