Help! What Am I Doing Wrong??

I thought I was getting the hang of this, I got some really good pictures of the kids in the past. But no matter what I did today I could not get an even semi-decent picture.
I have a Canon Rebel T3i.

We were at the pumpkin patch. It was 4pm, still light outside but also over-cast. Was trying to get a picture of the kid on a pony ride which was under one of those open-sided sun cover-tents.

Exposure level was jumping all over the place, when I did get it dead center, and even on the side of over-exposed, the pictures still came out dark! In some instances everything under the tent was dark, but outside the tent was bright and clear.

In hindsight maybe instead of manual, I should of used AV or TV? But I really want to learn to use manual.

Here is an example of one of the pictures, on top of it all they were blurry too..nice. The pics where she got close to me she is literally just a dark shadow.

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First thing to consider is that you were shooting at F16, ergo a very low shutter speed, even at 1600 ISO. Shooting this at F5.6 and ISO 400 would have gotten you a shutter speed of 1/125.

The second thing is that you have your metering in an evaluative mode. It is overcompensating for the bright background outside of the tent, underexposing the subject. For me, I would have shot this using spot metering and metered her gray sweater placing the meter at zero, then hit the exposure lock button, recomposed and taken the shot. AV or TV would having given you similar results as what you got because it would have the same evaluative metering issue.

I strongly recommend reading a little on metering, exposure and exposure compensation. Partial metering would probably have been a better mode, especially in this lighting, because it evaluates an area around the center focus point, there by taking the background illumination out of the equation. This photo properly exposed for the subject would have the background way overexposed.

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^ What windpig said. As soon as you see the background being more properly exposed than the subject, you can likely know that you'll check your metering.

Dark subject meets bright background. Spot metering on the subject would have correctly exposed your subject, but also would have blown out the background. Another option in cases like this would be to use fill flash. The camera exposes for the background and the flash illuminates your subject.

Yep your shutter was 1/30. You are going to get motion blur at that shutter speed. As mentioned f16 was not the best choice. At f5.6, even 4 or faster the background would have been more blurry because it is not all interesting.

Your meter actually did a good job balancing out this image. Only problem is it decided what to balance which left your subjects dark.

As mentioned metering on the subjects would have made all the difference however the background would have been blown out. I would have metered the background the way it is in your original shot and used a flash. Actually just using evaluative metering in manual or AV and a flash would have done a decent job here.

Thanks everyone. That makes sense.
Those weren't the settings I started with. I forgot at that point I had cranked up the iso (I had started at 200) and changed it to f/16. I was getting frustrated at that point which wasn't helping.
I am working my way through "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson right now.

Just wanted to add a blown out background in this situation is not the end of the world. Correct subject exposure is primary and if I did not have flash I would sacrifice the background to get the shot.

reneefk wrote in post #13277260
Thanks everyone. That makes sense.
Those weren't the settings I started with. I forgot at that point I had cranked up the iso (I had started at 200) and changed it to f/16. I was getting frustrated at that point which wasn't helping.
I am working my way through "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson right now.

Join the club. When I went to my first air show I got so excited I thought I put my shutter speed to 1600 but it was actually my ISO .

If you were getting frustrated at first, it may be because your ISO was too low in the first place. But, making a smaller fstop just compounded your problem.

Letting more light in = higher ISO, but lower fstop.

A good thing to do for a while is to put the camera into P or auto made take a bucnh of shots in varying situations and then look at the exif info for how the camera decided to expose each shot. You can use this as a kind of baseline and then experiment on your own.

Good luck!

Now that you mention the background, I don't know why I choose to stand facing the parking lot..when I could of been facing the pumpkin patch. I might have to go back and try again. She loves the pony ride and I really wanted to get a cute pic of her. I should of admitted defeat and put it on auto.

sticknpuck wrote in post #13277294
A good thing to do for a while is to put the camera into P or auto made take a bucnh of shots in varying situations and then look at the exif info for how the camera decided to expose each shot. You can use this as a kind of baseline and then experiment on your own.

Good luck!

That is a really good idea, thanks!

You were focusing on the family. However even facing the parking lot a shallow DOF would have still made it a more interesting shot. A lot to think about isn't it? You ever read the wedding forums "Help I have to shoot a wedding next week because me friend knows I have a nice camera" or they are trying to save money. People who do not understand photography have no clue about the pressure they can put on friends and family members. There is no second chance.

Oh wow. I can't imagine. I just do this for myself because I enjoy it. It is pure hobby which takes the pressure off. The picture is actually of the lil one I watch (I have had her and her older brother since they were 3 months old). Their parents work a lot and it is fun to share pictures with them, I know they appreciate it.
I got some nice ones over the summer of them playing in water/at the park, etc. I mean, they look good to me..I'm sure if I posted them, the experienced people here could find flaws in them that I don't see. :P
That is why I was so surprised today though, it was the first time I just couldn't get it to work no matter what I did.