Question about overexposure with Dig Rebel..

[twingirls]

Hi, everyone! I'm a newbie here(relatively new to photography....for the past year or so), so please forgive me if I'm asking a stupid question. :o I received a Canon Dig Rebel for Christmas and have been taking picture of my girls. They are very fair-skinned and I noticed there are times(particularly when they are wearing dark colors) that their faces become overexposed. I have a friend who is a prof photographer and took pics of my girls for holiday cards with her Dig Rebel and she had the same issue.(girls wore dark dresses and their faces came out very overexposed) All taken outdoors with great natural lighting conditions. She couldn't answer the question as to why it was happening and when it happened to me also, I figured there must be some way to solve the problem. Should I be using custom white balance here? Or should I be trying to set exposure beforehand and focus on their faces, then readjust and take the shot? I'm attaching one of the pics that my friend took...not sure if it will work though.

I am just using the automatic mode at this time although I have learned how to do use the manual modes(on my film Digital Rebel), but with two moving toddlers...I'm often too slow for them!

Thanks for your help!
Heather

[Koontsa]

The evaluative metering seemingly is exposing for the darker colors; thus, the fair skin is being overexposed. I'd say you could get a spot meter if you are serious, but a good alternative is shooting RAW in a creative mode such as Tv, Av, or M. That way you should be able to over/under expose the frame after it has been taken on the computer.

[twingirls]

Thank you Koontsa! I appreciate your help and advice. I will give it a try tomorrow and see if I can improve my pictures.

Thanks again.
Heather

[PacAce]

Hi, everyone! I'm a newbie here(relatively new to photography....for the past year or so), so please forgive me if I'm asking a stupid question. :o I received a Canon Dig Rebel for Christmas and have been taking picture of my girls. They are very fair-skinned and I noticed there are times(particularly when they are wearing dark colors) that their faces become overexposed. I have a friend who is a prof photographer and took pics of my girls for holiday cards with her Dig Rebel and she had the same issue.(girls wore dark dresses and their faces came out very overexposed) All taken outdoors with great natural lighting conditions. She couldn't answer the question as to why it was happening and when it happened to me also, I figured there must be some way to solve the problem. Should I be using custom white balance here? Or should I be trying to set exposure beforehand and focus on their faces, then readjust and take the shot? I'm attaching one of the pics that my friend took...not sure if it will work though.

I am just using the automatic mode at this time although I have learned how to do use the manual modes(on my film Digital Rebel), but with two moving toddlers...I'm often too slow for them!

Thanks for your help!
Heather

If you set your camera to one of the Creative Zone modes. you can use the "*" button at the back of the camera to AE lock your exposure. If you want to stay in the automatic mode, set the camera to "P". Then point the center of the camera to a mid-toned object and press the "*" button. This will lock your exposure setting for a couple of seconds. You can now recompose your picture and take the pictuer without worrying about the dark clothing of your girls messing up the exposure.

See page 78 of your DRebel manual for more details on AE Lock.

[tim]

I do what PacAce says quite often. Another option is reducing the exposure compensation - hold the little button above the LCD light button and twirl the knob around until it's -2/3 or -1. It'll be more useful if you shoot RAW.

[robertwgross]

Besides what the others have suggested, I would add another comment.

Do you know why the camera does that? In general, the meter ("electric eye") is looking at the entire scene, and it is averaging most of it. So, the darks get pulled dark and the lights get pulled light. If you had a darker background, then light subjects would show up differently. The other thing is the metering mode. On some cameras, the meter can be forced to average the scene and subject differently (Evaluative, Partial, Center-weighted Average). Read up on yours and see what gets good results.

---Bob Gross---

[twingirls]

Thank you, PacAce, Tim, and Bob for your helpful replies and advice. I had suspected at first that it had to do with how the light meter was "reading" the scene, as Bob said...but, I thought maybe it was more complicated than that since my friend(who just started her photog.business) didn't pick up on it when she shot my girls. :( Well, I did some playing around with the AE lock last night on some still objects and then on the girls this morning, and WOW, what a difference! Tim, I'm going to try reducing the exp compensation and see how that works, too!

Thank you again for your advice!

Heather

[Persian-Rice]

There are many options, as said there are other metering modes available to you. Partial metering is a primitive form of spot metering. If you are good mathematically, you can meter both bright and dark objects and take an average.

Koonsta's suggestion for the use of RAW is somewhat flawed. Shooting RAW does not mean that you should not do it right and just adjust the RAW file. Even in RAW, it will never be the same as getting it right the first time, especially in terms of exposure. RAW is insurance against mistakes, even then RAW is not a given fix. It is not meant to be used to take careless shots then repair it on the monitor.

You can also go and buy some 18% grey cards to meter, shooting outdoors, you can use foliage or the sky to meter. You can also learn to apply the "zone system".

BTW, in terms of AE lock, I live by it. I don't understand why it is not used as the default setup.

Cheers