Horse Exposure

[royey123]

Hello all - Complete newbie here. Just got my first DSLR and have taken a few practice shots. I noticed the sky is completely blown out of this shot and everything else is a bit dark. I even bumped the exposure up 1. What am I doing wrong? Thank you!

Pentax Kx (18-55mm kit lens)
1/160
F5.6
ISO 200
WB AUTO


Also, metering was set to meter the entire frame.

[navcom]

It looks like your shot was taken in the middle of the day. This alone can contribute to some frustrations with exposure. When the sun is high, the light is very harsh and there are no shadows. Images are usually pretty flat. That's why most landscape photographers shoot during the golden hour (hour before sunset and hour after sunrise)...not always, but for most shots it works best. The light is softer and more "golden", the shadows are longer giving the image more depth, and exposures are a bit more tame.

Also you are dealing with some high dynamic range issues as well. Dynamic range is the range between the darkest and brightest spots in an image. Your eyes can see a range of up to 20 stops of light. A camera can only see about 9. That means if there is a range of more than 9 stops of light, something will have to give. This issue usually is most prevalent in sunrise/sunset photos or images in the middle of the day with a bright and/or white sky.

To deal with HDR, you can use a graduated neutral density filter or you can bracket your shots at different exposures and combine them using software later. Search the forum for either and you will find tons of info.

Hope that helps!