Kathy d

I do a lot of horse photography and have great difficulty photographing Black Horses. I do not seem to be able to pick up the detail.
Any suggestions?

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

You could use your +/- compensation button to get to the right exposure. For black you would be dialing in less exposure (-) since the camera wants to compensate for all that black and will likely overexpose. However I find it's easier to just shoot in manual for things mostly white or black. Oh and turn your auto ISO off.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Kathy, the issue is your metering system thinks your black horse is so dark, it automatically adjust to give you a wrong exposure. The first step is to check your histogram on the camera and adjust your exposure to get the tonal range.

Kuzano

Suntouched is on the money here! White or black subjects filling the frame require 1 to 2 stops compensation because of the nature of the meter to over or under expose such subject. White objects like a snow field or large body of water need to be closed down 1-1.5 stops. Black animals filling a large part of the frame need to be stopped UP 1-2 stops.

I would add single spot metering on the subject and manual operations as she has mentioned. Compensating for the results of the meter was true on film and just as true on digital. For all the fancy programming in our camera's, we must understand the default 18% grey result of how meter cells work. We must override the meter and apply compensation. Understanding the meter fully is the biggest single improvement you can make in your photography.

Strong argument here for manual operation and use of hand held meter's, as well as not buying every new camera that comes out. Keep one long enough to know how it operates.

In the absence of a proper meter reading of just the subject, meter and hold on the palm of your hand, or a large expanse of grass. Those simulate using a grey card. There is a controversy on the actual correct percentage of a grey card, but 18% has been the longest running standard. The meters job is to yield a final result of that grey for any white or black object it encounters.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Kathy, shoot manual, spot meter on the highlighted part of the horse and increase your exposure an appropriate number of stops.
--Bob

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Make sure you shoot in raw. You have a much better chance in post to bring out detail.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Redundant, Deleted.

BB4A

Hi Kathy, it looks like you have lots of good advice (above) about the mechanics of getting a reasonable image.

Please bear in mind that everything below is (a) just suggestions, and based on (b) my perspective and only a little experience of photographing black animals:

Concept - photographing anything black is a little trickier, because of the light and contrast factors, so it helps to have a very clear concept of what you are trying to achieve, before you start. Is it going to be a moody, low light shot, abstract, Close-up, outline, or a portrait of the horse, showing stature, glossy coat, muscles, and all? Action or still?

Initiate - to achieve the concept, what do YOU need to do, before you can plan the shoot? I often find I need to train / practice, in a similar environment & similar light conditions; honing my technique is important for me (I’m no expert in anything, apart from photographic mistakes). What equipment might you need, what model or models will you need (great if you have several wonderful black horses just wandering around!), do you need to borrow or buy a lens or other camera equipment?

Plan - as most photographs of black animals are VERY light dependent, I suggest you Plan the location and time of day most likely to give you the best possible chance of achieving your concept. The link at the bottom is a good example of the Planning required (a commissioned video shoot); it took several days of moving the horses around the countryside and Rhossili Bay, until the light and environment were both perfect for the planned shoot. As those above have mentioned, exposure sensitivity needs to be considered in most circumstances, but Light is a wonderful thing and if your Concept is clear, you may find that only one or a few light situations will work for you?

Execute - aim to get the images as right as possible in camera (this is where practice with the equipment as mentioned by others above, and my suggestion of training with a training model can be useful). You can obviously do a LOT of post processing if you have time and lots of reasonable images... but you can’t really fix major errors caused by unclear Concept, poor Initiation and Planning, and a fluffed Execution.

Close - make sure everyone involved in the shoot is happy (get feedback, on what went well AND what can be improved for next time), carry out the post-processing on the selected images, and it’s always good business to make sure the horses owners have a great portrait. 😀

Lastly, if you need any help with Concept, Initiate, Plan, Execute, and Close, you might want to consider hiring a photography mentor, to “do one, teach one, and mentor one”, to get you started without spending a lot of time, money, and stress “learning to make different mistakes”?

Here is the example link to the archetypal “Black Horse” images; this is a publicly released video (stills are property of the commissioning agency), but it might help you with a concept or two?
https://youtu.be/PAoZQjagOy8

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Kathy, learn to use your camera's histogram. That should help you resolve your exposure issue but, if you need critically accurate color and grayscale reproduction, use a Datacolor SpyderCube for grey scale and SpyderChecker for color calibration. Your monitor and printer must also be calibrated. Datacolor, along with other manufactures make monitor calibration equipment. If you use a lab for prints, provide them with your monitor calibration readings.

http://www.datacolor.com/photography-design/product-overview/

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Shoot them at an exposure level that would make them brighter than you would normally and shoo them as raw. If you use a spot meter on the horses, use the reading without compensation. You will have far more detail this way, and you can always adjust the exposure, shadow and black levels to have the horses look tonally correct. If you meter the black horse and subtract exposure, it will result in tonally correct horses, but they will be a little bit noisier.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

KIS:
1 Spot focus
2 Bracket setting on camers
3 HDR
4 adjust the final exposure
5 if necessary clone parts of the background from a darker exposure copy

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

Uh - that is actually backwards. If you shoot white snow, you open up the exposure (overexpose the meter reading) and if you shoot black object, you stop down the exposure (underexpose.)

It sounds counter intuitive, but the meter will try to make white snow gray which means you need to OVER expose to get it back to white. Conversely, if you are shooting a black subject, the meter will try to make it gray by lightening the scene. You need to UNDER expose to get it back to black.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

When photographing black subjects what I do is to set my camera to manual and I use spot metering. The exposure will need compensation otherwise the subject will not be properly exposed. I would say - 1 EC should be about right. Take another shot at - 2 EC and I bet any of those will have a perfect exposure.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

Unless the animal stands still you get two different shots if you bracket. In film days one simply opened the shutter one f stop. So if the meter said f8 you shot at f5.6.

Now if you are using a mirrorless camera you can see what the camera is seeing and adjust to suit your desired result. At least I think that is right it seems to be so when I am shooting my A6000.

Steamboat

I concur and be sure to shoot Raw