I have a relatively new Canon Powershot Pro 1, with a little over 1,300 shots on it. My question is, with the sun on one side of a locomotive, the other side, the one I'm almost always on, due to tough to get to spots, is very dark. What can I do to change this. My ISO is set at 50, for cloudless days, White Balance is set at "sunny", my shutter speed is between 1/320 and 1/500, I let the camera handle the f-stop itself. Is there a way to pop out the dark side...naturally; i.e., without photoshopping it? I get amazing photos on very overcast days, but, dang it, I wanna soot some great sunny pics, too!LOL!I appreciate your help.
You can disable your automatic exposure feature and set it up for manual operations of shutter speed and or f stop. I'm not familiar with your camera so I'm assuming that you have that capability. You can also try doing some framing using different exposures. If you ever have the chance, find a stationary unit with approximately the same lighting conditions and set the exposure accordingly. That's the biggest draw back about having an auto-exposure camera which simply 'averages' the light it reads. Good luck!
Does the Pro1 have metering options? If so, you might try experimenting with spot metering or other options. Harold
I am not personally familiar with the Pro1, but one of my correspondents uses one. I cannot imagine her using a camera without manual controls. So, you probably have the spot metering option, which I also suggest your using.
Can you bracket exposures with the Pro1? Shooting the "black" side of a loco against the sun is difficult. I know this because I'm shooting my model locos, which are Pennsy RR DGLE--nearly black. Since you can't get to the sunny side, you may be forced into using Photoshop or equivalent to "expand" the exposure range. Photoshop allows you to hold back the highlights while, if needed, enhancing the shadows. We used to call this dodging and burning. Photoshop has those tools, but also has a neat Highlight/Shadow tool. I wouldn't avoid digital manipulation--photographers did it manually with an enlarger for eons. And it was usually hot, stuffy and sometimes smelly work in an enclosed darkroom.
Hi folks, I'm new to this posting thing so here goes. In the case stated for photographing the "dark" side I would use incident light readings. This is simply reading the palm of your hand with the same lighting as on the subject, then open up one stop. Hope this helps. Joe
Thumsup, welcome to Trainboard! Sounds like you shoot like me, lightmeter, manual settings on camera. I would think that spot metering should work as well on a digital camera as on a 35mm. Set it for reading the center, then center your composition on the dark side of the engine. I have been on a couple of photo specials with Nils Huxtable, who produces great calendars, and he always goes over to the dark side. The rest of us stay on the sun side and his shots, with an OLD Pentax, kick our butts!!! The guy is master of exposure in tough situations.
I'm trying some "spot metering" this weekend at the "gooseneck". Just center-mass focusing, right? And the camera compensates for that area with the rest of the screen area?
Thanks Fitz, The only thing about spot metering is the learning curve. You need to be careful where you take your readings. I like to use a modified "Zone system" approach where I use the avg between the highlights and the shadows that I want detail in the final photo. Something I learned long ago when Photographing with a 4 x 5. Now that I moved on to Ditigal I need to find the latitude of exposure. That won't be anytime soon, to much to do.
I often use a zone approach, and also incident light readings with a standard 18% gray card, usually available at photo stores. Thumsup, I haven't used the plam of my hand for ages, and thought you closed down one stop, as your palm is brighter than the standard card. The exposure latitude of a digital is quite a bit less than that of film. It has gotten much wider in just the past few years. Today's D70 or Rebel are much better than, say, the early D1, especially when it comes to shades of white. My professional buddy and I have experimented quite a bit in this area. We've found that many of the pro and prosumer digitals typically tend to underexpose in order to preserve highlights. This leads to a problem with shadows in extreme lighting conditions, and sometimes forces a choice between highlights and shadows. Until I got used to this tendency, I was disappointed with shots taken under anythiing but typical light. But when I learned to exploit it, I was delighted. With the new pro SLRs, the exposure latitude has been increased considerably. I'd look for this increase to find its way down the chain within the next year or so.
