Camera playing tricks on my eyes

Other than some fill light needed, there is nothing really wrong with that exposure, imo.

bohdank wrote in post #11870423
Other than some fill light needed, there is nothing really wrong with that exposure, imo.

Have you loaded the raw file in ACR or LR? Much of her skin is blown out.

No, I haven't.

Will do so, now.

Some of her skin is blown out. I wouldn't say a great deal. Also it's in parts of her that have little texture (great skin) to show, anyway. I agree it would be technically be better if nothing was blown out but I think this could make a large print with little signs that anything was blown out.

The lighting conditions were impossible, as you know. A fill flash, 1 stop less exposure and it would be perfect.

I will try this. should the flash be -1 be on my camera on ettl? also what if I were to do off camera flash, what is the trick to this? (i'm thinking flash on manual at 1/8 3feet away?)

calvinnemail wrote in post #11869038
Hi guys, I've been having this problem quite often; I shoot a photo, (usually in plain daylight no flash) look at the screen and the photo looks great. Properly exposed. I go on the whole day like this thinking I have a good set of images. Then I get home pop it on my monitor screen and blahh...they are badly underexposed! PLEASE Assist!

I use canon 5d mark 2

I'm late to this thread and I see you've gotten good advice already.

But if you're seeing this image underexposed, your monitor is badly in need of adjustment.

The raw image is a bit overexposed, highlights on her skin blown, but the JPEG you posted corrects that. Considering the high contrast of the scene, the exposure of the JPEG is as good as it can be.

bohdank wrote in post #11873200
Some of her skin is blown out. I wouldn't say a great deal. Also it's in parts of her that have little texture (great skin) to show, anyway. I agree it would be technically be better if nothing was blown out but I think this could make a large print with little signs that anything was blown out.

The lighting conditions were impossible, as you know. A fill flash, 1 stop less exposure and it would be perfect.

Agreed on both counts.

Here's the histogram of the JPEG:

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calvinnemail wrote in post #11874298
I will try this. should the flash be -1 be on my camera on ettl? also what if I were to do off camera flash, what is the trick to this? (i'm thinking flash on manual at 1/8 3feet away?)

How much practice do you have with flash shooting? That will play a role -- I myself don't shoot a lot of flash so I'd tend to go ETTL, Manual exposure mode, set the exposure for the background and then take a few shots using FLash Exposure Compensation to "tweak" the flash.

As far as hotshoe vs off-camera flash, well, that's your call -- a lot depends on the light and how you need to use that flash -- fill or effect. Many people use a minimum of two strobes/flashes so they can have a "main" light to one side and then a fill flash to avoid the harsh shadows, set to a lower power. But this type of shooting requires a lot of practice to nail the "look" you are after.

Another thing to bear in mind with this is diffusers and other types of flash modifiers such as gels and umbrellas and such. Outdoors you don't have the kind of "built-in bounce" that ceilings and walls offer you, you need to be a bit creative in constructing your own system. For a quick shot, you may get good results by just wrapping a "bounce card" around the back of a folded up flash head, but if you get serious about this stuff, well, it can get fairly complex!

"Here's the histogram of the JPEG:"

Thank you, Number Six! Had no idea this extension existed ... just installed it.

Rimmer wrote in post #11876330
"Here's the histogram of the JPEG:"

Thank you, Number Six! Had no idea this extension existed ... just installed it.

What did I miss? What extension for what app?

Yea thanks for the histogram viewer and input number six. (add on from firefox tony)
i think i will be trying a simple 1 off camera flash to fill in dark faces. I will stick with mostly available light and watch the histogram for now.

The "blow out" spike in the histogram is the sky hole behind the couple...

That has to be blown out in order to achieve proper exposure on their faces.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #11876964
The "blow out" spike in the histogram is the sky hole behind the couple...

That has to be blown out in order to achieve proper exposure on their faces.

Well, it's actually a bit of both.

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tonylong wrote in post #11876723
What did I miss? What extension for what app?

Tony --

It's a Firefox extension (add-on). Go to Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons and search for histogram, or go directly here:

https://addons.mozilla​.org …refox/search/?q​=histogram

calvinnemail wrote in post #11869254
I used spyder elite 3 to calibrate but it seems to make my monitor worse. and when calibrated lightroom renders with very harsh shadows and tones. soo i turned off calibration.

First, I think you need to address that problem. Maybe it's your monitor. But you need to be able
to calibrate your monitor.

Here's the image you posted, opened with "image settings" in Camera Raw. The red areas show
clipping. The blue indicates blocked shadows.

As you can see luminance levels on the subjects go from too bright (clipped = 255.255.255)
down to pretty dark on the man's face. The image can be rescued, but it requires local (rather than
global) adjustments. You need to make one layer of adjustments to recover the clipped highlights,
and a second layer to open the shadow details that are a bit underexposed. I don't use Lightroom,
but I don't think you can make local adjustments with that application. You might need Photoshop.

Peano, what makes you say that you can't do global adjustment?

calvinnemail wrote in post #11874298
I will try this. should the flash be -1 be on my camera on ettl? also what if I were to do off camera flash, what is the trick to this? (i'm thinking flash on manual at 1/8 3feet away?)

Lots of free videos on flash, on and off camera, here:

https://fridayphotosch​ool.com/dl/