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saxboy

Help about brightness

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Hello there!
I am very new in skydiving with still camera so....I need some help.This a photo on my second jump with my camera.Why this photo is a little dark?
The settings are:
Canon Eos 400D
Stadard lens 18-55
Manual focus
and sport program.
Thanks...

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Hello there!
I am very new in skydiving with still camera so....I need some help.This a photo on my second jump with my camera.Why this photo is a little dark?
The settings are:
Canon Eos 400D
Stadard lens 18-55
Manual focus
and sport program.
Thanks...



Any time you do an auto exposure setting you are letting the camera decide certain things based on what IT knows. In this case the camera "sees" a lot of white in the frame (the clouds) and rightly assumes that's a LOT of very light area so it darkens the exposure to compensate. This makes the actual subject appear VERY dark. The camera isn't at fault because it doesn't actually know what it is you're trying to take a photo of.

If you had been closer and filled the frame with the skydiver, then things may have balanced out better with the auto exposure settings.

Had the sky been completely blue, you might have received better results, but then again, if you had been looking directly into the sun, probably much worse.

Camera flying is an art, science and a bit of a crap shoot.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Get away from the "auto" features. It will make you a better photog faster. I'd recommend starting with the "TV" setting and play with shutter speeds between 200 and 500 to begin with.
----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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When a camera is set to auto exposure, it looks for an image that is exposed at 50-percent brightness. For most normally light scenes, this works fairly well. And if you shoot skydivers from above, with the ground below (not counting BSR violations), you usually get a decent image.

Unfortunately, if you have a large area that is very bright (like your overcast sky), the camera thinks the whole image is too bright, so it brings the exposure down to acheive this overall brightness of 50-percent. This means that the small area of the plane is underexposed and appears very dark. Often you can brighten the shadows with software, but this isn't ideal. The situation is complicted by the fact that most digital cameras have less dynamic range than the human eye. That is, the difference betwen the lightest portion of a scene, and the darkest portion is too great for the sensor to completely handle (print film is better in this regard, but this still would have been a tough shot).

Two more solutions come to mind for this kind of shot other than filling the frame more completely with the subject as Quade has pointed out. One is to set your exposure manually for the primary subject--in this case the underside of the plane. This is difficult (and changes for different shots in the skydive), and it would make the already washed out sky even brighter--probably completely white.

The second solution would be to jump with a powerful flash (not the built in flash), and have the flash lighten the underside of the plane. Personally, I always jump an external flash when shooting up at the sky for things like balloon or helipcoter exits. However, if you are new to jumping camera, I wouldn't add the extra equipment and distraction at this point. What you have shot here is a very difficult shot to expose properly, and probably won't be typical of the bulk of your skydive photos. Good luck, and keep working it.

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Get away from the "auto" features. It will make you a better photog faster. I'd recommend starting with the "TV" setting and play with shutter speeds between 200 and 500 to begin with.



Well, technically, even Tv is an automatic setting. It just uses the shutter speed as a fixed point and changes the aperture based on light readings.

Sport, by contrast, tries to use the fastest shutter speed available for the given conditions. The unfortunate thing about that is it will have a tendency to use wider apertures to achieve this. That lowers the depth of field considerably and makes focus and distance far more critical.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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One more thing (meant to say this). Another solution is to set your auto-exposure compensation (the little +/- button) to over-expose your image. In this case, probably by a full stop. This is similar to what video cameras do when you set them to "backlight," and is useful anytime your subject is darker than the majority of your frame (i.e., a person sitting by window, or with bright lights behind them. Again though, once you turn away from the plane, you will probably not have a setting that wil work for the rest of the skydive, and the sky will still be completely washed out for the exit shot. Honestly, looking up at a subject with a mid-day overcast sky behind it will rarely result in an award-winning photo.

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Full manual settings with fill flash would take care of this issue.
I see your experience level is not correct on your profile please fill it out correctly and you will get more positive feedback to your questions?
Thanks


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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All of those advices by those guys are true.
Of course the flash is the best option though...
But one more thing... make sure your exposure metering is set correctly. In this practicular case you wanted to have your subject (the jumper) exposed properly. But your camera adjusted to the whole frame's brightness which was dominated by the bright clouds in the back ground.
I not sure about the 400D, but on the 350D I have 3 different settings to measure light. I suggest to use the one as shown in the attached picture. In this mode the camera try to adjust to the center of the image. Also if you're using the "burst" mode make sure in Cfn (costum functions) the setting is "No AE lock", so as long as you pressing the shutter realese (bite switch) your camera keeps adjusting to the light.
If you're using no flash AF combination I would recommend the Av mode (like f6.3 or above) to have DOF and easier faster AF. If it's getting darker make sure you crank up the ISO, so you'll get fast enough shutter speed.
Further more please read your camera manual, there's lot of usefull information!
-Laszlo-

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speaking of fill flash , can flash users comment on the flash settings that you use for the 580 exII on a rebel xt. i have used the TV function (320), with the flash at ETTL. i have also used full manual (200, f 8) with the flash at full 1/1.. right now i am using the stock lens 18-55, subjects 5-10 away. assume day shots for now,, i see the effective range at 24mm 1/1 is 96'.. and 1/2 is 65'.. is that right assuming the iso is 100.. if i go to 1/2 will i get a faster recycle rate and i am using recharable batts for now, btw .. i am curious to hear your settings and why you use them..
dont let life pass you by

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On sunny days i use usually use iso 100 , shutter 200, aperture f13 or f11, 1/4 to 1/8th power on my flash no defuser depending on how close my subject is (tandem or aff) 15mm sigma lens.. I like to under expose my shots to bring out the beautiful blues in the sky! :)


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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Do a lot of ground shots experimenting with settings. Pick a shutter speed like around 160 to 200 and then do some different shots adjusting aperture up and down to achieve your best all around results. Adjust your fill flash power according to how close you will be flying to your subject then . Remember if you underexpose your image you can usually always brighten them up in photoshop, but if you blow them out or (overexpose) its harder to fix them in photoshop. Use the information graph on your display to help with this .
Hope this helps :)


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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I was just about to suggest photoshop. Here's a link to some great plugins
http://www.thepluginsite.com/resources/freeps.htm
Little Ink Pot has a great tool called Xpose!, and OptikVerve Labs has another very useful tool called Virtual Photographer.
Often, what would had been a great photo, if not for -/+ exposure can be brought to life with some creative work using the many tools in PS and with all of the plugins available you can expand your arsenal to give your work that wow factor.
Another great site for learning more about techniques http://photoshoptechniques.com/forum/index.php
"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

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What i was trying to say is don't blow your image out ,it's really hard to fix a totally blown out image. IMO



Very true - much easier with the RAW file, but not very workable for a video guy that needs to shoot JPG to provide a quick product for a customer.

The Sunny-16 rule works well as a starting point: f/16, shutter speed equal to ISO. Add 1 stop of light (f/11) if you know the subject will be sidelit, 2 stops fo light (f/8) if you know the subject will be backlit.

Another way to get a good base reading for the lighting conditions is to meter off the northern (clear) sky, about 45 degrees from horizontal (spot or partial, not evaluative). From there you can adjust for sidelit/backlit as above. In fact, that's exactly how I metered the shots of Dave Lund and Dave Smithers that were posted in December's Parachutist - I was pretty pleased, for an amateur photographer! I still need to fine-tune it for my camera metering, but it works.
Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

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All 4 of these shots were taken at iso 100 ,shutter 200 , f13, 1/8th power fill flash. The last image was in parachutist this summer :)


A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

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nice shots velocity, and here is my first day of messing with full manual settings.. here is 200, f8, iso 100, flash manual 1/2,, 18-55 lens at 18 ... cloudy conditions. i dont like the slight blur, but so it is.. i am head down btw.. thanks for your advice everyone..

anyone tried the diffuser on manual 1/1 ? i am curious about taping it down and giving it a whirl..
dont let life pass you by

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Really cool effect you get from using fill flash. Look like it could have been shot in blue screen and added into a regular picture.


nice =):)

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return." - Da Vinci
www.lilchief.no

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