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Overexposed Photo - Whites Blown


Dxenion
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I borrowed an SLR to have a bit of a play for the first time. Happened by chance (not planning) to capture an image I like but I obviously had the wrong settings and overexposed the photo badly. The dog is a White Swiss Shepherd but he's not that white! I've tried photoshop - duplicate layer, multiply but this doesn't fix the image.

Can it be saved or will I have to try again?

IMG_0649.jpg

If I have to try again, could someone please provide a SLR for dummies guide on exactly what settings will get the sharpest image when shooting in continuous mode. The dog will be moving left to right under a patio and it could be overcast or with a little sun. Camera is a Canon EOS500D with a EFS 18-55 lens.

I've included the photo data for this image so someone can tell me where I went wrong. Camera was in M mode if that helps.

post-37151-0-91328600-1311677135_thumb.jpg

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Bad luck because it is a nice shot. First prob was your very high ISO. Maybe bring it back to 200 or 400. Then set on aperture priority, set your aperture to f8 (5.6 was you second prob, letting too much light in). The aperture priority has a Canon buzz-word I'm not sure of. Anyway that is going to let the camera choose the shutter speed to suit the aperture. See how that goes. Then try on shutter priority (another Canon buzz-word needed) with a shutter speed of at least 250th so you can hand hold without giving the blur that 125th has given you (125th is just a bit slow for hand holding). Shutter priority will hold the speed at 250th and allow the camera to choose the aperture.

If you can borrow the camera again it's worth playing around. If you can only borrow it as a one-off again, take some shots using automatic. Then some on automatice 'sports mode' to get a higher shutter speed. Make sure the battery is freshly charged so it is not letting you down, and have a new or newly formatted card so you can take lots.

Trying to salvage severe over-exposure isn't generally successful - if the image is burned and gone there is nothing to salvage.

But the main thing in this shot is the ISO, just too high for those manual settings of 5.6/125th. A Canon user might have something more Canon-specific to offer.

And go back to Kirislin's thread - http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/223830-very-clever-especially-for-new-dslr-owners/ - and check out her simulator link. It is a clever way of showing correlation between ISO, shutter and aperture (which are the basic three corners of correct exposure).

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As far as I understad it once you blow out/overexpose a shot or part of a shot, there isn't any way to fix it as technically there is no pixels in the blown out area to work with. Hope that makes sense. Perhaps experienced people know a way? White dogs are hard to shot, Some good tips from PC, I usually find I just have a play to see what works in different situations as what works for one won't work for another.

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On Canon: aperture priority = Av / shutter priority = Tv

I'm great at overexposing :laugh: and I think white dogs are hard to capture, but I thought I should finally start playing with RAW Images and granted that my processing skills aren't that great, I'm Impressed with what I was able to save from my overexposed shots, here's an example

post-8173-0-19640100-1311685075_thumb.jpg

So yeah technically tlc there is a way to save blown out shots, but If It's too blown out I guess even In RAW It can't be saved

PC has offered some great advice, I'm still trying to master the white dog dilemma :)

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hard to tell from the thumbnail, but looks way too blown out to save to my eyes. A nice snapshot otherwise. Agree with taking it off M until you have a better grasp of what to do, put it on TV, chose a shutter speed f say at least 1/250 or 1/500, if you are in bright light ISO 100, less bright try ISO 200 or 400, and let the camera chose the aperture. If the camera can't get an aperture to suit, look for it to be blinking at you and adjust the ISO accordingly until it does not - it will use the blinking to tell you that it can't achieve exposure at the settings you have given it. With that model camera, I would not be pushing it to ISO 3200, images will be very noisy unless they are perfectly exposed.

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Thank you everyone for your comments and advice. I was able to adjust the settings as recommended and take an almost identical photo. This time it was a little underexposed because the sun suddenly disappeared behind thunder clouds (where did they come from?) just as we sent the dog through the door. Didn't have time for further shots as the sky opened up!

I really appreciate your help.

Edited by Dxenion
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The best way to judge the light needed is the light meter in the viewfinder - if thats in the centre you shoudl be fine. A little either side shoud be fine but too far and it will be under or over. If the light goes to the 2 mark on eithe rside tghe exposure is completely out.

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  • 1 month later...

This is the reshot photo - a much better result thanks to all your advice.

firstandseconddoorflap.jpg

Wow, it's a very predictable routine isn't it. At least it wasn't one of those once in a lifetime opportunities :laugh: You will be able to practice your settings with this till you get it spot on. The second attempt is much much better. It's small so I cant see it too well, I'm not sure how sharp and if focus it is. Try to post a bigger pic please.

I suspect the dog is moving fairly fast when it comes through the door so try for a fast shutter speed. If it was a whippet I'd have it at least 1/1000th. you might need to change other camera settings to compensate for the fast shutter but because the dog does the same thing every time it's something you can play around with on your camera.

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