help needed for statue exposure

[Vallie]

I took this photo at a cemetery. As you can see the sky is blown out, and there is awful blue fringing. I am intending to go back (love cemeteries!) and take some more photos but I would like to take better ones. The shot was taken in winter here and the sky was dull, the statue was very large and I had to shoot up into the sky. I tried manual setting but it lacks spark. I can get rid of the blue fringing and spark it up in Photoshop but I would like some hints on taking a better photo in the first place of this type of subject, my manual settings are a bit hit and miss. Thanks for any suggestions I could try.

NikonD70, lens AFNikkor ED 28-200zoom, taken at 50mm.
Manual setting, F10 at 1/60 and ISO 200, no flash used.

[toryw]

my suggestion is to put F16 maybe then 1/125s ish and do iso 100 then if u have to -3 compensation.
use sunny rule f16

[Vallie]

Thank you. My camera's lowest ISO is 200 though. What is sunny rule f16?

[inkista]

The Sunny 16 rule is a way of estimating proper exposure without a light meter. If it's a sunny day, you set the camera to f/16, and set the shutter speed to 1/iso. So, f/16, iso 200, and 1/200s is going to give you proper exposure.

There are a couple of other things you can try. HDR or exposure fusing would be one (i.e., taking bracketed exposures, and then combining them so that you don't get the blown out sky, but you get the statue properly exposed). Going at a different time of day so that the statue won't be backlit is another (and probably the simplest). Adding fill flash would be a third. Using a circular polarizer filter would be a fourth.

The problem here is that to get the statue exposed that way, the sky is blowing out. The dynamic range of the scene is larger than your camera can record. You need to get that scene back into the range, somehow. Underexposing might help, but you could lose shadow detail.

I'd also recommend learning how to chimp (i.e., looking at the LCD and going "Oo! oo!") and use the histogram/blinkies to judge exposure. That's saved many an image for me by warning me that I need to adjust and reshoot.

[Vallie]

Thanks Inkista, some good info there. I had never heard of the f16 rule so learnt something new. I dont know much about histograms either so I will look up your link. Dont know about jumping around the cemetery like a chimp though, might get some odd looks!

Thanks again.

[Vallie]

I looked up the links about histograms (and got side tracked into lots of other things on that site!). It was all explained so well I hope I can remember it all, really useful and interesting stuff. Thank you, I think the light is starting to come on.

[inkista]

Yeah, Luminous Landscape's a great site, isn't it? Just don't buy the argument about focal length having no effect on depth of field. I've seen it comprehensively mythbusted by Ctein on the Online Photographer (but if you read that, your head might explode. It's pretty dang techy. I just looked at the pictures).

Another good general-knowledge website for turning on the lightbulbs is the Cambridge in Colour tutorials.

[Vallie]

Thanks, looks like some fun reading ahead!