Help with light

[mary1728]

I have not gotten very far with this course yet so I am not sure how to make my photos better. I am using a Canon PowerShot A510 to take pictures when I am hiking. I am just using the landscape or foliage feature on my camera. The problem, for now, is that I am having problems with my photos coming out too bright. Any suggestions would be helpful. http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/files/2/9/8/8/red_rock_canyon_090608.jpg

[jerryph]

Yes, I have a thought. Cameras will meter in one of 3 manners:

- A general mode that kinda takes in all the light in a picture and it tries to figure out what you are shooting at and adjust lighting using current info

- A more specific mode that concentrates the exposure based on part of the photo with emphasis on the center of the image

- A spot metering mode where the camera ignores the lighting of the complete frame except a small area in the center.

Now most cameras use the first method and it seems that in the picture above it is properly focused on what you wanted as your subject (the backpack of the young man (girl?). It then adjust the exposure so that it would be displayed properly, but because there are other parts of the picture that are brighter, they come out brighter and sometimes overexposed.

This is normal. Had you exposed for the bright areas, your subject would be way too dark.

The course covers this in a bit more detail in the related module. :)

[mary1728]

I did edit it in Photoshop before putting it online. The person in the photo is actually niece, with permission to use her picture online. I will learn to take the type of pictures I want to take as I progress in this course.