Need help with climbing pictures

[Torcidas]

In next topic I put some climbing pictures and I need little help..

Is it posible and how to reduce or eliminate overexposure of rocks in pictures... If i lower shutter speed to match sunny part of rock then climber and rock in shadow will be to dark... I have this problem from my 1st climbing picture in sunny days and can't fix it.

Happy new year

Link to Topic with more pictures,
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52284

http://www.hnkhajduk.com/1_temp/penjanje/marjan_31_12_04/marjan%2031-120008.jpg
http://www.hnkhajduk.com/1_temp/penjanje/marjan_31_12_04/marjan%2031-120030.jpg

[edsarkiss]

neat photos -- the latest National Geographic magazine has some photos from climing up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California, USA.

couple of ideas, aside from having assistants on ropes holding lights and reflectors ;-) :
- you may be able to use a fill flash on the shots to illuminate the climber's shadowed face. this may allow you to get the rocks in "proper" exposure too
- go earlier, or wait until later to shoot the pictures. the morning/afternoon sun is much kinder ;-)

[Bodryn]

One thing you can do (I have tried this on a number of photos) is to use Jasc Paint Shop Pro v.9 and use the fill flash function to bring out the dark portions of your picture. This may be necessary because digital cameras by nature just don't have the latitude that film cameras have. Another suggestion might be if your Canon can shoot in RAW mode, you can take the raw data and in effect adjust the exposure later. (I'm still rather a beginner so others may have better advice.)

[Torcidas]

neat photos -- the latest National Geographic magazine has some photos from climing up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California, USA.

couple of ideas, aside from having assistants on ropes holding lights and reflectors ;-) :
- you may be able to use a fill flash on the shots to illuminate the climber's shadowed face. this may allow you to get the rocks in "proper" exposure too
- go earlier, or wait until later to shoot the pictures. the morning/afternoon sun is much kinder ;-)

I have only croatian NG and there are no climbing pictues.. Can i see that pictures somewhere on net?

About reflectors i know but that's not posible. Only i think is fill flash but do you think climber who atack hard direction will alow me to fire with flash while he is climbing. If i try that with this guys they will send me to hell :)

[Torcidas]

One thing you can do (I have tried this on a number of photos) is to use Jasc Paint Shop Pro v.9 and use the fill flash function to bring out the dark portions of your picture. This may be necessary because digital cameras by nature just don't have the latitude that film cameras have. Another suggestion might be if your Canon can shoot in RAW mode, you can take the raw data and in effect adjust the exposure later. (I'm still rather a beginner so others may have better advice.)

As i write i can't use fill in flash because climber will kill me :) I can only try shoot at RAW mode but only when i buy 2gb CF card. With this 512 mb i can't take much pictures in RAW...

[Torcidas]

Here is 1 picture from today taken with fill in flash metode. Picture is taken from ground because today was my climbing day :)

http://www.hnkhajduk.com/1_temp/penjanje/marjan_31_12_04/test1.jpg

[Torcidas]

I think i made it with digital blending... Check and coment

http://www.hnkhajduk.com/1_temp/penjanje/marjan_31_12_04/marjan%2031-120024.jpg
http://www.hnkhajduk.com/1_temp/penjanje/marjan_31_12_04/marjan%2031-1200241.jpg

[Polar Bob]

http://www.rockclimbing.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=45
http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php

Be careful with any climbing advice you see on this site, but there are some amazing photos.

Also:

http://www.gdargaud.net/Photo/ClimbingPhotoTips.html

[Bodryn]

When I mention "fill flash function", I am talking about the function in Jasc PSP v.9 which is software you can use AFTER taking the picture to bring out all the dark areas, near and far. It works wonders. I may try this out on your picture and see how well it works. I'm sure that Adobe Photoshop must have something similar. I'm sure that using real time fill flash would not work well at those distances - you'd need a very powerful flash!

[Torcidas]

Didn't understand you.. I will try to download free trial and try that option...