White Dog Pictures
May 23, 2012 22:43:26 #
This is my first posting here and would like some advice on how to shoot white things. My 2 American Eskimo Dogs get completely blown out when I take pictures of them in the direct sunlight. As you can see I try and take all of my pictures in the shade lol. The 2 snow pictures were taken with a Canon G9 ( now dead ) and the other ones with a Sony A55V that I am still getting used to. The B&W one was way over exposed in colour. All the pictures are take in Auto mode. Thanks.
May 23, 2012 23:29:05 #
May 23, 2012 23:35:07 #
Just wondering......... why Auto??
Lou Ellen
Lou Ellen
thehing wrote:
This is my first posting here and would like some advice on how to shoot white things. My 2 American Eskimo Dogs get completely blown out when I take pictures of them in the direct sunlight. As you can see I try and take all of my pictures in the shade lol. The 2 snow pictures were taken with a Canon G9 ( now dead ) and the other ones with a Sony A55V that I am still getting used to. The B&W one was way over exposed in colour. All the pictures are take in Auto mode. Thanks.
May 24, 2012 00:03:31 #
What you need to do depends on the scene and the metering you are using. The metering depends on your camera.
The main thing to keep in mind is that your light meter is adjusting things to make whatever is metered grey. Thus if you use spot metering on a white dog, even in bright sun, the meter will stop things down to turn your dog grey. Likewise average metering with a full snow scene will make everything grey. For these cases you need to up the EV by 1 to 2...a very non-intuitive thing because the scene looks very bright.
Professionals will tell you to manually set exposure: spot meter on the brightest thing in your picture and set the meter indicator to +2. That means you won't blow out the brightest part and everything else will be less bright. This isn't the same as setting the EV to +2 in the other modes.
The main thing to keep in mind is that your light meter is adjusting things to make whatever is metered grey. Thus if you use spot metering on a white dog, even in bright sun, the meter will stop things down to turn your dog grey. Likewise average metering with a full snow scene will make everything grey. For these cases you need to up the EV by 1 to 2...a very non-intuitive thing because the scene looks very bright.
Professionals will tell you to manually set exposure: spot meter on the brightest thing in your picture and set the meter indicator to +2. That means you won't blow out the brightest part and everything else will be less bright. This isn't the same as setting the EV to +2 in the other modes.
thehing wrote:
This is my first posting here and would like some advice on how to shoot white things. My 2 American Eskimo Dogs get completely blown out when I take pictures of them in the direct sunlight. As you can see I try and take all of my pictures in the shade lol. The 2 snow pictures were taken with a Canon G9 ( now dead ) and the other ones with a Sony A55V that I am still getting used to. The B&W one was way over exposed in colour. All the pictures are take in Auto mode. Thanks.
May 24, 2012 02:10:59 #
May 24, 2012 04:50:29 #
May 24, 2012 06:40:26 #
daplight
Loc: Kansas
Shoot in raw, post in photoshop, even with camera raw you can adjust for blown out highlights.
May 24, 2012 07:32:46 #
These really don't look that bad to me. The dog has good detail in the fur so the camera did a pretty good job for you.
May 24, 2012 08:18:13 #
Spot metering on the dog won't work. The earlier post is correct that the camera will try to make the dog a neutral gray color. Go get a gray card. They are cheap. I have an expodisc that I use when situations like this occur, but that's just my preference. In the B&W the same thing occured, except for the opposite affect. The dark background made the camera average the reading and overexpose the dog by trying to make the background neutral. Shooting something white against a dark background is tricky to begin with. I'm not sure about your camera. If you have exposure lock, take a reading off the gray card and lock it in. If not, take the reading, take your camera off automatic, and set the exposure manually. The only thing you need to know about using the card is to make sure you are in the same light as the dog when you take the reading. Some people meter off their hands, their bluejeans, or something neutral like grass also. Hope this helps.
May 24, 2012 09:48:00 #
thehing wrote:
This is my first posting here and would like some advice on how to shoot white things. My 2 American Eskimo Dogs get completely blown out when I take pictures of them in the direct sunlight. As you can see I try and take all of my pictures in the shade lol. The 2 snow pictures were taken with a Canon G9 ( now dead ) and the other ones with a Sony A55V that I am still getting used to. The B&W one was way over exposed in colour. All the pictures are take in Auto mode. Thanks.
Actually, I think you have some pretty decent shots of this dog, I like them all!
May 24, 2012 10:40:15 #
richnash46 wrote:
quote=thehing This is my first posting here and w... (show quote)
Hmmm, I agree. I think all the pictures are pretty darn good! I'd be happy with them myself. IMHO. Cheers.
May 24, 2012 10:45:22 #
I, too, think those are very nice pictures that don't need anything. Beautiful dog.
May 24, 2012 11:23:29 #
Bill41 wrote:
Spot meter on the dogs.
Sorry, you have to spot meter on something close to neutral gray. Camera thinks everything in the scene averages out to neutral gray. If you spot meter on something white, you will end up with a gray dog, gray snow, etc. Easiest thing to do is to take a meter reading with a gray card, takes a couple seconds. Other than that, meter as usual, and use exposure compensation, keep monkeying around until you get it.
May 24, 2012 13:56:16 #
I've never taken images in the snow never the less the snow and a white dog. That sounds like a challenge.
I photograph white birds all the time. I will take some sample images and check my histogram and set my LCD to blink on the blown out parts of the image. On white birds, I want it to have some of the highlighted area blink. This gives me the best exposure and I use "recover" in Camera RAW to bring the detail back into the highlights. If you underexpose too much, you loose a lot of detail and risk getting noise in the image.
I photograph white birds all the time. I will take some sample images and check my histogram and set my LCD to blink on the blown out parts of the image. On white birds, I want it to have some of the highlighted area blink. This gives me the best exposure and I use "recover" in Camera RAW to bring the detail back into the highlights. If you underexpose too much, you loose a lot of detail and risk getting noise in the image.
May 24, 2012 16:14:03 #
glojo
Loc: South Devon, England
My experience with dogs is they love to roll in the mud, dirt, grime etc etc..
Can you see where this is going?
Most important though is if you do take my advice......... DO NOT let the children take those beautiful dogs indoors if they get filthy :)
Very nice images and well done for wanting to improve those very nice shots.
Can you see where this is going?
Most important though is if you do take my advice......... DO NOT let the children take those beautiful dogs indoors if they get filthy :)
Very nice images and well done for wanting to improve those very nice shots.
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