Blown Highlights!

Considering the pic below, I was wondering what settings would work best with this condition with the light coming in from the door and window?
I tried several different settings and could'nt really get anything acceptable.
Is there a way of shooting this scene w/o blowing the highlights?
Thanks in advance for any advice!



Camera model: PENTAX K100D
Date/Time: 2006:12:23 03:36:12
Resolution: 800 x 532
Flash used: No
Focal length: 17.0mm (35mm equivalent: 25mm)
Exposure time: 0.050 s (1/20)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv.: 800
Whitebalance: Manual
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure: Manual

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Have you ever noticed if someone calls you a 'monkey' it's an insult, but if they say you came from a monkey, that's 'science'?

Looks like the dynamic range of the scene is way more than that of the camera (or probably any camera, for that matter).

Four possible solutions come to mind:

1) Reduce the contrast setting in camera if shooting JPEG (probably won't help much in this extreme case

2) Increase the brightness of the room, e.g. by using flash

3) Decrease the brightness outside - e.g. by waiting till dusk

4) Shoot two exposures - one for the room and one for the windows, and then combine the two pictures into a single 'high dynamic range' image using a photo editor on a PC/Mac

Cheers, and Happy Holidays
RJP

Thanks RJPhipps, I'll have to read up on how to do that double exposure thing you mentioned and try it out sometime.
Merry Christmas!
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Have you ever noticed if someone calls you a 'monkey' it's an insult, but if they say you came from a monkey, that's 'science'?

One other thing that may help is reducing the ISO setting to the minimum, (may then need to use a tripod due to slow shutter speed). I just saw you used ISO 800.

At a lower ISO you may get slightly increased dynamic range, and there will also be a lot less shadow noise. This may enable the image to be adjusted more in an editor with less image degradation.

However unless you reduce the contrast of the scene, by manipulating the light, it may still be difficult to get a satisfactory result.

Cheers,
RJP

I'd be surprised if any digital camera could handle this, 1/20sec f5.6 at iso800 aimed at basically outdoor daylight is asking rather a lot. Having said that, I've found that RAW with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or Bibble Pro is the best way of preserving highlights with a K100D. It can be surprisingly effective compared with straight jpgs out of the camera. I couldn't get the same results with Silkypix but I've only tried the free version which lacks tools. You may have to play around with contrast, exposure and curves in these RAW processors to make the most out of them though.

I forgot about tweaking ISO, DPR found that the best dynamic range was at iso400.

Try shooting in RAW in bracketing mode. Or you could try to underexpose to get the windows right and then bring out the shadow detail in post processing.

Thanks everyone for the info, I appreciate it!
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Have you ever noticed if someone calls you a 'monkey' it's an insult, but if they say you came from a monkey, that's 'science'?

I would suggest taking the picture when the sun is not coming through the door like that. The other suggestion of bracketing along with a tripod, then blending would be another option.

Maybe too, you could block the light a little from the other side of the glass with a sheet.

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Andy Anderson

Hi there:

All the above answers are good ones. There is one more technique you can use in PP'ing. Use the lasso tool around the windows then use the burn/dodge tool to get the exposure you want for the windows.

Hope this helps. Merry Christmas.

Regards,
Greg Tinsley
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F8 and be there.

I usually solve this by using the lowest Iso setting and a fast shutter speed, usually around 125 or 160. It varies per scene. Then I bring up the detail in the shadows with a little curve in Photoshop and use the history brush on the windows to return them to proper exposure. Hope this helps.
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BobT

I shoot real estate photography all the time. Don't sweat the blown out windows too much. You can tone them down some so that they aren't blinding you but your main priority should be to properly illuminate the interior scene.

The difference in lighting between outdoors and indoors is often too extreme for it to be practical to expose both outdoors and indoors properly at the same time. Look at photos in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, for example. For the majority of their photos, the windows are just a white light. Their photographers spend all day in a house with an entire crew of photography people and all kinds of expensive equipment and lighting. They still can't always overcome such extremes in lighting.

However, there are exceptions. Sometimes the exterior scene such as a beautiful mountain view through the windows is something you really want to capture. In this situation I put the camera in manual mode, use a fairly wide aperture and set exposure for the exterior scene. The wide aperture is necessary to capture as much flash light as possible. DOF shouldn't be a real issue since you are probably using a wide angle lens.

Setting exposure for the outside, of course will greatly underxpose the interior scene. Therefore I need to use my Pentax external flash (the onboard flash is rarely enough flash for interior real estate). I put the flash in manual mode and usually have to crank up the output to 1/1. Sometimes this will work, sometimes it won't. The brighter it is outside the more difficult it is to pull this off. But even if the interior in the photo is still a little on the dark side, I can often brighten it up in Photoshop.

But unless there is something compelling outside that window that must be photographed, I don't worry too much about getting a clear view of the exterior scene through those windows. The main subject is the interior scene. If I want to capture beautiful scenery I'll go outside and take some nice landscape shots.

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Allan Plucinik
Colorado Springs, CO

With such huge contrast, even with multiple exposures for HDR you will have a problem with bright light bleeding onto the darker areas in exposures where you are trying to expose for the shadows. That is not gong to be trivial to remove in post-processing to make it crisp. In addition to multiple exposures you should try either a very slight fill-flash, or perhaps a white reflector to make life easier for yourself.

Taken with the istDS, ISO 400, Pentax 16-45 lens and AF-360-FGZ. I don't have the exif data for shutter and aperture settings. I'll admit though that it's a little more difficult to pull this off if the interior walls are darker, but still not impossible.



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Allan Plucinik
Colorado Springs, CO

That's pretty impressive Alan, I was in Denver this summer, Colorado has some beautiful scenery.
-Chris

no text

RJPhipps said:

Looks like the dynamic range of the scene is way more than that of
the camera (or probably any camera, for that matter).

Four possible solutions come to mind:

Click to expand...

RJPhipps said:

4) Shoot two exposures - one for the room and one for the windows,
and then combine the two pictures into a single 'high dynamic
range' image using a photo editor on a PC/Mac

Cheers, and Happy Holidays
RJP

Click to expand...

1. 4 is how Ive done it for years. Even before Photoshop we had Xacto knives, clear plastic, and copy stands.

Digital is not magic, just convenient.

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'We have met the enemy, and he is us!' - Walt Kelley

I would have...

1. Shot in RAW these kinds of images are perfect for raw.

2. If I wanted what was outside to not be blown out I would have either metered in one of the windows or found a lighter spot in the room that was between the darkest and lightest (in this case windows) and tried metering off that with the hopes it would have given you a better balance with the rest handled in post processing of the RAW file.

3. I would have shot 10 to 20 shots (if it was a really important shot) using different areas with spot metering to meter with the hopes that one would have done it keeping 2 above in mind as I did so.

I find it easier to under expose for things like the windows and then expand the dark areas in raw processing and then if needed (since dark shadows tend to have a lot of noise) noise reduction in Photoshop with Noise Ninja or NeatImage or something similar.

Robert

Wow! That looks like a picture on the wall!

Nice shot! I thought that was a picture on the wall at first!

aplucini said:

Taken with the istDS, ISO 400, Pentax 16-45 lens and AF-360-FGZ.
I don't have the exif data for shutter and aperture settings.
I'll admit though that it's a little more difficult to pull this
off if the interior walls are darker, but still not impossible.

--
Allan Plucinik
Colorado Springs, CO

Click to expand...

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Have you ever noticed if someone calls you a 'monkey' it's an insult, but if they say you came from a monkey, that's 'science'?