What Went Wrong?

[JenniferClement]

Camera: Olympus E-620

EXIF:
f/5.6 1/200 ISO 320
Exposure: Auto
Focal Length: 137.0mm
Lens: Olympus 40-150mm
White Bal: auto

It was 7:05 pm as the sun was setting and the lighting was beautiful. Looked awesome in the viewfinder and when I got home and loaded the pics they are all so over-saturated and blown out that I can't use them.

What should I have done with my settings to avoid this? This is a SOOC image but I can't even get adjustments in ACR that will make it look good unless I completely unsaturate it and go black and white, which ruins the beauty of the orange shirt with the rusty bridge.

Advice?

[zona5101]

I think you have detail in the highlights that can be recovered in post. But as far as what happened... look at the scene - there is a lot of dark areas in the foreground and background and one face mixed in there...the camera did a great job on the overall exposure...it's just you wanted a more localized exposure. In situations like this you have to tell your camera what to do... you can either override the exposure with your comp dial or dialing out some exposure in manual...or using spot metering and meter off her face. Even when using spot metering, you need to be smarter than your camera and make adjustments when necessary. Your meter, regardless of mode, wants to make everything a nice even gray - you have to decide if thats ok.

[JenniferClement]

Thanks so much. I have so much to learn about exposure! I have ordered a book called "Understanding Exposure" that will hopefully help. I thought sunset was like the "golden" time to shoot and was so disappointed to see my results. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by JenniferClement

Thanks so much. I have so much to learn about exposure! I have ordered a book called "Understanding Exposure" that will hopefully help. I thought sunset was like the "golden" time to shoot and was so disappointed to see my results. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

I wouldn't worry too much...it looks like you have not blown the hightlights so you can recover in post and also shift the color temp so it more closely represents the scene.

[autofocus]

+10 on what Bruce has already said. The lesson is by shooting a high contrast scene in full auto, you were at the mercy of the camera making the exposure decisions for you. Newer cameras can be pretty smart in figuring out difficult exposure scenes, but you always have to be a little smarter. Having a somewhat wide scene with a subject in front of a dark background like you have here, you'll almost always wind up with an overexposed subject. The opposite would be true if you were shooting a subject with a very bright background (like snow, or backlit, or beach scenes)..the camera will average all that light, and 9 out of 10 times you'll wind up with an underexposed subject. The solution is to shoot in manual mode, and to overexpose (bright backgrounds) and underexposed (dark backgrounds) each of those scenes by a stop or two.

[jdepould]

Many times, slight overexposure can blow out colors, and reds are the first to go. If you have an RGB histogram on the LCD, that can give you a hint as to when you're getting close to clipping the reds (or any other color for that matter).

If you aren't sure about a scene, try bracketing. Expose the image at a few different values--two or three frames with a one- or two-stop spread should be enough--then pick the best one when you get back to your computer.

[JenniferClement]

Yes - all good advice! Thank you! I know now! I had been shooting in Aperture priority but decided to put it in Program - thinking it would know better than me. Wrong! :P I need to learn to bracket. This is a fairly new camera and my first DSLR since the old SLR days of the '80s! I am relearning everything about exposure and my camera's settings. I do sit down with the manual but there are a LOT of options on here and a lot of ground to cover! I'll keep at it!

[JenniferClement]

I'm taking a class at Lynda.com on ACR so hopefully I will know how to recover the highlights when I'm finished and save the image!

[jdepould]

Originally Posted by JenniferClement

Yes - all good advice! Thank you! I know now! I had been shooting in Aperture priority but decided to put it in Program - thinking it would know better than me. Wrong! :P I need to learn to bracket. This is a fairly new camera and my first DSLR since the old SLR days of the '80s! I am relearning everything about exposure and my camera's settings. I do sit down with the manual but there are a LOT of options on here and a lot of ground to cover! I'll keep at it!

Easiest thing to do if you're using one of the automated priority modes is to set the EV compensation (the +/- button).

[JenniferClement]

Okay - good to know, Jamie. Thanks!