Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

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goliontus
Topic Author
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:41 am

Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:12 am



Dear All. I am somewhat new to planespotting and haven't had much success on having photos accepted on A.net.

I went spotting a while ago and I thought I had good pictures, but this particular batch seems to get rejected for being too dark/underexposed.

I understand that conditions change and that there are no combination of settings that will work everytime, but can I please have some comments on what I should have changed in this specific scenario.

These were my settings and this is the original unedited photo:

F-Stop: f/8
ISO speed: ISO-100
Exposure: 0 step
Focal length: 250mm
Metering mode: Centre Weighted Average
Exposure time: 1/800 sec

It was a bright sunny summers day.

Should I overexpose or change the metering mode? What in this picture may have caused the underexposure? Was the plane too white?

Thank you in advance.
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dazbo5
Posts: 2719
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 8:05 am

RE: Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:46 am

Quoting goliontus (Thread starter):
Should I overexpose or change the metering mode?

Use evaluative metering, not centre weighted as this will often result in inaccurate metering on aircraft and underexposure as it'll be using the bright white of the fuselage rather than looking at the bigger picture. Bear in mind you may need to dial in -1/3 exposure compensation on bright days to avoid the highlights blowing out.

Darren
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Silver1SWA
Posts: 4848
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2004 6:11 pm

RE: Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

Mon Nov 02, 2015 4:23 pm

Quoting goliontus (Thread starter):
These were my settings and this is the original unedited photo:

F-Stop: f/8
ISO speed: ISO-100
Exposure: 0 step
Focal length: 250mm
Metering mode: Centre Weighted Average
Exposure time: 1/800 sec

For that ISO and aperture on a nice sunny day, your shutter speed should be 1/500 or 1/640. 1/800 is a bit fast and will cause the underexposure.

If you're using aperture priority, dial in +1/3 exposure compensation to tell the camera to slightly overexpose. That should help.
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ckw
Posts: 4586
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2010 12:26 am

RE: Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

Fri Nov 06, 2015 9:51 am

You don't say what camera, but I'll assume it has an option of displaying a histogram of the image.

Learn how to read this, and use it to adjust your settings to suit the conditions. All metering systems can be fooled, and they also vary from camera to camera. The histogram tells you what has been recorded, and so is a reliable source.

Cheers,

Colin
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Bogac
Posts: 108
Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:26 pm

RE: Advice On Dark/Underexposed Pictures

Fri Nov 06, 2015 1:10 pm

that looks pretty fixable. Do you shoot RAW?

If you don't start shooting RAW.  
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