Hi OSP,

Well, I'm at a dead end and could really use your help. And, just for the record for some of you this may be a "baby" question but I ask you to bear with me anyway as I really don't understand what's happening.

Question - how can you overexpose your highlights when there isn't enough light to properly expose the image (please see below)?

(All I did to this image was remove the noise and add a sharpening mask as it was blurry due to my hand shaking at 300mm)


As you can see the yellow flowers and his white shirt highlights are blown out. But, I shot this at f/5.6 (the lowest for my zoom at that focal range), ISO 1600, and my exposure compensation was at -.5 (i.e. -1/2 stop). I shot everything on aperature priority.

Whenever I exposed an image without using the exposure compensation all of my highlights were blown out. But, from where I was seated the fastest shutter speed I could acquire was 1/60th, most shots were at 1/30th, @1600 ISO. The "properly" exposed images were blurry (i.e. 1/15th - 1/30th shutter speed and a moving subject) and the highlights were severly blown out.

Clearly there is something "basic" that I don't understand about highlights or low-light exposure or f-stop vs. highlight relationship that I need help with. How could my highlights be blown out when there wasn't enough light to properly expose the image? I hope I've explained myself, please help me - anyone?

well, the quick and dirty answer is that the light falls on and reflects off of every surface differently.

i think in this case, the general was likely under a strong spotlight. he has dark skin, which doesn't reflect much light, and they pumped up the spotlight to make sure he was clearly visible to the audience. the white shirt and yellow flowers however reflect light great! they reflect a lot of light!

so exposing so that the darker portions of your image were well lit meant that the brighter portions are blown out. an image is not one exposure...it's the exposure of every single component of the image...and we just have to make choices on what we want exposed correctly. faces are generally the best choice.

Dude! I guess that i am missing something because my eye doesn't go to the blown highlights at all! I think you did an awesome job exposing for the skin tones and I wouldn't worry about the flowers in the background!

Thank you JK, I really appreciate your help. Maybe I'm still "dealing" with a comment one photog shared with re: blown highlights. He told me that "blown out" highlights were the sign of an amateur. But, I haven't figured out how not to blow out your hightlight when your bride has a dark complexion, white dress, and is outdoors in direct sunlight.

When I shot slides (2 rolls of nature stuff) I nailed my exposures. And of course, with film I had 3 stops to "play" with so my stuff was "tight!" But, I'm finding that as I've transitioned to digital that I'm blowing out my highlights more often than I care for.

Thanks again as I really appreciate it. And, I'll go for the faces and the "money shots" when I have to sacrifice my highlights.


Tawny, you're very kind. Thank you. And, I guess I "guessed" right by focusing on my subject and not the flowers.

But, I've hired and worked with a great photojournalist named Jim Summaria during a recent fashion show and Jim, with his 30 years of experience, "nails" his exposures and his images have little noise and rarely are his highlights blown out (and he's a Nikon shooter). So, I know it can be done but given my current age I don't have 30 years to get it right.

But, with the help, love, advise and prayers of my OSP friends like you I'll make it!

In spotlights the facea are usually the highlight so I shoot to expose the face and let the darks go. I was shooting a theatre event tonight and the dark clothes combined with the white spotlight made the meter go nuts. In this situation you have to soot for the highlights.

Hmmmmm, what do you mean by "...shoot for the highlights..."?

Hi Sam,

The whole image looks overexposed to me. His suit shouldn't be that light, and his face looks too light as well. The crowd behind him should be very dark if he is under stage lighting and they are in the arena.

Also, there is a highlight on the back of his head and right shoulder. There is more light behind him than there is on his face. The flowers are lit brighter than he is, so they are going to be overexposed no matter what you do.

When I'm photographing a speaker, I'll spot meter their face to get it right then try to leave whatever might be too bright out of the picture. If you are at the end of your lens and can't change your position, you have to figure out another way to change your composition. If you can't do anything to change your composition, crop later in the computer.

I'm assuming you were in a seat and couldn't move. In this case, I would have raised the camera enough to crop the flowers out of the picture altogether. I might have even put him in the bottom right of the frame and shown more of the crowd behind him. The floor of the platform and the flowers don't add anything useful to the picture anyhow.

Matrix or evaluative metering can't handle a lighting situation like this one. It wants to make the whole scene even out to a medium tone, but the medium tone is a very small part of the picture.

First of all, it's great to hear from you! Cool stuff as I ended up shooting RAW and doing just what you said. But, it took about 30 pics to figure it out.

You know what's funny? I know how much ground I have to cover and how much I have to learn, and I truly believe that the Holy Ghost helps me. But, my graphic designer friend/mentor tells me that I'm better than I think I am. I don't know, I just want my images to be the very best I can produce so that I can consistently provide my clients with a level of excellence I believe they deserve.

Am I just too critical of my own work? And, I'm I making it harder than it really is? Does that make sense?

In the case of spotlights in particular, I usually meter off of the face.
Such as in the pictures below. I was metering off of the face and what I was getting was a blown out face so I metered the face and then purposley underexposed to avoid blowing out the detail hence "shooting for thr highlight".
Actually I think I went a touch too far with these. These are pretty much SOOC Just a little sharpening on one. On one I did use PI's color slam whic always brightens it up just a touch.
I think if you have underexposed the image just a bit, even if the meter tells you not to, you would have gotten a better skin tone.
That is just what works for me

OK, I follow you now. Thank you. And, I often use "PI's Color Slam" so I know what you mean. I used PI's "BW" and "Sepia" on most of these as they don't lighten the middle of your images as much as the slams. But, two of my favorite actions are PI's "Color Slam" and "Black and White" slam.

So, basically there will be situations like these where it is not "amateur" to blow out your highlights as a sacrifice to get the detail in the faces. I LOVE film, and am beginning to love digital. But, this "highlight" thing can be a pain in the you-know-where sometimes.

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it!

If you shot raw, did you try to yank the highlights back and maybe you could add a bit more black to the image as it seems like there aren't really any true blacks in the image's range...

Hey Matt, always great to hear from you!

You got me there dude, you're speaking Greek to me as I did shoot raw but don't know what you mean by "yank the highlights..."?

highlight recovery in Lightroom - maxed out - did it do anything? If not, just darken the darks and be done with 'er - it's a good shot from that far out.

AH, I'll try it. Thanks for the tip, I'm still learning Lightroom but so far it's been cool. Once I figure out what I'm doing I'll move much faster.

BTW - you've got mail my friend!

Hey Sam,

Everyone has slightly different thought processes on this, for me, I think about what's most important in an image. I don't mind "blowing highlights" if that means the most important part of the image is exposed properly if that makes sense. In weddings, sure, under most situations a bride's dress does constitute as pretty darn important, so when photographers blow that out you might consider that "amateur."

Let's put it this way: Not all highlights are created equal. (again IMHO)

Here's a few examples where in my opinion it's fine to blow the highlights....











Hope that helps!

How to expose properly when photographing a person who is not medium gray in color on stage with strange lighting...

Shoot in manual mode
Set metering mode to [] (no dot in the middle)
Set ISO to 1250 or so
Set Aperture to f/2.8
Set Shutter speed to 1/200

Make one exposure
Chimp
Adjust

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Without this method, the camera will attempt to produce medium gray value tones across the entire image.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetownsquare/539766352/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/539766352_668de75c1d.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="iDance_07_S-051" /></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetownsquare/539766424/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1180/539766424_446983851a.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="iDance_07_S-056" /></a>

The skin would be about as dark as the shirt in these images, and the shirt would be blown way out, leaving the highlights on his cheeks, nose and shoulders totally nuclear.

Nobody is really medium gray skinned. So really going manual is the best solution.

You're doing great -- just keep going in the direction you're headed and you'll rock Chicago!

Leann

I'll apologize in advance for even adding my opinion because I'm just a lowly photo assistant (but I did take a photography course in college).

• The most important thing is the shot. Critics could probably point out a bunch of technical flaws in what most would agree are great pictures.
• "Noise" as an issue is overstated. Since you shot film I'm sure you remember the days when we would push film and the resulting film grain. Having that once-in-a-lifetime shot, even grainy, is better than having nothing.
• Clients aren't the pixel-peepers that we are and you'd be surprised at the tolerance for noise/grain most people have -- to the point of not even noticing it!
• Charlotte's "shoot for the highlights" example deserves a second look.
• Shooting on Manual will give you a lot more control over the final result (kind of "duh" I know). Trusting the camera to judge the mixed lighting situation perfectly is a dangerous thing to do.
• Aperture mode is bad news!
• Chris' examples are great. Losing the dress is a bad thing, but some blown highlights in a veil during midday sun outdoors is not the end of the world.

Great shots, Leann!

Were you using gels or are these pictures from a performance of some kind?

Edit: Leann's examples are awesome too!

just a quick comment to note that you do not have the stop range in digital capture that you have in film. at the most, shooting raw (and i don't know about lightroom for jpgs, yet) you have a 4 stop range to play with - which is a lot like slide film.

spot lights are ticky, but i think everyone has given great examples here and i can't any more to that.

one thing you may want to try if you have a case where you want 're-expose' the image, is to open the raw file in acr and expose for the subject,
then open the file ( it will open on the desk top of photoshop.)
then go into file>place which will allow you to open the same image again in acr. this time expose for the background and open AGAIN. this will place a copy of the image over the first one. hit 'enter' the apply image - then open a mask and blend the 2 images.

i know you can do this kind of thing in lightroom, but i have no idea how far that can go - i shoot raw and acr is my 'thing'. this method works for me to get the sky back, if i need to - here's an example of that... otherwise the sky is completely blown. the skies around here are NOT the same as out west, so that beautiful blue needs to be tricked a bit, and 'double exposing' is what i do if the pic is worth it - for a slideshow or something.

nice shot, by the way - a 300mm lens is tough to hand hold! after all this, i''m not sure you need to change a thing about the pic you posted.

Thanks!

Yeah, I shot "iDance - Can't Stop Now" for the Community School of the Arts last week. The subject in those two images is Dimitri Morris, who is an amazing dancer with the school.

The stage lighting was pretty exciting... but it really made color balance impossible.

During the four nights of shooting I came home with over 5000 frames -- it was amazing!

Leann