blinking hotspots!!

Beginner growing pains - these blinking hotspots are driving me nuts. Every shot I take involves about 8 shots sliding up and down the different exposure settings, all to try and take a shot that does not have any blinking over exposed hot spots.

How concerned should I be with these hotspots?

Is it a common fact of DSLR life?

Should I always strive in eliminate them from all my shots and is that realy feasable?

Regards, Simon

Yes, in general, any shot that has "blinkies" in it should probably be discarded.

I have used a few shots that way, but it was because I knew that I had the center subject well exposed, and I knew that I was going to crop off the outer edges where the blinkies were.

You should not have to take eight shots in order to get one good one.

First of all, you have to train your eye to be able to estimate when that is going to happen. If you have an extremely wide dynamic range of light within one frame, it might happen. This is expecially true if you have a bright sky overhead and a dark foreground subject.

One option is to crank down the overall exposure, and this gets the bright stuff toned down, but it also darkens the subject. This may produce a very dark subject.

One option is to use a graduated neutral density filter. This will darken half of the frame and leave the other half untouched. This works well when there is a nice straight horizon line between light and dark.

One option is to change the composition so that you don't have that extreme range of lights and darks.

---Bob Gross---

Turn off the blinking and learn to use the histogram.

N

What metering mode are you shooting in? What mode is the camera in (eg Av, P)? Are there huge extremes of light and dark in the picture? If you shoot in Av, at a reasonable ISO and with evaluative metering (the little eye), you shouldn't get a lot of overexposure.

Neil, i'm not sure you can turn the blinking off on the 350D, I don't think you can on the 20D either.

Keep in mind you are better off under exposing than over exposing. Turn the exposure compensation dial down a stop in high contrast scenes. I have been amazed by how much detail the raw processors can pull out of dark areas.

I've learned that too Sathi - expose ( under ) for the highlights then develop ( post process ) for the shadows. Made a world of difference in my technology learning curve. This was also a point driven home by Rick Sammon at a lecture I attended last weekend.

Lisa

* keeping in mind that this is what has worked for me in these situations I have encountered ( I almost always underexpose with digital by 1/3 and then more if needed for a higher contrast scene ). What it comes down to is I expose for what I feel is important and if there is too much of a difference in highlight/shadows I of course make seperate exposure and then combine them post process. I am passing it along to use for consideration and not as a be all end all authority on the matter. Others will have different experiences or ways and I respect their right to opinions enough to not tell them they are wrong because their way works for them in what they want for their final product.

That is the reverse to what you should do. You should always expose with the histogram biased to the right if you can't get it in the centre. Pulling detail out of dark areas simply pulls out more noise whereas you can get more detail out of slightly over-exposed areas while keeping the noise free detail in the shadows. The expose to the right technique has been used by most pros since histograms appeared on digital cameras that can tolerate the exposure being pushed. All the Canon cameras are happier with this method.

The ideal is exposure bracketing for difficult shots and then blend in PS.

Oh this is not the first time I have read this opposite information as to under/over exposing issue. Now I dont know what to do. If I get a tripod then yes I can use exposure bracket, but in the mean time I realy dont know.

I agree with KennyG, and I would trust his information. Exposing to right edge, without clipping, is going to give you the most detail and range in your images. This is especially true if you want to maximize the benefits of shooting in RAW mode. It isn't always easy, and like Bob said, know what to expect when setting up the shot. I'd say getting a proper exposure was one the most important technical rudiments of photography.

are your blinkies usually occuring on your foregrounds (subjects) or backgrounds (skies)? i used to have the problem of always blowing out both. Playing around with exposure compensation, using polarizing/nd filters, proper metering and fill flash have helped me fix my problems.

A better way to put that would be, "In a high contrast scene where you really want to preserve the highlights, you are better off underexposing your subject to keep the highlights in the histogram than properly exposing your subject and overexposing the highlights to the point where they are blown off the histogram."

It's never simple enough to explain in one breath.

It's sort of like the game show "The Price is Right." The contestant who guesses closest to the actual price without going over it, wins! The best pictures will be exposed with the highlights as close as possible to the right end of the histogram without going past it (i.e. blinking hotspots on LCD).

In reality, while we all like to preserve color in the highlights, NO ONE likes a picture with an underexposed or grainy subject. Many times in intensely backlit situations I have knowingly "blown out" much of the background to get the subject to look right.

Edit: Here's an example. The background here made the LCD blink like a Christmas tree.

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Good point. Here is a good example of that very technique: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=88147

Yet most people who call themselves photographers have never taken a proper photography course to learn the basics.

---Bob Gross---