Why are my Zoo shots overexposed?

[LionQueen]

a lot of them are, anyway :/ It was a warm day, bright sun and not a cloud in the sky. I brought my T1i with the 55-250 lens. I mostly had it on program, ISO 200 or 100 in the sun, 400 or 800 in the shade. I'm a newbie and not confident enough to go full manual yet - I'm not sure what settings to put the shutter speed, ect, on. On a lot of these pics the white is just totally blown out :/ I also used the dreaded green box mode on some shots.

[amd is the best]

The camera was most likely using evaluative metering which will use most of the frame to expose the picture properly although the subject will be overexposed. When shooting things that are extremly bright vs. a dark background I would use spot metering to expose the subject properly.

Also, you may be able to help the pics a lot in PP with a program like lightroom.

Hope this helps,
Nick

[LionQueen]

Thanks, that helps a lot actually - I'll try spot metering next time and see if it makes a difference. The zoo has free admission for SF residents the 1st Wednesday of the month, so I'm going to go again next week, and hopefully I'll do better. Haven't messed with the shots in post yet, going to see what I can do (I use CS2).

[AB8ND]

Spot metering is a good idea, but you need to take a reading of something zone 5 or neutral gray to make it accurate. If you meter off something very light or very dark your image will still be under or over exposed.

Jack

[AdamJL]

I suggest buying this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understandin.../dp/0817463003

It's a book beginners should read to learn from, and one advanced users should read to get a refresher.

spot metering in those conditions will help, but remeber to also dial in a little +/- compensation.
^ that book will explain why.

have fun

[IslandCrow]

If it's a nice cloudless day, I actually prefer shooting in manual. . .which isn't necessarily as scary as it might sound to some. I recently moved and my exposure card got packed up, but no worries. Usually the pavement is pretty close to neutral grey (or I WAG it a little if it's a bit darker), so I just meter off of that in AV, put those settings into manual, take a couple practice shots and go with it. Fortunately, in a zoo, you generally have much more time to get the shot, so learn how to use the histogram and check it between shots.