Painful First Day with Rebel...

[Scott W.]

Shot for over 8 hours in blazing humidity and heat in automatic mode. Got home and downloaded the shots and the hightlights are completely burnt out (and there were plenty of them that should have been structure). No information to recover in PS whatsoever.

Yes, I should have checked the histograms, etc....I'm coming from the G2 in which Automatic mode always produced something to work with on the high and low ends.

Any recommendations for preventing this in the future? No ND filter option from what I can see on the camera.

Thanks for allow my little violin to play,

Scott

[Liang]

any example?

[SeanDempsey]

Well, check histograms occasionally, and also... don't use automatic mode. At least in program mode, you can see the exposure meter.

Also, with the rebel, you sort of have to keep it in mind when you shoot, when there are bright brights or dark darks, it can sometimes throw the meter.

I would check the histrogram every 1 or 2 shots for a while, til you get a feel for it. Thats what I did with my rebel, and now on my 10D I usually shoot in full manual, and can eyeball if I need to over or under expose the shot a bit in either direction.

[DAMphyne]

Be Happy :D it wasn't film, think of all the film cost, processing chemicals down the drain, waiting to find out , and then! :evil:

[Tom W]

It would be good to see an example if you could link one. There's blown out and then there's BLOWN OUT. If the pictures are that bad, perhaps there is something amiss with the camera or the lens. It should expose quite well in auto - maybe not perfect on every shot, but pretty well.

[DocFrankenstein]

It's a good idea to:

1) Press menu
2) Go to Play options
3) Review ---> On (Info)
4) Review time ---> 8 sec

This way you're automatically gonna see the histogram and will have time to delete a pic if you don't like it.

Was it a bright day? I find it very hard to balance skies even in manual mode, let alone in the green square mode. :?

[RichardtheSane]

Even a review time of 2-4 seconds is enough to get a quick glance of the histogram, at 4 seconds you will se it and also spot the flashing highlights.

8 seconds is fine if you have spare batteries :)

[nosquare2003]

Posting the Exif file will also help.

BTW, humidity and heat can only burnt out a person, but not photos :lol:

[JohnEBongo]

I almost exclusively use apeture or shutter priority mode. If the scene is exceptionally bright or dark I will then use exposure compensation to correct. I like to call P mode prayer mode. Put it on P and pray that the exposure coms out right.;)

[PacAce]

I almost exclusively use apeture or shutter priority mode. If the scene is exceptionally bright or dark I will then use exposure compensation to correct. I like to call P mode prayer mode. Put it on P and pray that the exposure coms out right.;)

The only difference between P mode and TV or AV mode is that in Tv or Av, you set the initial values for the shutter or aperture and the camera does the rest. In P mode, the camera selects both aperture and shutter for you. From there on, everything is the same. Hence, if you think you need to use EC, then you use EC, whether it's in P, Tv or Av mode. Simple as that.

And if you're using M mode but relying on the internal exposure meter of the camera, then all you're doing is setting the aperture and the shutter for the camera instead of the camera doing it itself.

So, what I'm trying to say is that if you're going to shoot smart and use EC as appropriate, it doesn't matter whether you shoot in P, Tv, Av or M. It's all the same as far as the final image you get is concerned. But, of course, each has it's merits which makes one mode a better choice than another for a given photographic situation.

Or did mean Auto mode (the little green box) instead of P mode? :?

[cmM]

I always use creative modes.... As a matter of fact, I don't think I had the camera, ever, in full auto or the other "auto modes". I use manual most of the time, and TV for sports and stuff like that. Also, I look at the 4 second preview & histogram after almost each shot. It helps a lot.

[abel]

i wonder if you were using spot metering versus evaluative or center weighted...

spot can cause highlights to be blown if ur meter spot is on a dark area...

[tarves57]

Most of the time I have my camera on -1 exposure and on very sunny days I also use a polarising filter. (Sorta gives your camera a pair of sunglasses 8) )

Helps with the glare from water and tree leaves too.

Susan

[theoldmoose]

The Rebel doesn't have spot metering, BTW...

Anyway, check your histograms on on the fly using the review mode outlined above.

And to those that *never* use the non-creative modes...

Don't forget that without the infamous Rebel hack firmware, you can't get AI Servo focus mode on any setting except the brain-dead 'Sports' mode, which bumps your shutter speed up as high as practical (to freeze motion) and disables the flash (what? no indoor sports shots? Geez, Canon.)

Oh, and to head off those, "yes, but..." answers, yeah, I do know that you can force AI Servo in a Creative Zone mode by waving your hand around in front of the lens, but who wants to look like a nut?

[CyberDyneSystems]

I know with the 10D the absolute worst conditions are blazing sun afternoons... both for getting exposure and for AF oddly... (depending on your orientation to the sun of course.

So you are not alone.