How to shoot high contrast pics ?

[rainmanone]

Hi,
I'm using Canon S45 and I'm trying to photograph some church windows, but I'm facing a major exposure problem:
1. when exposure is set on the window area (strong lighting) - the rest of the room is VERY dark
2. When the exposure is set on the rest of the room - the window is so bright, you can't see any details.

how can I shoot the pic so I won't lose details not in the shadow area and not in the highlights ?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Bottom line is that you can't. The brightness range is too great for the camera to capture.

I guess fill flash is inappropriate in church. :) So I can think of two solutions (there may be more):

1. Use a tripod and take two shots - one metered for the shadows and the other metered for the highlights. You can them combine these in your photo editor.

2. Shoot raw with a "medium" exposure setting and develop two versions of the image with exposure compensation to simulate option 1. BreezeBrowser offers a version of this with "combined" conversion.

Regards,

[UK_Terry]

I had the same dilema, in the end i used flash. and cropped out the darkness.
here is an example

http://www.robinsfc.co.uk/Photos/Fairford_Church/fairford7_std.jpg





here are the rest. All Taken with the S45..wonderful camera

http://www.robinsfc.co.uk/Photos/Fairford_Church/index.htm

[rainmanone]

Roger,
Why should RAW make any difference ?
the exposure is still set the same as in JPG (shutter speed and f)

[Roger_Cavanagh]

rainmanone wrote:
Roger,
Why should RAW make any difference ?
the exposure is still set the same as in JPG (shutter speed and f)

You get a lot more latitude to adjust exposure in raw conversion. So, in effect, you could produce an under-exposed picture, and over-exposed picture and combine the two to give wider dynamic range than would be achievable by a normal picture.

Regards,

[iwatkins]

Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
1. Use a tripod and take two shots - one metered for the shadows and the other metered for the highlights. You can them combine these in your photo editor.


I've attempted for the first time to use the method Roger describes in suggestion 1.

See the results here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17950)

Cheers

Ian

[Roger_Cavanagh]

iwatkins wrote:
Roger_Cavanagh wrote:
1. Use a tripod and take two shots - one metered for the shadows and the other metered for the highlights. You can them combine these in your photo editor.


I've attempted for the first time to use the method Roger describes in suggestion 1.

See the results here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17950)

Cheers

Ian


Nice example, Ian. I didn't have time to do one when I posted before and now I don't have to. :)

Regards,

[rainmanone]

Great results,
thanks !

I guess that's the only way to get the best of both exposures (at least until some cool algorythm for a spatial exposure compensation will be integrated into the CCD or CMOS sensor).

I know that in CMOS sensor you can adjust the gain per pixel (when designing the camera, that is), guess CCD can have it too, but in today's cameras the process is too slow.

[iwatkins]

You are probably right. Won't be long until each pixel on the sensor will be able to capture exactly the right amount of light every shot. Would of course need some fairly good software/hardware on board, but no reason why not.

Whether having a camera like that would be any fun is a different question. Perfect shots every time ?

Cheers

Ian