Advice for light and dark

[Shirley Roulston]

How should a photo be taken when the butterfly is dark and the flowers are light, with this photo the flowers are too bright and the Ringlet is too dark, if I try to use less brightness on photoshop then the darkness goes very grey. If I try to get more butterfly than flower the image of the butterfly is too big. Any ideas please?

DSC05641 (Small).JPG (36.57 KiB) Viewed 673 times

I know its not a very good photo, the head is blurred.
Shirley

[wavelea1]

Shirley

Always a conundrum but the win with digital is that you can always increase the lighting on the computer - assuming that your are using software to keep your photos.
If the Ringlet was too light then unless your software is bespoke such as Photoshop there's nowt you can do. Increasing the shadow effect does not affect the light quality of the main subject.

I actually go out of my way to slightly under-expose the butterfly (-0.7) to reduce the liklihood of over-exposure.

My advice is correct the lighting on the computer - this will result in slight over-exposure of the flowers but in harsh sunlight it's a cross we have to bear.

Another way is to go out in the evening when the light is at its best - I recently took my best Comma pics ever at 7.30 in the evening

Mike

[eccles]

In Photoshop try Images/adjustments/levels and play around with the three sliders. You should be able to boost blacks a little to show more detail but avoid blowing the highlights. Using the 'curves' function does something similar so you can play with that as well.

When shooting you could also try a little fill-in flash. Try setting the flash - 2 stops compensation so as not to flatten the image too much.

Your A100 also has DRO (dynamic range optimisation) which boosts shadow levels in the camera, but you should use this with caution as it'll tend to underexpose to preserve highlights and in doing so increase noise in the shadows. But it does work.

If you're not shooting raw yet, it is well worth learning how as you'll gain the ability to pull more detail from blown highlights and dark shadows.

I'm not sure I fully agree with Mike on underexposure with an A100 in general, as they are not very tolerant of this. But if you're using spot metering on a dark butterfly then this approach makes sense.

[Shirley Roulston]

Thanks to you both now I've got some direction to go to instead of taking loads of the same photos.
Shirley

[Malcolm Farrow]

I agree with Eccles, a touch of fill-in flash is a good approach, ideally fired through some sort of diffuser to soften it as much as possible. You want to achieve an image that looks naturally lit, so the flash needs to be subtle enough not to be noticeable. Under-exposing the flash is the way to go.

I always think it's best to try and get the picture as 'right' as possible at the moment of taking, rather than try to repair it later on the computer. Obviously, some things are unavoidable, but with good technique high contrast subjects or backlighting can be exploited to great creative effect.

Hope this helps.

[Shirley Roulston]

It does help, thank you Malcolm.
Shirley

[LCPete]

Hi, I've had the same problem in the past and can only agree with the excellent advice already given
I always shoot raw and my best shots of ringlets have been in the morning before the sun comes up
Pete