Personal Experiences Page 1

The images on this page deal mostly with exposure problems.

The idea for this series of pages came to me while I was re-scanning old pictures for the main photography galleries. In my review of all my slide albums I came across a few images that would have been great if it weren't for one small detail or another. I want to share these images with other photographers and explain to them the mistakes I made or things I neglected to consider while making the photographs. I am also including some images that may not be great, even with a minor oversight or error corrected, but that still illustrate common problems I encounter. It is my hope that others who view these images along with the accompanying text that contrasts what happened with what should have happened while I was making the images will find the information useful and will be able to apply it to their own photography. Keep in mind that I am intentionally not including the most common information that you can find in any photography how-to book. Instead, I am including and focusing on examples of problems that I continually face. Again, I hope you are able to apply some of this information to your own photography and as a result create better images.

Dark Hillside: I was driving along a road on Terceira island when I saw a pristine forest covering a hillside and a beautiful late afternoon sky above it. I pulled over and carried all my photographic gear across the road to look for a good spot to capture it all. I finally found one and this picture is the result. What? You say you don't see that pristine forest? That's because the exposure values of the bright sky and the dark green hillside were too far apart for my slide film to capture them both. So the camera exposed correctly for the sky and left the hillside nearly black. I actually did anticipate this happening and used a 3 stop graduated neutral density filter on the sky but it still wasn't enough. What I needed for this picture was another graduated or hard edge neutral density filter to darken that sky up just enough to get detail in the hill or a dialed-in overexposure to bring detail out in the hill. An overexposure would have also overexposed the sky, though. What I should have done was aim the camera at the sky, get a reading from the meter, then aim it at the hill and do the same. Then I should have compared the two readings. Finally I should have figured out how many stops of neutral density filter I needed to darken the sky sufficiently to get an exposure of the sky and hill to fit into the exposure latitude of my slide film and taken the picture based on that information. But I didn't and this was the result. Photo data: Canon Elan II and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8EX lens in Av on tripod with a Tiffen 3 stop grad-ND filter covering the sky.

Biscoitos Sunset: This picture almost made it into the galleries. I took it right after sunset in Biscoitos, Terceira. The problem with the picture, however, is that the sky is just a little on the wrong side of washed out. I had the right idea when I took the picture; I used a filter on the sky. I just used the wrong one. Instead of the graduated warming filter I used, I should have used a split neutral density filter over the sky to bring its exposure closer to that of the foreground water and rocks. To make things worse (at least in the exposure latitude department), I also used a graduated blue filter over the water which made it about 1.5 stops darker than normal. Photo data: Canon Elan II and Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8EX lens in Av mode. Shot from a tripod with both a Cokin #125 tobacco and Cokin #123 blue graduated filter hand held in front of the lens.

Cactus At Dawn: Taken before sunrise on Terceira island in the Azores. This picture was taken using a flash, and I've never had much luck with flash pictures. I have a 540EZ Canon flash, but I've never been able to figure out why it seems to have less power when I put the camera in Tv or Av mode than when I have it in P mode. Anyway, the first thing wrong with this picture is that the foremost portion of the cactus is fuzzy. In other words, there isn't sufficient depth of field. I needed to stop the lens down to get more of the cactus in focus. But when I put my camera in Av mode to do so, the flash tells me it doesn't have enough power to expose the subject. Which I could understand, except that when I put the camera back in P mode the camera sets an even smaller aperture and the flash doesn't seem to have any problem with it! Well, the next problem with this image is that the light temperature from the flash is too cool for the cactus. I know, that's more of an opinion on what would look best but, since the sky in the picture tells you the time is either sunrise or sunset, the light should be warm because sunlight is at its warmest at sunrise and sunset. So what I feel I should have done is put a warming filter over the flash to warm its light up. Finally, my last disappointment with this image is that, although the exposure for the cactus is correct, the sky should be darker to make the cactus stand out. This is again a flash issue, but I believe I could have easily corrected it by dialing in a deliberate underexposure on the camera. If I understand the way the flash and camera communicate correctly, this would have resulted in a properly exposed subject and an underexposed background when shooting in Av mode. But, again, my flash seems to have less power in Av mode so this would not have been possible. Maybe I have a broken flash, I don't know. But crazy things like this are what keep me from using flash except when absolutely necessary (like in this image). If anyone reading this can explain why my Canon flash system does this and how I can compensate for it, please e-mail me! Photo data: Canon Elan II and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8EX lens in P mode. Shot from a tripod with the Canon 540EZ flash in ATTL mode.

Northwest Terceira: When I jumped up on one of the many rock walls that cover the Azores and saw this scene, I swore that I had one of my best pictures ever in the viewfinder. I took my time framing the scene and put my Blue-Yellow polarizer in front of the lens to brighten up the ocean and cloud colors. I checked my depth-of-field preview to ensure that everything was going to be sharp in the final image. I even took a few shots from different angles to ensure that I would end up with at least one that was sharp and with good composition. But I failed to consider the relative light levels of the bright ocean and sky with the darker green pastures in shade in the foreground. So, when I got the slides back, this is what I saw with much disappointment. I should have thought about the darkness in the foreground and used my graduated neutral density filter over the sky and ocean to enable the foreground to maintain detail within the slide film's exposure latitude. Photo data: Canon Elan II and Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8EX lens hand held with a Cokin Blue-Yellow polarizer hand held in front of the lens.

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