All pictures DARK! (1 Viewer)

Hey Everyone,

I have a D70 w/ 70-300mm VR lens, but I am new to the SLR world. It is cloudy in Michigan, but it seems all the pictures I have been taking come out really dark. The first image posted was shot in Auto mode. It is really dark and looks like what most of my pictures turn out to be.

The second picture was taken in M mode and I had to shoot a few shutter speeds slower just to get it to lighten up a little bit, and it still is fairly dark.

Anyone have any ideas whats going on? It would be nice to not have ever picture extremely dark. Is it just because it is cloudy out or some camera settings I can mess with?

Thanks for any input,
David

It's because you're taking a photo against the sky. In auto made the camera takes an average metering reading from the scene. If it had been a landscape scene or even the bird agains the sky with the sun shining on it then expsoure would have been better.

Whenever the subject is darker than the background the metering will be incorrect for the subject unless you adjust the settings. Likewise a white bird against a darker background needs adjustment as well but the other way.

I usually leave the camera in auto (AV). There's a couple of ways to deal with this. Easiest is to use the EV adjustment. Something like +1.00 EV will correctly expose the bird against the cloudy sky - but of course this depends on how bright the sky is. It varies quite a bit depending on whether it's cloudy or blue skies and even whether the sun is behind you or in front.

The second photo using manual (M) is better but still not quite enough. Opening the aperture another stop at the same shutter speed (or reducing shutter speed but using the same aperture) or adjusting EV would have given slightly better results.

depending on how large the image is you can spot meter of the bird so the cameras meter ignores the background a little difficult with birds in flight, with matrix metering just dial in a stop or two extra, very easy on the D70

By "dialing in a stop or two extra" you mean turning the F-stop from something like F 5.6 to F 8 or something? What metering do you use on manual?

dtpavlik said:

By "dialing in a stop or two extra" you mean turning the F-stop from something like F 5.6 to F 8 or something? What metering do you use on manual?

Click to expand...

Actually the other way round, f8 to f5.6. You want the metering needle to move to the right to overexpose the pic. If you're using Av, this means a longer shutter time. In all modes except M, you can adjust this by pressing the +- button (which I see is next to the shutter button on the D70) and then rolling the wheel (see the bottom of this page).

To try rescuing the pics you have, search for MV's plugins and download the Contrast Mask. Add it to your photo editor's plugin folder (if you're not on a Mac or using Gimp). You can use it to brighten the shadows without killing the bright areas.

As Ian said, all problems solved with your light metering. You simply have to over-lightnen the picture with your Ev settings. Dialing in F-stop (same as widening your lens-opening) will not result in a brighter bird. It will result in your camera compensating the surplus light in the lens with a higher shutter speed, and you will have less depth of field at low F-number (low= e.g. 5.6, high is 8), but also less camera shake.

dtpavlik said:

By "dialing in a stop or two extra" you mean turning the F-stop from something like F 5.6 to F 8 or something? What metering do you use on manual?

Click to expand...

No use the exposure compensation function so for birds in flight meter as normal but then over expose by 1 - 2 stops (trial and error) and view the results, depending what you find you can adjust accordingly. on the D70 mentioned by David this button is the one directly behind the shutter release to the right, press that and turn the command wheel until the display or viewfinder shows your desired setting.

In the images in the first post the brightest thing in the scene is the sky, and it is a pretty even level of brightness. Your camera should comfortably have 3 stops of headroom above a centred meter needle before clipping any of the RGB channels. Using spot metering, aimed at the brightest part of the sky, set a manual exposure to send the meter needle to +2 stops above the centre "0" position. This will allow you a full stop or more of latitude in the highlights to cope with surprises and will expose your bird 2 stops brighter than you currently have it, capturing more detail and reducing the disappointment of noise.

If you shoot raw and are really daring, as I normally am, then dial in an exposure at +3 stops over the 0 and maximise your "Expose To The Right" data capture to give you the best capture you can get. Sort out how it looks in post processing. Note, to do this you do need to meter for the brightest part of the scene for which you want to retain detail. Everything less bright should automatically fall into place beneath that exposure.

Manual exposure keeps things so much easier - no need to master spot metering off a BIF; no need to worry about how much EC to dial in just because the bird flies across backgrounds of different tonal values. If the lighting on the bird remains constant then so should your exposure for the bird. Manual exposure keeps it that way.

Here is a series of images attempting to illustrate by example. I shot in manual exposure mode and spot metered off the brightest part of the clouds in the top centre of the frame as you see it. Of course, I aimed the centre focus point to take the meter reading and then recomposed to frame the shot. The first image is with the meter centred. i.e. I have captured the very brightest part of the scene as middle grey (12%, 13%, 18% or whatever it is this week). There is nothing in the histogram to the right of centre and I have wasted a massive amount of dynamic range. This is akin to the first BIF shot in post #1, where the sky pretty much sets the exposure for middle grey and everything else is buried in the shadows.

I then slowed down the shutter, 1/3 stop at a time, to record a series of captures in raw all the way up to +4 stops above the metered reading. The attachments below show the shot at +0 followed by the shots at +1, +2, +3 and +4 stops above that baseline shot. The sky is somewhat blown at +4 stops but there is detail there to be recovered using highlight recovery in Lightroom or similar. At +3 and +4 stops over I have also recorded good detail in the rest of the scene, other than the sky. To be honest, the +4 stop image is probably the better one to work with.

I'll post the "+4 with recovery" shot in the next post, as I've reached the five attachment limit in this post.

Here's the image at +4 stops, with highlight recovery in Lightroom to pull back the sky.

With a manual exposure set in this fashion I would be free to track any BIF under these conditions and not have to worry whether the background was bright sky, dull sky, a tree or a rooftop - the bird would be well exposed regardless.

The only thing to watch out for with manual exposures is when the light is changing, in which case you need to periodically adjust your exposure, or the light is directional, and your subject can flip from being sunny side facing to shady side facing you (or somewhere in between) as it traverses the sky.

p.s. Shooting raw gives the luxury of little treats like highlight recovery. If you shoot JPEG and want to make sure you preserve detail in the extreme highlights you need to exercise some caution. The +4 shot would certainly leave the sky destroyed as a JPEG SOOC, whereas the +3 shot should hold enough detail to remain interesting. Again, the advantgae of manual is that you can fire a test shot or two and chimp your histogram, look for blinkies and refine your exposure settings, before the time comes to take your money shot. That way you are good to go in advance.

All the images can be corrected.

Thanks everyone for the help. I have been working on it and it seems I can get better pictures now. I also took some pictures against water and ground and they turn out much better.

Thanks again!
David