2 Boys at the Beach- Help with Over exposure

[ShannonKG]

I took some picture of my sons at the beach yesterday. While I'm somewhat happy with them, I've found that they're all overexposed. I do tend to like a little overexposure, but I'm not sure if this is just too much. This picture is SOOC. I tried to darken it, but I found it saturated the colours too much and looked over processed.

I was shooting most of the day in 1/250, F 4.5, and ISO 100. I did try to change it the shutter speed around some but I wanted to use the largest aperture possible (my lens doesn't go very big) and it was sunny so I was scared to use a higher ISO.

Should I have increased my shutter speed to help with the overexposure? Did having a larger aperture hurt me? Anything else you can add?

Thanks



Efix:
Flash: Not used
Focal length: 18mm
1/250
F 4.5
ISO 100
Camera Canon

[ShannonKG]

You can see some of the other ones I shot here: Shannon0124's Album Photos on Pixie Photo Sharing!

[EOBeav]

The short answer is yes, you could probably speed up your exposure time and reduce some of those blown spots. But then you risk losing detail in the shadows. And there's the tricky part, shooting in bright sunlight. Since it looks like you have the sun to your right, you might try moving yourself so that the sun is directly to your back, and then adjusting your settings accordingly. That limits you compositionally, but there's going to be a tradeoff in these situations. Other options include shooting when it's cloudy (although we generally don't control those conditions when we're on vacation), or shooting this later in the evening when the light is a little more kind to the camera sensor.

[ShannonKG]

Originally Posted by EOBeav

The short answer is yes, you could probably speed up your exposure time and reduce some of those blown spots. But then you risk losing detail in the shadows. And there's the tricky part, shooting in bright sunlight. Since it looks like you have the sun to your right, you might try moving yourself so that the sun is directly to your back, and then adjusting your settings accordingly. That limits you compositionally, but there's going to be a tradeoff in these situations. Other options include shooting when it's cloudy (although we generally don't control those conditions when we're on vacation), or shooting this later in the evening when the light is a little more kind to the camera sensor.

Thanks for your input. Quick question: if I positioned so the sun was on my back, wouldn't it wash them out more because it would be pointing directly at them? Or am I just thinking of this wrong? lol

[EOBeav]

Bright sunlight and shadows don't play together nicely on a camera's sensor. If I absolutely have to shoot in bright sunlight (and taking pictures of your boys playing is a great excuse to do so), then having the sun at my back reduces the amount of shadows that will show up in my image. Then, I expose for the brightest areas so that I don't blow out those spots. That might include shooting at 1/2000 or greater, depending on other factors. The result is a better overall exposed image. The amount of detail that I lose in those shadows is greatly reduced.

[ShannonKG]

Originally Posted by EOBeav

Bright sunlight and shadows don't play together nicely on a camera's sensor. If I absolutely have to shoot in bright sunlight (and taking pictures of your boys playing is a great excuse to do so), then having the sun at my back reduces the amount of shadows that will show up in my image. Then, I expose for the brightest areas so that I don't blow out those spots. That might include shooting at 1/2000 or greater, depending on other factors. The result is a better overall exposed image. The amount of detail that I lose in those shadows is greatly reduced.

Ah okay. I get it now lol. Thanks for explaining