Harsh sumlight and baseball...

I'm sorry to bother again. I have another question.

Yesterday I struggled with harsh sunlight and today will more then likely be the same.

Can someone please tell me what I should be doing to avoid this, or is it something I can't do anything about.

Here is an example. Please let me know what I should have done differently.
I did drop my ISO after this shot, down to 100.
1/2500 secAperture:f/2.8Focal Length:200 mmISO Speed:200Exposure Bias:+2/3 EV

Why the heck would you overexpose by 2/3 of stop in that light? If anything I'd underexpose and get back some of the blown out highlights in the whites. Even the face appears quite overexposed in that shot.

What Ben says. No reason to go +2/3EV in that light.

I disagree. Frequently I'll either shoot +1EV if I'm shooting manual or +1EC if I'm working in Av mode. The reason for this is to ensure you get the face out from under the bill of the cap. I (and many other photographers) would much rather blow out the whites/highlights a little and get a good facial exposure than get the uniforms right and have the face buried in shadow.

Having said that - Carol you're still a little over-overexposed on your shot. I'd dial it down 1/3 or 2/3. It's not an exact science. It'll even vary from shot to shot. Turn on your highlight blinkies and look at the LCD. You don't want to blow out the faces.

dmwierz wrote in post #7672178
I disagree. Frequently I'll either shoot +1EV if I'm shooting manual or +1EC if I'm working in Av mode. The reason for this is to ensure you get the face out from under the bill of the cap. I (and many other photographers) would much rather blow out the whites/highlights a little and get a good facial exposure than get the uniforms right and have the face buried in shadow.

Having said that - Carol you're still a little over-overexposed on your shot. I'd dial it down 1/3 or 2/3. It's not an exact science. It'll even vary from shot to shot. Turn on your highlight blinkies and look at the LCD. You don't want to blow out the faces.

Agreed I blow out the highlights just a tad in that kind of light. I want the most out of the shadows I can get without completely over exposing the image.

Use your histogram and your preview screen to your benifit. Often when I'm faced with similar light conditions I dont trust the histogram or the meter on the camera at all. I'll spot meter both shadows and highlights and aim somewhere in the middle as a starting point. Then I'll take a shot and look at it on my camera, now don't pay much attention to how it looks overall, the image on screen in that kind of light will NOT match what you'll see when they are downloaded.

I make sure my highlight warning indicator is on and adjust exposure slightly, again going back and forth from shooting to checking the image on the screen. And stop when I just start getting the fringe of highlight blow out, which you'll see from the flashing "warning" on your screen. Thats what I shoot at then.

I'm with Dennis and Bill on this one. I'd much rather overexpose at +1/3 to +2/3 and blow some detail in the white uniforms than lose the faces under a cap or helmet. Then, in PP, recover whatever highlights you can, dial in a little more contrast and/or definition, and pump up the vibrancy a bit.

Carol, re your looking so overexposed...I'm wondering if you were using center-spot metering and the camera metered off the jersey?

Well, I was trying to avoid the dark shadows under the hats... this picture turned out the worst. I think the sun was full force on this one and way his face is twords the sun. The histogram looked correct in most of the shots so I kept it at 2/3. If I dropped down the photos were too dark and way underexposed. After your comment I went back and looked at the original. It appears that the web sharpening really blew out his face. Dont get me wrong, it's blown in the original as well, but not as bad as the one shown.

BenJohnson wrote in post #7671582
Why the heck would you overexpose by 2/3 of stop in that light? If anything I'd underexpose and get back some of the blown out highlights in the whites. Even the face appears quite overexposed in that shot.

Jeff, I use evaluative... is that wrong?
I'm struggling with the whites... my son is on a new team and his uniform was not white last season....all the while trying to learn the 70-200mm F/2.8.

xn2b8r wrote in post #7696160
I'm with Dennis and Bill on this one. I'd much rather overexpose at +1/3 to +2/3 and blow some detail in the white uniforms than lose the faces under a cap or helmet. Then, in PP, recover whatever highlights you can, dial in a little more contrast and/or definition, and pump up the vibrancy a bit.

Carol, re your looking so overexposed...I'm wondering if you were using center-spot metering and the camera metered off the jersey?

This was another shot from the same game. I also exposed this one 2/3... should I have stopped down?

This shot looks pretty good to me.

Carol,

The last shot looks better but it still seems pretty "hot" to me, meaning it's blowing out the whites a bit too much. Look at the ball and his hand - they almost look nuclear (BTW, if anyone has read another current thread regarding exposure and image sharpness, here is the only time missing the exposure will kill image sharpness - look at how mushy his hand looks and how there is almost no definition in the fingers or the ball. Granted, some of this could have been the result of it being outside the depth of field, but when you blow out a portion of an image like this all sharpness goes away).

Even in the shadows there isn't much detail in his uniform.

It also kinda looks like you overused the "highlights and shadows" tool in PhotoShop or similarly pushed the image's tone curves. The facial exposure looks a bit too light.

The thing about in-camera metering (employed when shooting Av or the other program modes) is it can be fooled really easily. To some extent you can take charge by dialing in some exposure compensation (how I shoot most day baseball, FWIW) but when the light is like this, you're best off shifting to manual exposure.

To gauge your exposure settings for manual, try selecting Av and shoot the grass (in the sunlight), filling the entire viewfinder with the grass, and then change to manual and add 2/3 to 1 exposure to settings you got in Av. Another option is to take a shot of your hand (again, in the same light as the subject is in) and see how this works. You might still need to add up to one EV of exposure.

Watch the highlight blinkies and your histogram.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I even noticed what my in camera meter was indicating. I judge almost all my exposure with the histogram, highlight blinkies and seat of my pants. You can accept some level of highlights being blown, but I'm guessing you're still 1/3 to 2/3 too hot on this shot.

Be advised that even the histogram can be fooled. There is a lot of dark in this shot (similar to what you get when shooting night football with a flash) so even a properly exposed shot is going to be shifted left of center a bit.

Below is the overall image histogram (on the right) and on the left is the histogram of just the player (you can't get this second one with your camera - I got it by going into PhotoShop and magnetic lassoing the player then displaying the histogram). See the difference? The right one almost looks OK, but the graph of the player on the left shows a lot of clipping at the far right hand side.

Overall, though, I'm picking nits a little. Your second shot isn't bad, but it could be a little better if it were exposed a little lower and gently recovered in post.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the great info Dennis.
Here is the original of the second one, do you think I over did the pping? I think I blew it out even more when I sharpened for web. The problem is I feel like I am underexposing so much but still blowing certain spots out. The one here is only cropped.

Carol,

Unfortunately, once highlights are blown, there's no recovering the information (detail) that would have been contained within these areas with any amount of crafty PhotoShop work. In normal situations, that why it's said that it's better to underexpose a little rather than overexpose.

Again, the second shot isn't horrible by any means. Extreme sun is tough to handle perfectly and usually you just do the best you can. As long as the face looks good, nobody (seriously) will even notice minor highlights being blown out.