Originally posted by wildman Easy enough to normalize but it does lose some of the drama and impact take your pick ...
Hmmm, Thankyou wildman. Normalizing the image does lose drama and it gives the image a kind of over processed look that I try to avoid. I think I will aim for a happy medium, so I can retain some of the drama, but the mans skin goes well against the rocks in the background.
Originally posted by johnyates That's the problem with travel pictures--you can't go back when the light is better. I think the approach you use now--expose for the face and let the highlights blow out if need be--is an acceptable compromise. Another approach would be, if you can get your shutter speed down to 1/180, is to use your camera's built-in flash to add a little light to the shadows. Use 'M' mode and adjust the flash output to be ~2stops under ambient.
@Johny To an extent that is the problem I have with all the photos I take as I take street candids. I try to avoid flash as I dont want to burn anyones eyes out (or alert them to the fact I am taking their photo). Also, the sun the the Peruvian highlands is incredibly intense (this foto was at 1/2500). Shooting anything less that 1/1000 (f 8 1/1200 ish if towards sun) is very hard unless you step into the shade in which case 3.5 1/160 is what you should aim for (for a portrait) . It makes life very hard when shooting in the city where you constantly changing light because of the buildings. I shoot in Tav to give me the control I need in terms of aperture and shutter speed. I used to shoot in A mode but I cant stand it when the camera opts for iso 100 and makes a picture blurry when it could have been comfortably shot at iso 500. Normally I try to expose in my head aiming for aperture ~400.
Thank you all for your help. I will keep editing (posting here and on flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/41511062@N02/ if anything worthwhile comes up)
I take very few pictures less than+- 200 pictures is my batch from august 16th to present, so I am almost done.