Exposure question.

[courtknee202]

Hello all! I did a little search but still couldn't find an answer to my question. I shoot at horse shows, using a 300D on auto sports mode, and the photos I took this weekend were overexposed. The sun was behind me and to the left, so as the horses were coming over the fence in front of me, the sun was behind them, so in the photos the front of the horse turned out too dark and you cant see their faces well at all. Is there any way I can compensate or fix this? I'm shooting at another show this week that has the same ring layout so the sun again will be behind me and illuminating the wrong end of the horse.

http://mygallery.cc/courtney/album14/MDS_17 There's an example of what I mean, I lightened that up in Photoshop a lot, but I want to avoid having to do that.

Thanks in advance!

[PacAce]

If you were shooting in one of the Creative Zone modes, you could use the AE lock to lock the exposure from the shadow area. AE lock uses partial metering so if you place the center circle over the shadow area before pressing the AE lock button, you'd be able to get a better shot. Unfortunately, AE lock doesn't work in the Basic Zone modes and that includes the sports mode. However, if you did use one of the creative zone modes (probably Tv mode), you'll lose AI Servo and get AI Focus instead. Depending on how fast the horses are moving, AI Focus may be slower to respond to focus changes than AI Servo.