Beach Photos

[Charlz]

Hi Everyone

I must say that this site is really very helpful to beginners in photography, like myself. I constantly read and follow this site. There is just so much to learn. And i would like to thank all you lovely and wonderful people for sharing your talents.

Getting to my topic...the other day i went to the beach, and wanted to get some nice photos. Unfortunatley i got mostly over exposed/washed out photos. I used aperture priority on my canon 1000d and my aperture was f/5.6 as i was using the kit lens (18-55mm) my shutter was 1/200 sec. what settings should i have used in order to have gotten the correctly exposed photos at the beach.

What settings do you use when you take out photos of family at the beach?

thanks in advance for all your help.

[RichardTaylor]

It really depends on the lighting.
Start with the old "sunny 16" guide.

1/shutter speed = F16 @ the ISO in bright sunshine.

Therefore in bright sunshine the exposure would be 1/200 @ F16 for ISO 200.

Check your histogram and take it from there.

[zona5101]

you used aperture priority and your camera told you 1/200 @f5.6...Was it really cloudy? How was the exposure for the sky, good?

[Charlz]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

It really depends on the lighting.
Start with the old "sunny 16" guide.

1/shutter speed = F16 @ the ISO in bright sunshine.

Therefore in bright sunshine the exposure would be 1/200 @ F16 for ISO 200.

Check your histogram and take it from there.

Thank u for the advice. i will try it out

[Charlz]

Originally Posted by zona5101

you used aperture priority and your camera told you 1/200 @f5.6...Was it really cloudy? How was the exposure for the sky, good?

Yes it did. It was not cloudy, it was a really sunny day. im not sure what i did wrong for all my images to be blown out.

[zona5101]

I wonder if you dialed in some exposure compensation? Or maybe were actually in manual and not aperture mode? 1/200@f5.6 is reallllly long for outdoors in sun. I looked at a couple of shots i took recently on a sunny day and i was at 1/1250 at f5.6 in one shot and 1/4000 atf4 in another (iso 200). So your settings tell me something was amiss. Can you see your full exif data...can you confirm the camera was in apreture mode and exposer comp was +/- 0 ??