Hey ya'll!

Ok, keep in mind that I am still an amateur photographer, and I really appreciate all the advice I can get.

I try to shoot in full manual mode. However, I still sometimes am having a bit of trouble with exposure, such as being under or over exposed, and I find that when I HAVE to shoot in harsh lighting, my skin tones are either blown out, underexposed, or the skin tones are fine and the sky is blown out, resulting in me having to do a LOT of work in Photoshop, and I don't want to! I want my images to be good and actions enhance them, not FIX them!!!

I picked up this book last night and have read a bit, Understanding Exposure, and it seems like a lot of time, in the examples, the author says that he exposed for the sky, recomposed his shot on whatever he was shooting, and then took the shot with the meter reading from the sky.

This may be a beginner question, but honestly, is this what you are supposed to do? Expose for the sky or the lightest parts in your image and then recompose and shoot? I am never sure exactly what I should be exposing for, or taking a reading for, and then sometimes I end up with a weird sort of image that I am unsure what to do because I don't know what I exposed for. I think most of the time I expose for skin tones.

Would anyone else like to explain a reason to their madness?

I tend to try to expose for skin tones. Either using the spot meter in my camera to measure off someone's face or using my hand in front of the lens (if in the same light) to meter off that.

If you measure off the sky your sky will be nicely exposed but it could very well mean that your subject will be underexposed. It is a limitation of the camera to have everything in the frame exposed perfectly. If you want to have a perfectly exposed sky, and say you have a back lit subject, you are going to need an external light source (flash) to put fill light on your subject to expose them properly.

In the harsh lighting conditions you are talking about, you have to choose what is important to you and expose for that. When shooting people, it is usually skin tones, which would result in the sky being blown out in many cases. Another option is to set up a light off camera to adjust the brightness on the subject so you can get the whole range of what you want.

Ok, I see. But a lot of times I see images where the people look exposed well and the distant sky is so wonderfully blue. Is this just a product of great photoshopping or what? If they were exposing for the sky, that would explain why the sky is so blue, but wouldn't you almost get sort of a silhouette effect on the people or skin tones? I have tried to photoshop the blue in my sky back in, but it just doesn't work out. What am I missing?

Hi Lauren, Im by no means the best qualified person but check out Beckers Bschoolblog as he has posted some videos about shooting manual etc but like has been said by Berrywise if your subject is a person try and expose to get the skin correct (harsh light is a pain, try and find even shade if possible) I guess its a case of looking at your lcd and your histogram and seeing what looks good !
As regaurding nice blue skys and well exposed subject, some options might be fill flash i.e expose for the sky and then pop up flash/turn on flashgun (ttl) and let the flash light your subject.see this little video with Becker. http://www.digitalphotographers.net/tutori...ial/Sunset.html
scott.

Shooting on a bright day I like to find shade to put the subject in, or face them away from the sun then use an off camera strobe to light them and balance the light with the sky.

This shot has a nikon SB-28dx held to my left and just out of the frame lighting the face and underside of the umbrella (note the hard shadow in the umbrella):



Also, if you get your subject in the shade and face them towards the sun (but it's not hitting them, cuz they're in the shade), then the sky behind them will be a darker richer blue than that on the 'sun side' of the sky.

The 'Sunny 16' rule is your friend here too. If you're in bright daylight, then a good rule of thumb exposure is 1/ISO at F16. So if you're at ISO 100, then 1/100th at F16 is properly exposed. With flash sync being what it is (1/250 max on my camera) I can shoot at ISO 100, 1/250th and F13 and slightly underexpose the sky and then just adjust my flash distance and output to get the light I want.

In this shot I'm using a bigger light, an Alien Bee 800, at full power just out of the frame to the left. F20 at 1/250th and ISO 100. The high F-stop also makes the star effect from point sources of light (in this case the sun).



Hope that's more help than confusion... ;-)

~Bill