Too dark & Too Light

[Hajar]

What did I do wrong in both photos? Using a Sony DSLR, model I'm not sure as it was not mine.

[tasmo2]

Ok im TOTALLY a newbie here, but maybe it was a bad time of day? I shot my son the other day at 1pm and it was cloudy, when the sun was not behind a cloud it was really over done so I compensated the exp.... but then it went back behind a cloud and they were really dark. kwim? not sure if that is the case or not here.

[teaking]

Could you possibly tell us what mode you were shooting in, and what kind of metering was used?

Could well be the constantly changing light, if the camera does have a light meter or a histogram I would recomend having a quick check on that before pressing the shutter if unsure.

[Hajar]

Thanks! Shall definitely keep that in mind!

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Hajar

What did I do wrong in both photos? Using a Sony DSLR, model I'm not sure as it was not mine.

The first image is underexposed totally. The second image the young lady appears to be properly exposed but the background is overexposed. If you are going to do a lot of shooting like these i suggest getting a hand held meter.

Benji

[Vrinda]

Originally Posted by Hajar

What did I do wrong in both photos? Using a Sony DSLR, model I'm not sure as it was not mine.

To me it looks like the metering is off. Do you have the details of shutter speed/aperture etc for us to look at?

[sk66]

Yep, metering.
Looks like you are using spot metering and in the first it metered for the pole. In the second it metered for the girl but the backlighting caused the rest to blow out.

[Indigo November]

Spot metering is definitely the culprit here! It metered off of what was in the center of the frame, the post and then the girl. Matrix or grid (or average) metering would have been better in this case. Or possibly center-weighted.......