Background Overexposure

[Mark_48]

Did a wedding shoot a few weeks ago and some of the group shots were done in/under a gazebo in a local park. The groups came out well exposed using existing light plus some flash fill. Unfortunately the background outside the gazebo was well overexposed (sky, grass and trees) from the sunlight. I didn't realize this happened until I opened them on the computer well after the fact. As the gazebo was located in pretty much a flat field I think any direction I could have shot towards would have had the same results. I'm trying to think what I could have done differently maybe in exposure settings that could have minimized the overexposure. One thing I could have done was to elevate myself to shoot down at the group and not include as much background. Unfortunately I didn't think to have a small stepladder along and I'm not sure in the gazebo how angling down at the group would have looked.

Would it have been better to expose on the side of the background a bit and bring up the groups with some post processing?

Any thoughts on what you might have done?

[jukas]

Do you know how you metered the scene? It sounds like you metered for the people in the shade of the gazebo which then blew out the background some. Depending on the total exposure range there may have been nothing you could do in 1 shot to have it all included without some blown areas.

A couple things you could try include:

A) use Eval or Matrix metering instead of partial.
B) Meter for the background and use fill flash to expose for the people. Depending on the ev range this may not be enough
C) Recompose to exclude the greatly differing highlights
D) Grad ND filter (10:1 this wouldn't work cleanly in a portrait situation)
E) You could have taken the portraits, then dismissed the group and without moving your set take an exposure specifically to expose for the background then blend them digitally later in photoshop and either use Opacity or mask off the areas in the shadows.

[cactusclay]

I think I would have exposed for the highlights then used fill flash in the gazbo.

[chtgrubbs]

You can meter for the background scene, set the camera on manual for the correct exposure and then put the flash on auto. The flash should illuminat the people to correctly expose them to match the settings made for the background. You can also open up 1/2 to one stop so the background is a little lighter than the people, which I think is more natural looking.

[Merle]

The only way to do that in the camera is to put the same intensity of light on the group of people as the backround. ;) :) :D

Good Shooting to Ya !!
Merle