Overexposed pics, how can I correct it for the next time?

Not afraid to admit I'm a newb on the dSLR scene (heck cameras overall it seems sometimes) I ventured out about 100 miles to a motorsports track that was having an event today and took along my 350D, 24-70mm f/2.8L and a rented 300mm f/4L IS lens. I went basically to play around and I had a few friends who are running their cars.

Snapped alot of pics and not too many are keepers. I tried turning IS on and off a few times. I shot in TV mode, 200 ISO, WB was on AWB and Sunlight with shutter speeds of 250 & 500 while panning at the cars when they passed on the front stretch or just did got some still shots when they came through some turns on the other side of the course.

I'd like to know what I should do on the camera to correct, and I'm even thinking about heading out again to Sunday to try again

Well here is are resized only examples of what most of the pics look like, way too much white/haze.

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It looks like it's a concrete track, so it's going to be lighter than asphalt, making getting an even exposure difficult. The only thing I would suggest is to maybe bump the aperature a bit smaller, though it might mean underexposing the cars a bit. I think a cloudy day also might improve the situation, though don't take my word on that.
Reed

Shoot RAW and process your photos like you did w/ #2, and/or use exposure compensation during your shoot to bump 'er down a stop or two. Great pictures, though. Just a bit blown out because of the concrete.

-bd

The first thing I noticed was that you had your exposure comp set to +1. If you look at your histograms, they are all on the right side,ie, over-exposed. Also what meter mode were you using? Next time you may want to shoot manual. The slow speed means you're going to have to close down your lens to compensate. If you have a gray card set you white balance off it. That light colored track plays hell with your cameras metering. Next time shoot a couple and check your histograms and make corrections off that. BTW, love the shots of the Corvettes. A friend of mine has a new yellow Z0 6. We love to autocross too.

Ok, well Yard Duty might stall me from going back tomorrow (I'm determined to get some nice shots though LOL) I looked and it was on the plus side, bumped it down some.

The Black '06 ZO6 is Lingenfelter Enhanced, heard a slight whine from under the hood as it blazed by

When you hear of people complain of dynamic range in DSLR, you now know what they are referring to. The sensor just has a hard time capturing all of the range of tonal values in the shot, and invariable blows out something.

Once highlights are blown out, they are hard to recover. Your best bet is to underexpose the cars, and fix later in PS. That is what I'd do.

seems like its just a simple levels adjustment needed. I just messed with levels in CS. Hate the compression on these and web save is really messing with the srgb profile. Anyway you get the Idea. All these shots can be much improved with simple levels work.

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Exposure comp set to +1.........Nuf said.

I shoot alot of Motocross so I am used to fast moving objects and constantly changing lighting conditions. Normally I only have the center AF point active so I find partial metering works very well. Not sure how to set that on a Rebel, but if you can use it. I don't agree with manual exposure because of the different reflective qualitys of the bikes, cars, riders gear.....ect. Not that it won't work, I have just found partial metering gets better results........= less processing.

Good luck, looks like fun!

I woulda metered off of something neutral in the area and shot in manual. You'd have consistent accurate exposures across the board then.

Yea meter the sunny side of the track, the shadow side, and pure white car in the sun, and black car in a shadow........average them all and you will have your exposure

SeanH wrote:
Yea meter the sunny side of the track, the shadow side, and pure white car in the sun, and black car in a shadow........average them all and you will have your exposure

I don't see a shadow side in any of those shots....

Shoot raw, crank your ISO down to 100, get rid of the positive exposure bias.

Do you all think a C-PL would help him?

Only to control the glare off the cars. There's no sky in these particular shots for it to do anything there. However, with panning, spinning the CPL on the end at the same time to optimize the effect would be impossible at worst and impracticle at best.

cdi-ink.com wrote:
I don't see a shadow side in any of those shots....

Oh sorry..........I was thinking he might possibly shoot another track or some other action sports sometime in his life........my bad....LOL

Just messing with ya