[zoomzoomfan]

Two weeks into owning my first DSLR... a K100D.

I've probably taken about 300 shots so far. I'd say about 80% of them suck. And I'm not being modest either.

I showed a shot to a buddy, that I thought was just awesome... the reaction: "So? Nothing spectacular about this pic..."

I know the basic concepts:

1. Aperture
2. Shutter speed
3. ISO

I know that the three are closely inter-related. Adjust one, and the other two also change.

Here's my dilemma: Exposure. My shots are always either under exposed or over. More under than over.

In "standard" light... by which I mean, outdoors photography on a bright day... sun behind me... or on a day that's overcast, my pics turn out more-or-less spot on.

In low light, i.e. indoors, then I really have to push the envelope on my knowledge to get pics that turn out the way I want them to... lots of garbage shots... keep adjusting F-stop, shutter-speed, ISO, Ev value until the shot is correctly exposed.

In sunshine, with the sun facing me... gosh, I haven't been able yet to get a decent shot. Underexposed almost all of the time.

I'm using the histogram to judge exposure.

Now, for the low-light indoors situation, I'm pretty sure that I can fix things by getting a faster lens. Got my eye on a A-series 28mm F2.8.

And, even if I stick with my one and only lens (at the moment) the standard kit lens (DA 18-55 F3.5-5.6), then I guess I can always use long exposures and tripod.

How about the "sun facing me" scenario? I can't seem to figure out right the combination.

Any pros here have any tips? What's the trick to shooting towards the sky/sun?

Also, can someone please point me to a good book and/or web site that will teach me the basics of how to compose shots? Basically, some tips on how to frame shots, where to place the subject, etc, etc.

TIA

[mmcmanamey]

If you are using the typical averaging setting on your camera for light metering, the "sun facing me" or 'backlit' shots will be under exposed because the camera is averaging the light off your subject, which is in shadow, and the bright sky behind it. There is simply not enough tonal range to show both properly exposed. Here's a couple methods to try:

1. Switch your camera to 'spot' metering mode and AE-Lock or manually set your exposure off your subject, making sure that your subject is in the proper location of the viewer to get an acurate reading.

2. Turn around. Take a meter reading off the palm of your hand (or an 18% gray card) while holding it in your down own shadow. Lock in that setting and you should have better results with shadow details and backlit senarios.

Keep in mind that if you look at the histogram for a backlit shot, the graph is going to be blown out on the top end because you are overexposing the sky.

As far as indoors, fast lenses and fast ISO only get you so far, sometimes you need to add light of your own (i.e. on camera or off camera flash).

[atupdate]

Also, can someone please point me to a good book and/or web site that will teach me the basics of how to compose shots? Basically, some tips on how to frame shots, where to place the subject, etc, etc.

TIA

Ron Bigelow has three Advanced Composition chapters at his web site

Articles


and this google search provides several options

photograpy composition - Google Search

Here is a camera simiulator that will let you play around with ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed.

The SimCam: Film and Digital Camera Simulator - Photonhead.com

Hope this helps.

Tim

[TaoMaas]

I showed a shot to a buddy, that I thought was just awesome... the reaction: "So? Nothing spectacular about this pic..."

Whoa! Do NOT take your buddy's opinion as gospel, even if he's a good photographer! Everyone has different tastes. There may be nothing wrong with your pic....maybe it's just not the type of photography your buddy likes. I got into a discussion with one of my co-workers once about what photography is or isn't. She had just purchased a copy of William Albert Allard's "Portraits of America" in the close-out bin at a local bookstore. For $12, it was a killer buy! (I even went out later and picked up a copy for myself. ) She held the book up and said, "THIS is what photography is! It's all about the people. Landscapes and still lifes do nothing for me. This is true photography." I told her that I agreed that Mr. Allard was an awesome photographer and that I had a couple of his other books. But his work was NOT the ultimate in photography, even though it may be among the best in photojournalism. We went back and forth for a while with her continuing to insist that this book was indeed the ultimate in photography. I finally said, "I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. It's not just me disagreeing with you. MOST folks would disagree with you." She said, "How would you know?" So I said, "Look...This book is some of the best work by one of the best photojournalists of our time, agreed? But if we walk out into the hallway and ask people if they know who he is, how many will recognize his name? Now, if we asked those same people if they've ever heard of Ansel Adams, how many will know who he is? Besides, where did you find this book? Wasn't it in the close-out bin? It wasn't put there because it was selling so well." I'm sorry for being so long-winded. I'm just trying to make the point that everyone has an opinion about photography and sometimes, even if you're among the best at what you do, a book featuring your best work won't sell. lol Shoot pictures that YOU like. Then, even if nobody else likes them, at least you'll be happy, right? lol

[MJB DIGITAL]

your buddy might not even be looking at the exposure or quality like you

remember that when people look at a photograph, they rarely see the photo....they see the subject in the photo.
so, if you were to have shown him a terrible exposure of an elephant and a giraffe having sex he would have gone apesh*t over it....

get it?

[bymy141]

Two weeks into owning my first DSLR... a K100D.

Here's my dilemma: Exposure. My shots are always either under exposed or over. More under than over.

In "standard" light... by which I mean, outdoors photography on a bright day... sun behind me... or on a day that's overcast, my pics turn out more-or-less spot on.

In low light, i.e. indoors, then I really have to push the envelope on my knowledge to get pics that turn out the way I want them to... lots of garbage shots... keep adjusting F-stop, shutter-speed, ISO, Ev value until the shot is correctly exposed.

TIA

Are you sure it is not something simple as:
1. the position of light measuring switch? It is not in spot mode?
2. the limitation of the ISO value that the camera can change in Sv or TAv mode?
I have no such problems, unless the camera is limited by the ISO range or I've left it in Spot mode, and I'm working with small aperture lenses as well, .

- Bert

[Mike Cash]

Two weeks into owning my first DSLR... a K100D.

I've probably taken about 300 shots so far. I'd say about 80% of them suck. And I'm not being modest either.

I've taken about 12,000 shots with my K100D.

And without being modest, at least 80% of mine sucked too.

I showed a shot to a buddy, that I thought was just awesome... the reaction: "So? Nothing spectacular about this pic..."

Click on and take a glimpse at any of these photos. The reaction you get from your buddy is precisely the same reaction I get from my wife, children, and coworkers. People interested in photography and people who aren't look at pictures in entirely different ways.

I know the basic concepts:

1. Aperture
2. Shutter speed
3. ISO

I know that the three are closely inter-related. Adjust one, and the other two also change.

Not exactly. Change one and another one has to change.

My only advice for your exposure issues is to suggest center-weighted metering (or center-spot metering, which some others have recommended), and to set your camera to use only the center AF point and to link exposure metering to the AF point.

It also sounds like perhaps you are over-thinking some situations and consequently getting yourself frustrated....a situation which is counter-productive. If you had this whole deal all figured out and nailed down in just 300 shots, you'd be some kind of a danged genius, so cut yourself a little slack here.

For low-light situations, the kit lens sucks....especially if you have it out at the 55mm end, where its best aperture is a dismal 5.6.

[Mr Hyde]

For your back lighted scenes problem you can do what mmcmanamey suggested. It will work but the already bright background will be totally over exposed. Sometimes this is exactly what you want so its a good option to remember.

Another option would be to use a flash for fill. Set your camera in a mode where you can force the flash to fire. When you take the shot the flash will fill in all the dark areas and the backgrould should not be affected. Of course this will only work if the subject is close enough to be affected by the flash.

[WMBP]

I know the basic concepts:

1. Aperture
2. Shutter speed
3. ISO

I know that the three are closely inter-related. Adjust one, and the other two also change.

These are SOME of the basic concepts. ;-)

Here's my dilemma: Exposure. My shots are always either under exposed or over. More under than over.

In "standard" light... by which I mean, outdoors photography on a bright day... sun behind me... or on a day that's overcast, my pics turn out more-or-less spot on.

Good, that's an important start.

In low light, i.e. indoors, then I really have to push the envelope on my knowledge to get pics that turn out the way I want them to... lots of garbage shots... keep adjusting F-stop, shutter-speed, ISO, Ev value until the shot is correctly exposed.

In sunshine, with the sun facing me... gosh, I haven't been able yet to get a decent shot. Underexposed almost all of the time.

I'm using the histogram to judge exposure.

Now, for the low-light indoors situation, I'm pretty sure that I can fix things by getting a faster lens. Got my eye on a A-series 28mm F2.8.

Spending money on equipment isn't the solution. It may help, but it will help you more AFTER you understand the problem well. Not discouraging you from spending your money as you wish to spend it. Just letting you know that you could spend thousands of dollars and still have the same problems.

There are many different types of exposure problems. You describe a couple different ones.

Sometimes, there's just not enough light for your camera. You can't shoot in total darkness, of course, but we seldom encounter total darkness. Shooting in darkness that is less than total can be very challenging, but it is possible. You need to slow down the shutter, and/or open up the aperture, and/or increase the ISO. Keep in mind that shutter speed is the factor over which you have the greatest control. Try an experiment. Late at night, turn off nearly all the lights in your living room, leaving just one lamp on. Put the camera into Manual mode, open up the aperture all the way (f/3.5 or f/2.8 or whatever) and put the ISO up to, say, 800. Set the shutter speed to 1 full second and take a photo. If it's still dark, slow the shutter down further to 2 seconds. Doesn't matter if the photo is blurry (in other words, don't worry about putting the camera on a tripod -- just try to hold it as still as you can). Somewhere in there you should be able to get a photo that's remarkably well lit, a photo in which you can see items in your room that you couldn't see with your naked eye. Now you know that you CAN photograph with your camera even in very low light. And you know also that the most flexible control you have is shutter speed.

Now, if you're trying to take photos indoors, say, of parties, or your children playing, if the subjects are moving, then very slow shutter speeds and tripods are impractical. Does that mean that you can't photograph these things? Well, it certainly may mean that you can't take photos with ambient light. But that's one of the things that flash is for. If it's dark enough, you may just need normal flash -- in other words, let flash provide pretty much all the light. If you have a good bit of ambient light, just not enough for a well-exposed photo, then you may be able to drag the shutter (use flash with a very slow shutter) to let the ambient light complement the flash. Here is a link to a series of photos I put up recently showing how this works.

Now, what if you're outdoors, in the daytime, with the sun shining brightly BEHIND your subjects? This is a difficult lighting scenario even for pros -- and it's quite a different kind of problem from the one discussed in the previous paragraph. There are a couple possible ways to deal with the challenge of shooting towards the sun. Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to avoid it. Move your subjects into the shade or at least move them so the line between you and them is perpendicular to the sun's direction. But if you can't do that, then you have only three options. First, you can expose for the subjects' faces and blow out the background. Second, you can expose for the brightly-lit background and end up with silhouettes of your subjects (which can be a nice effect!). Or third, you can equalize the lighting in the scene. You can sometimes equalize and control the lighting using reflectors, but the obvious and easy way to do it is using flash. Flash with high-speed sync lets you throw light forward at your subjects' faces, while using a shutter faster than the x-sync speed of the camera/flash (for your K100D, I think that x-sync is 1/180th sec) so you let less of the sunlight reach the sensor. But you can use fill flash with normal leading-curtain sync and I generally do. Exactly what you do varies from shot to shot, but you might want to point your flash right at the subjects and increase the flash exposure compensation (NOT the exposure compensation in the body of the camera!) by +1, in other words, make the flash brighter. Or not. I find this hard and usually have to take one or two shots, look at the LCD, and adjust.

Here's the problem in a nutshell. Nearly every scene that you photograph will have areas that are darker and lighter. (There's more to it than dark and light, but let's leave it at that right now.) Sometimes, the dynamic range between the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights is not too great and the camera can capture that entire range satisfactorily. But our eyes are sensitive to a greater dynamic range than the camera's sensor is. When we try to photograph a scene whose dynamic range exceeds the range of the camera, we're faced with a difficult exposure problem.

Happens quite a lot. I'm sitting here looking at my living room right now. It's late afternoon and I have no lamps on. The room feels fairly dark. But there's plenty of sunlight outside and some of it is coming through the windows. I can see detail in the shadows throughout the room -- and I can also see the detail in the curtains on the windows and the light doesn't seem excessively bright to me. But my camera can't see all that. If I shoot at 1/1000th sec, the windows look fabulous but the sofa becomes a lump of blackness; if I shoot at 1/15th sec (six stops slower), the sofa is pretty well exposed, so I can see the texture in the cushions, but the windows are completely blown out.

So I have to make a choice. Using the natural/ambient light, my choices are: expose for the windows (and lose the detail in the shadows) OR expose for the dark sofa (and blow out the highlights in the window) or split the difference (and lose some of both the highlights AND the shadows). But there's another possibility. Don't accept the light as it is. Instead, take steps to reduce the dynamic range -- to equalize the lighting in the scene. And that means manipulating the light. I could lighten the shadows with flash or by turning on lights inside the room. Or I could reduce the sunlight by, perhaps, putting up a screen of some sort on my porch to lessen the amount of sunlight that reaches the windows.

Anyway, the basic problem is not that I don't have a slow enough lens. A faster lens might give me a few more options to try before I despair. But the basic problem lies with the sensor in my camera. Same for you.

Film photography has a similar set of limitations, by the way. Dealing with these limitations effectively is a very great part of the craft of photography, and it's something that takes a long time to get good at, and I don't think it ever gets truly easy for anybody. (I at least am a long way from being able to do well consistently without thinking.)

So don't beat yourself up! If you can take spot-on exposures in good light, and 20% of all your shots are coming out satisfactorily, I'd say you're doing pretty well.

Want more info? There are a zillion places to go. Bryan Peterson's book Exposure is frequently recommended as a good place to start.

Will

[lapeen]

I usually find that threads like these are better accompanied by photos, or a link to a gallery. It's hard to know if you are just being hard on yourself, or if there are just a few things you are 'missing' ...or even if maybe there is something wrong with the camera!

[AVANT]

As others are saying, there's a lot more to photography than what you've stated, but seems like you know that (asking for resources).

Another option is to try a digital photography class at your community college. You get to meet other photo enthusiasts and forces you to try to take certain types of shots.

Also know that photography is so expansive that most of us are still learning about it, even the pros.

As for your lighting question. There are 2 main options I would recommend. 1 is to pick for either the sun or another subject to show up correct (by using center weighed metering on your desired subject). Or 2, Add light. If the sun is behind your subject (say a person), pop up your onboard flash (since you probably won't have a reflector with you) and take the picture.

[aabram]

Whoa! Do NOT take your buddy's opinion as gospel, even if he's a good photographer! Everyone has different tastes.

Disagree. Pro / good photographer may have different taste and working in different field, but he'll be able to appreciate a good photo, whatever the subject.

One common pitfall (that I myself have been through) is that when you start up with new thing (new camera, new lens, new PP program) then for a while everything you do seems totally awesome to yourself. Witness the flood of "my first pics with ..." posts in popular photography forums. I thought my first 2000 shots were awesome too. Well, they were not. Not composition-wise, not lighting-wise, not subject-wise and certainly not overall quality-wise.

Can't comment on OP pics though.
WMBP and mmcmanamey advices are very sound.

[gpaual]

zoomzoom.....first of all, welcome to the forum.......secondly, remember to sprinkle a few grains of salt here and there...i.e. not all is pure law.........when i returned to photography after several years of painting again i was befuddled by the digital thing too, and why my images all seemed washed out or this and that......patience, practice, and investigation....it'll all come together along the way.......an interesting site i came across re' exposure is below.....i believe it is designated for film, because i find variations apply, however, it is a good estimator and give a wonderful explanation of exposure in general.....good luck and hang in there, enjoy your endeavors...." keep interested in your own career however humble.......it is a REAL possession in the changing fortunes of time...."http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

[Deni]

I'm surprised no one asked for a sample. So post a sample pic, maybe the one you showed to your buddy.

When you say the photos suck, are they out of focus, underexposed (too dark), overexposed (too bright)? When you shoot during daylight and the subject you're shooting has the sun, or a bright light, in the rear then you're better of using the flash (fill flash).

[TaoMaas]

Disagree. Pro / good photographer may have different taste and working in different field, but he'll be able to appreciate a good photo, whatever the subject.

Sometimes, yes...sometimes, no. IMHO, this is one of the things this forum does best. Most of our members seem to appreciate all styles of photography. But there's also quite a few photographers outside of this forum who bring an agenda to the table and discount all pics that don't fit into their view of the ideal photo. Also, too often jealousy plays a role in people's opinion. I've seen photographers discount another's work simply because they view themselves as a superior photographer, so they have a hard time acknowledging that someone besides themselves are capable of during out quality work. I gave an example of a person who brings a huge amount of bias into her views of photography. (Btw, this person recently landed a VP job with one of the largest ad agencies in the country. One of her duties will be hiring photographers for the project she's heading up.) The original poster gave no hint as to the photographic expertise of his buddy. That person may have absolutely no frame of reference of what constitutes a good photo beyond "I know what I like". That's not a bad frame of reference, btw...it just shouldn't be taken as the final word on the worth of a photo, which is the point I was trying to make to the original poster.

One common pitfall (that I myself have been through) is that when you start up with new thing (new camera, new lens, new PP program) then for a while everything you do seems totally awesome to yourself. Witness the flood of "my first pics with ..." posts in popular photography forums. I thought my first 2000 shots were awesome too. Well, they were not. Not composition-wise, not lighting-wise, not subject-wise and certainly not overall quality-wise.

Can't comment on OP pics though.
WMBP and mmcmanamey advices are very sound.

You are SO on the money with this one! I have a friend who ought to be the poster child for this "ain't I great?" attitude. LOL LOL He thinks every frame he turns out is pure gold. But I think we may be doing the original poster a disservice to include him in that category. He seems to be just the opposite, in fact. He freely admits that 80% of what he's shot is crap...and even throws in that he's not being modest. lol That leads me to believe that he's already doing a large amount of self-editing and makes me think that there may be some worth to the one good pic he's come up with that his buddy isn't seeing.