Fire Truck

[pittbug]

This is my first post here after lurking for about a week. I picked up a Nikon D90 about 2 weeks ago mainly to get better shots of the kids, but decided to go around my local town and practice. As I was in a local park, I heard sirens down the street, so I ran to the entrance, just in time to snap this shot. Most of the photos I've taken so far I either really like, or I don't care for at all, but this one has me stumped.

Edit: I know it's dark but is it too dark? What could I have done differently?




Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: VR 18-105mm
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

[windrider86]

Within the guidelines that are posted at the top of each page, are vital information that you need to know to post in the critique section. Please read thru them and edit your post with the information it's lacking. Thank you!!!

Holler if you need help!


The concept is certainly there for the fire truck. However the background is too busy (takes away from the man subject) and its too dark.

[jpitz31]

Yes the image is under exposed notice that white in the fire truck is gray, also all of the detail in the trees are gone. What happened here is that when the camera metered the scene it saw the bright sky and exposed for the sky and under exposed everything else.

When shooting you have to be aware of the areas of brightness and shadows in your scene. You can change the metering of your camera to a variety of settings or if you know that one area of the scene is going to affect the image more than the other you can make EV adjustments (done in increments of 1/3 of a stop in most cameras)

1 stop of aperture or 1 stop of shutter speed is half as much light or twice as much light, depending on which way you adjust these two settings. Larger aperture or slower shutter speed by one stop is twice as much light, Smaller aperture or faster shutter speed by one stop is half as much light.

Even though you have a meter on your camera, sometimes the meter does not know what you want metered. This happens when the scene is weighted more towards brightness or shadows. In your case the meter was confused by the very bright sky and adjusted accordingly.

Learn to think and see like your camera. Look at spot metering and matrix metering. Look in your camera manual or google it.

Thanks

Joe