How to deal with bright light/window in background of shot?

When shooting indoors, with natural lighting, where a window in the background contains bright sun light, it tends to blow out the lighting in the window.

Other than Exposure bracketing, what other methods are used?

Well firstly, I would just try to orient my subject so that the window light falls to their front, rather than at their back - if possible. If you have control of the scene it is often easy enough just to switch positions. so the light is at the rear of the camera rather than the rear of the subject.

Second choice is to use flash or reflectors to light the subject so that it matches the brightness of the backlight.

Last choice - subject is more important to light than the bright window, so just let the window blow out and keep the subject exposed.

Among the suggestions offered, consider putting the camera on a tripod and taking two photos adjusting for the exposures. Then using photoshop, artfully merge the two photos together, keeping the aspects of the photos you desire.

If you shoot raw you might be surprised what you can get back. I took this pic a couple days ago and the white driveway was completely blown. So I duplicated the layer and dropped the brightness of the drive by a couple of stops and all the detail was still there. I masked off the rest of the picture and it all looks normal now.

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kezug wrote in post #9963555
When shooting indoors, with natural lighting, where a window in the background contains bright sun light, it tends to blow out the lighting in the window.

Other than Exposure bracketing, what other methods are used?

I point the exposure square so that it takes in both the window in the background along with say the subject I want. Then keeping the shutter button halfway depressed move the camera to frame what I want and take the shot. I'd use fill flash if need be. I'm talking about doing a portrait of someone in front of a window. The whole room would take a bit more sophisticated artificial lighting.

Cheers,
Rene

rbil wrote in post #9966325
I point the exposure square so that it takes in both the window in the background along with say the subject I want. Then keeping the shutter button halfway depressed move the camera to frame what I want and take the shot. I'd use fill flash if need be. I'm talking about doing a portrait of someone in front of a window. The whole room would take a bit more sophisticated artificial lighting.

Cheers,
Rene

That is a good tip. In face,this is where the * button (upper right hand corner) of the camera helps. Half press shutter + * will give you an AE Lock...then you can recompose for your final shot.

You will have to make a sacrifice somewhere, even the G11 at iso-400 is only going to give you around 8 stops of dynamic range (compared to say a Nikon D3x with 11 or 12); in that situation, with natural light and such a small sensor, shadow or highlights are going to be clipped,,, shooting raw is your best hope but physics are working against you.

Ideally you would use bounce flash to retain both the soul of the window light and detail of the person's face.

kezug wrote in post #9966709
That is a good tip. In face,this is where the * button (upper right hand corner) of the camera helps. Half press shutter + * will give you an AE Lock...then you can recompose for your final shot.

Your tip is even better. I never used the * button. Now, if I can just remember to try it.

Cheers,
Rene

Nice shots Tadaaa. I too have found it much easier to recover image details from overexposed shots, compared to underexposed shots. There is a fine line, however, between overexposed that is recoverable, and blown out completely. In overexposed shots, the data is there and can be recovered with some careful PP. Completely blown out highlights are a lost cause though. OTOH, if the shot is underexposed, the data simply isn't there and can't be recovered, no matter what I do.

tgara wrote in post #9971516
Nice shots Tadaaa. I too have found it much easier to recover image details from overexposed shots, compared to underexposed shots. There is a fine line, however, between overexposed that is recoverable, and blown out completely. In overexposed shots, the data is there and can be recovered with some careful PP. Completely blown out highlights are a lost cause though. OTOH, if the shot is underexposed, the data simply isn't there and can't be recovered, no matter what I do.

Yeah, there is just so much you can do in natural light and if the camera can't handle it..... Well, it can't handle it.