Thanks for advice

[nee]

All my night photos and fireworks pics were great, I only used p mode and iso 800, no tripod.
The only thing I did notice, was on some photos things like toparies come out darker than you would expect and it seems that a lot of people have this problem.
I am guessing it is something to do with metering but am not sure what you do, any help appreciated.

 

[tigger795]

Hi Nee,

Not knowing what camera you are using I would suggest that the reason that your topiary pictures came out dark is due to the camera's evaluative metering system which tries to come up with what it thinks is the best exposre based on the entire frame. Strong background lighting, such as open sky, can cause the camera to compensate and try to properly expose the sky or light background as well which will cause the foreground subject to be underexposed. If your camera has exposure lock try to zoom in or approach your subject so that it fills the viewfinder as much as possible and then apply the exposure lock, then recompose your photo and press the shutter release. Not sure if this will be possible with full-auto though. You might also read your manual to see if your camera has exposure compensation capability and learn what kind of framing situations would be appropriate for using it.

Hope this helps.

--
Randy

 

[nee]

Thanks Randy, I have the cannon rebel which I bought 2 months ago.
I haven't tried the metering yet and am not sure which one to pick. I must admit although I got some great pictures, the amount of different settings is putting me off and i,m thinking of getting the S3 IS instead.
I am going on a bluebell walk in 2 weeks which will be in a wood with light and dark shadows so your advice will be helpful.

 

[phinz]

An SLR can be very intimidating to somebody who is not used to using one.

Remember: You can use fill flash also. Just because it's daylight doesn't mean you can't use the flash to get some light into the foreground.

Set your camera for aperture priority and open the aperture up. Set the focus and metering for center-weighted or spot. Hold the button halfway down while focused on the topiary in the center. While holding the button down, recompose your picture in the viewfinder and push the button all the way down.

I don't remember if the Rebel has auto-bracketing, but this can be a godsend for you if you're not sure what exposure you want/need. Bracket one stop each direction and you should get a pretty decent exposure in one of the three pictures.