How do you guys deal with bright environment with your DSLR or P&S cameras?

I don't have too many pictures on hand to demonstrate this, but I imagine a lot of you will know what I'm talking about. When I was in Beijing this year, I took a lot of pictures in the sun with the Panasonic FZ-8. The problem was that some of my pictures came out dark and the skin tone was like off. Also, when I was at the Summer Palace, some of my pictures came out dark even though there were no sun. I was walking along a path full of trees so it was cool and darker compared to areas with no shade. Yet, pictures came out really dark even with the use of flash. I tried adjusting the exposure and all, but nothing seemed to work. How did you guys solve problems like this? During that whole day, I probably got only 5 or 6 images that were usable. The rest were all garbage. I'm hoping to learn from this so that I won't repeat the same mistake in the future with different cameras.

Here are some links to the photos in my album that might demonstrate this effect. I'll have to search my archives for the others if these doesn't work. Trust me on this, when I was there on that day, the environment was really bright!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrencejunjielee/1478701748/in/set-72157602257325167/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrencejunjielee/1476370054/in/set-72157602257823135/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrencejunjielee/1477785049/in/set-72157602257348319/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrencejunjielee/1477793981/in/set-72157602257348319/

Use a DSLR.
Use a light meter.
Learn about light and choose the most appropriate.

All lighting conditions will not necessarily work let alone well.

Beijing these days is not to bright - beautiful soft light from pollution.

I lived there for some time.

--
Peter

Persuasive Marketing Systems -
inc Copywriting, Design & Photography

From your samples, the exposure is set for the sky and not for your face or the objects (wall, statues, etc). Depending on your camera, you may be able to meter on the object you want to expose for and then reframe/zoom out to your desired composition. Granted, the sky will undoubtedly blow out.

Also, if possible, shoot away from the sun and not towards it. And sometimes some fill flash comes in handy.

When I have to manage a very bright sky and some important subject in the dark,
I often use HDR techniques.

Metering at the right place is often not the solution since your camera cannot manage the difference between the dark and the bright parts of your composition.

Here is an examble where the front wall was important in the composition but I was not able to get a beatiful sky and a proper exposure of the tower.

I setted my camera in exposure braketing mode and in burst mode so I was able to take 5 photos in less than a second to get matching photos.



After, in post processing, I used my favorite HDR technique.
Unfortunately, I did not kept the original photos.

HTH,
--
Michael Ouellet
Quebec city, Canada
http://michael.volcan.ca/

Most of your shots are ok
When you have a lot of bright or gray sky

set camera aperture priority AE and switch to spot meter. meter several areas in the sceen. Split the difference if you have to to get an average of everything but the sky. If you average in the sky it will always make things dark. Set the camera to manual or use the + or - exposure setting in the camera and stay in AE. If the sky goes over exposed add back a different sky later in PS

aimpic said:

Use a DSLR.
Use a light meter.
Learn about light and choose the most appropriate.

All lighting conditions will not necessarily work let alone well.

Beijing these days is not to bright - beautiful soft light from
pollution.

I lived there for some time.

--
Peter

Persuasive Marketing Systems -
inc Copywriting, Design & Photography

Click to expand...

Actually the pollution situation is improving in Beijing. The government has taken some measures to increase the number of clear sky days in the city ever since they got the right to host the Olympics.

When I was there this summer, I think there were about 15-20 days in which there were clear skies and the city was really bright and that's the truth.

Hi Michael,

I do know that I could have made an HDR shot, but I heard HDR doesn't go well with regular snapshots. Also, sometimes HDR creates a rather unrealistic, but very vivid looking picture. I want to recreate an exact composition of what I saw that day.

Hi Sgt,

The objective of HDR is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows. Your eyes can do that but not your camera with one shot.

Good HDR looks realistic. HDR, like any other photos can also looks very artistic if we want.

Obviously, you cannot save a snapshot but if you master this technique, and it is simpler than some can think, you can make photos representing the reality when the difference between bright sky and shadows create a real challenge.

Is the example I submitted do not look realistic?

Even in vacation, when I encounter difficulties to tame the relation of very bright and very dark, I will take 3 photos with different exposition to give me possibility to save the shot by combining them.

The next one is a different example where the only way to make this photo in front of the sun and to clearly see the bushwood was to use the HDR technique.

The compression to present this image on the WEB degrade his quality but to show you what can be do with the light and the shadows, I think you will get the point.



May I recommend you the reading of this basic introduction to HDRI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

Have fun,

--
Michael Ouellet
Quebec city, Canada
http://michael.volcan.ca/

Learn to use flash, simple.

--
Bobby

http://bobbyz.smugmug.com