indoors, dark subject, bright background

[dufrenbk]

Hi, I was taking some pictures yesterday of my son inside my house with the door open letting light in from outside. He went in front of the door and I took some pics. He was dark and the light from outside was bright. The light seemed like it was more properly exposed. I was just wondering how I go about getting him properly exposed. Here's an example photo, EXIF included:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l201/dufrenbk/Photography/IMG_0223.jpg

Oversized image changed to link.

Jon

[Kristy]

If you move to the outside of the doorway and have him face the light side of the door, you'd probably get the exposure you wanted..

If you wanted it to be a back-lit portrait of your son, you'd definitely need some fill flash to light up his face...

Hope that helps... ;)

[Cody21]

Your meter was "fooled" by the overexposed ambient light from outside. If you zoomed in on him - thereby having little/no outisde light - your meter would probably had exposed him better. But of course if you used that metering setting and zoomed back out, the outside would have been blown out while he probably would have been more visible. And what Kristy said -- you could have reversed positions with him; you outdoors shooting back to the indoors.

[Stocky]

There are lots of ways you could fix this. If you were shooting in manual then your camera wouldn't have adjusted exposure for the door. The camera typically does this because it wants to prevent blown highlights. The flash would have been one way to fix this, and another would have been to meter for your son instead. The evaluative metering mode will always produce results like that one.
Please also note that the max dimensions for a file here are 1024x1024. If you wish to post a larger image you must link to it.

[dufrenbk]

Ok, so I could have used spot metering in manual mode and it would have exposed properly?

p.s. sorry about the large image. i dunno why it was that large. i've posted many images the same way on forums and they were never that large.

[elader]

fill flash would work - set the camera on Av, pop the flash, ISO 200 and try it again

[PhotosGuy]

Ok, so I could have used spot metering in manual mode and it would have exposed properly? First set the f-stop & shutter speed you need. Then adjust the ISO. Need an exposure crutch? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=89123)
More on how the subject affects the exposure in Post # 47 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=5191658&postcount=47)

[Mum2J&M]

I used spot metering in a very similar situation when my boys were dying Easter eggs in front of a very bright window with the light pouring in from behind them. I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do. I'd like to learn about it as well... There is also that metering mode with just the ( ) and no dot in between - which, I believe, is for a bright background.

Anyway, here were the results with spot metering (shutter priority):

http://Priors.smugmug.com/photos/269431719_bS6ce-L.jpg

http://Priors.smugmug.com/photos/269431664_UYsBv-L.jpg

[Roach711]

A "quick and dirty" way to get this shot properly exposed would be to zoom in on your son so he fills the viewfinder, half-press-and-hold your shutter button to lock the exposure then zoom out and take the shot.

The outside parts will be blown out but your son will be properly exposed.

[Stocky]

Unless you have a lens that maintains focus when you zoom out you will have to use the * button for AE lock.

[tonylong]

Mum,

Those shots turned out about as well as you could expect! Great exposure for the boy!

As far as recommendations, fill flash is obviously an advantage -- you expose more for the background and then use flash for the foreground.

Aside from fill flash the best recommendations I can offer are: shoot in RAW and ensure your exposure falls to the right of the histogram with the highlights just at the right edge. Then, in a RAW converter you can crank on your highlight recover/curve adjustment to bring as much detail as possible in the highlights (you would do the same with a jpeg but with less lattitude), and, if needed give a touch of boost to the shadows for the foreground/subject. An exposure that, like this, seems like the background is totally blown can have a lot of "lost" detail that, with RAW, is not "really lost" but is just waiting to get some recovery help!

Second, if you own a 40D/XSi/1D/1Ds Mk III, you have the highlight recovery function that, from my tests, really does work and might make a big difference in this type of exposure -- you can expose more for the subject and will have more highlight detail, and, if you shoot in RAW you can bring even more highlight detail than the out-of-the-camera jpeg offers.

[Cody21]

Unless you have a lens that maintains focus when you zoom out you will have to use the * button for AE lock.

Another way (my preferred method) is to shoot in Manual mode. Just zoom in on the face to get the metering/exposure you want. then just zoom back out and refocus as necessary. The background will be blown out, but the foreground will be what you wanted. And as TonyLong mentioned, shoot in RAW and use PP to reclaim some of that blownout area.

[sgogula]

I would try to focus the camera on the other side of the room and lock the exposure by '*' then recompose and take the kids picture.

[swampler]

I would use fill flash...bounced off the ceiling to light the subject. That way, your background won't be blown out and your subject will be properly exposed.

[sivasphotografy]

select the subject always dark and give some lighting for subject, also give another light for bg.