Photographing something with grey sky in background

[Dave McCormick]

I have been trying to figure this out but can't get good shots. Basically some things I am photographing are contrasted to a dark background (such as a grey sky) such as trees or a bird and what I would like to do is get the object not to appear dark against the dark background, so you can see it as you would if looking at it. Anyone know how I could do this? Using either Canon 500D or 600D (mainly 600D)

[MikeOxon]

You could try using fill-in flash. I expect it is quite sophisticated on the Canon and you should be able to vary the amount of flash to get a 'natural' look. It will need practice, though!

Mike

[Dave McCormick]

Might try that, only problem is with most subjects, they are a bit far away for the flash effects to work.

[Clive]

Hi Dave

For an easy way just use exposure compensation, you may need to try a few shots to get it right. Anything between plus 2/3 to 1 2/3 may give you what you’re after.

This shot was plus 1

Another way is to set the camera on manual mode, set the exposure on the ground/grass about 10yds or so in front of you (assuming that the bird or whatever you’re after is in front of you) set to expose plus 2/3.

This shot was in manual on a very dull day! ISO 1600

Hope that helps

Clive

[Dave McCormick]

Sorry for late reply, been so busy moving house and not having internet for a while. Thanks Clive, I'll play around with settings and see what I can come up with. Your right with the exposure compensation. Will try out today sometime.

[dilettante]

Centre-weighted or spot metering modes may also help if the subject is big enough. But generally I'd use exposure lock (AEL) as Clive suggested, although I don't typically go into Manual mode.

Also if you shoot RAW, then even if you don't get the exposure perfectly right, you can often recover detail later.

[Dave McCormick]

Thanks, I have just started shooting in RAW and I know it can be better for retaining quality. I have been taking a lot of photos recently and think I have got the hang of this, I'll post a few images later tonight.

BTW, Clive, forgot to say, cracking shots. Love the Red Kite, is that a red kite? I have only ever seen a few as they didn't seem to start breeding in my area but were around past few years, possibly due to the large numbers of buzzards around (about 30+ pairs).

[MikeOxon]

I have just started shooting in RAW

Shooting in RAW can have a huge advantage in these situations.

Sorry to be 'techy' but the reason is that most cameras save 12 or 14 bit RAW images, whereas JPEG only has 8 bits.

What this means is that, in a JPEG image, there only 256 levels between black and white (actually it's 256 levels for each colour: red, green and blue, making about 16 million different colours, which is as much as the eye can discern). That's fine until you start using the brightness and contrast controls, when these levels can get stretched out, so that there are obvious steps between one shade and the next.

In RAW images,12 bits corresponds to 4,096 levels and 14 bits to 16,384, so there is far more scope for stretching these out, especially in the dark areas of an image, without it breaking up into blotches (technically known as posterisation)

All this only matters if you work on your images in a computer but, if you do, then you should use RAW to make the most of it. In addition several image editors allow you to work with 16 bit images (65,536 levels), which is worth doing if you make large adjustments. The files tend to be huge,though, so convert to 8 bits for the final display of the image.

I show some examples of the banding that can occur on my website at http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming ... olour1.htm , together with a lot more about 'colour spaces'

Mike