Category Archives: Metering

Saving An Overexposed RAW File

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Anoush, Point Betsie Lighthouse – Overexposed JPEG

On this photo shoot I made a dumb mistake. (It can happen to any of us.) My first few clicks of the shutter were overexposed. When I checked the first few images on the back of the camera I immediately saw the mistake. The overexposed images were shot at f/9, 1/100 second, and ISO 100. They were 1 2/3 stops over Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE). I changed my settings to f/11, 1/200 second, and ISO 100 which is equivalent to BDE. After that my images had good exposures.  The first lesson from this mishap is: Don’t get so wrapped up in the energy of a photo shoot that you forget to stop periodically to check your images.  To learn more about BDE, see the article linked below.

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Tiana

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Tiana, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

If you are out hiking and a beautiful woman asks you to take her picture, you should probably says yes! We should all be so lucky, right? Well, we didn’t really meet by chance. Tiana is a first class model and photographer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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The Sunny f16 Rule: Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE)

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Red Rock Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado

A Quick “Sunny f16” Summary

As long as the sun is high in the sky and not obscured by clouds, haze, smoke, dust, or other particulates in the air, it is a constant light source. That is why the Sunny f16 rule usually works in spring, summer, fall, and also winter as long as there isn’t any snow on the ground. (If there is snow on the ground, read this article.) The Sunny f16 rule, also known as Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE), (or the “fig” rule because f16 hand written looks like the word fig), is pretty simple.

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How To Work With A Model (or Anybody Else) When The Windchill is 4°

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Selina

Selina, Downtown Columbus Ohio. Windchill 4°.

You would think a windchill of 4° Fahrenheit (-16°C) would be too cold for a photo shoot, but not with some models. Selina and I booked this January shoot weeks in advance so we knew it would be cold, but we had no idea how cold until the day arrived. Despite the frigid temperatures, Selina did no want to reschedule for later. Here’s the story behind this image and how to work with a model (or anybody else) when it is so cold.

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Testing Your Camera’s Snow Exposure Latitude

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Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers

Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers, Prince William Sound, Alaska

The “snow exposure latitude” for every camera is different. You won’t find it in your camera’s manual but it is easy to determine with a do-it-yourself test. Why does it matter? If you don’t know the snow exposure latitude for your camera and how to apply it to your images, the color and quality of your winter photos will suffer.

Continue reading →

Metering Nighttime Winter Scenes

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Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park. Sirius, Canis Major, Orion, Taurus, the Hyades star cluster, and the Pleiades star cluster are all visible in the fading light. Click for a larger version.

You can photograph the night sky year around, but winter brings an added bonus: SNOW! When you don’t have the benefit of moonlight, most of the year land forms a dark to black silhouetted skyline against the night sky. In winter you have the possibility of including the highly reflective snow. You can see both in this photo. Any place not covered with snow is very dark to black. Having reflective snow is why winter is the favorite time of year for a lot of photographers to go out and photograph the night sky.

Continue reading →

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part Two

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Cougar

Cougar

Most wildlife are medium to dark in tone, making them a challenge to meter properly in the bright, white tones of winter. If you trust one of your camera’s automatic exposure modes, the odds are good you won’t get the best exposure. If you switch over to manual exposure and make the right decisions, you can get great exposures and better quality photos (more about that later).

Continue reading →

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part One

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Elk in the Snow, Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk in the Snow, Horseshoe Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Metering dark toned wildlife in the snow is a major exposure challenge. It is usually best to avoid large “burned out” areas (washed out, featureless white) in a nature or landscape photograph, but with properly exposed snow, the wildlife can be so dark as to lose all texture. On other hand, metering for the wildlife can burn out the snow. So what do you do? And what about the complications of metering white animals?

Continue reading →

“How To” Series: Winter Photography

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Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park

Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park

In addition to all of the usual photographic challenges, winter provides some extra complications, especially in terms of metering. So I began this series of articles on winter photography. Check out the links below. The articles will help you meet the unique challenges of winter photography. So get out there, have fun, and create some great winter images!

Continue reading →

Camera Settings for Trunk or Treat

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Trunk or Treat, sponsored by the Graceland University Enactus program, Lamoni Iowa.

If I am photographing an event and the light is constant, I shoot in manual mode for the most accurate exposure and the best color. But if the light is variable, there isn’t time during an active event to be constantly changing the exposure because you will miss too many photo ops. That means shooting in an automatic mode.

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Total Immersion Nature Photography Weekend in Beautiful Northern Michigan

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Michigan Photography Workshop

Are you ready to take your nature and wildlife photography to the next level? Are you ready to learn the professional secrets that make the difference between good images and great images? Are you ready for a high intensity, action packed, total immersion photography weekend? Come to Park of the Pines on beautiful Lake Charlevoix October 13-15, 2023.

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How To Work With A Model (or Anybody Else) When The Windchill is 4°

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Selina

Selina, Downtown Columbus Ohio. Windchill 4°.

You would think a windchill of 4° Fahrenheit (-16°C) would be too cold for a photo shoot, but not with some models. We booked this January shoot weeks in advance so we knew it would be cold, but we had no idea how cold until the day arrived. Here’s the story behind this image and how to work with a model (or anybody else) when it is so cold.

Continue reading →

Testing Your Camera’s Snow Exposure Latitude

Posted on by

Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers

Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers, Prince William Sound, Alaska

The “snow exposure latitude” for every camera is different. You won’t find it in your camera’s manual but it is easy to determine with a do-it-yourself test. Why does it matter? If you don’t know the snow exposure latitude for your camera and how to apply it to your images, the color and quality of your winter photos will suffer.

Continue reading →

Metering Nighttime Winter Scenes

Posted on by

Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park. Sirius, Canis Major, Orion, Taurus, the Hyades star cluster, and the Pleiades star cluster are all visible in the fading light. Click for a larger version.

You can photograph the night sky year around, but winter brings an added bonus: SNOW! When you don’t have the benefit of moonlight, most of the year land forms a dark to black silhouetted skyline against the night sky. In winter you have the possibility of including the highly reflective snow. You can see both in this photo. Any place not covered with snow is very dark to black. Having reflective snow is why winter is the favorite time of year for a lot of photographers to go out and photograph the night sky.

Continue reading →

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part Two

Posted on by

Cougar

Cougar

Most wildlife are medium to dark in tone, making them a challenge to meter properly in the bright, white tones of winter. If you trust one of your camera’s automatic exposure modes, the odds are good you won’t get the best exposure. If you switch over to manual exposure and make the right decisions, you can get great exposures and better quality photos (more about that later).

Continue reading →

Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part One

Posted on by

Elk in the Snow, Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk in the Snow, Horseshoe Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Metering dark toned wildlife in the snow is a major exposure challenge. It is usually best to avoid large “burned out” areas (washed out, featureless white) in a nature or landscape photograph, but with properly exposed snow, the wildlife can be so dark as to lose all texture. On other hand, metering for the wildlife can burn out the snow. So what do you do? And what about the complications of metering white animals?

Continue reading →

How To Series: Winter Photography

Posted on by

Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park

Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park

In addition to all of the usual photographic challenges, winter provides some extra complications, especially in terms of metering. So I began this series of articles on winter photography. Check out the links below. The articles will help you meet the unique challenges of winter photography. So get out there, have fun, and create some great winter images!

Continue reading →

The Best Colors Come From the Best Exposures

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Gretag-Macbeth ColorChecker

Gretag-Macbeth ColorChecker

This has to be one of the best kept photographic secrets: The more accurate your exposures are, the better your colors will be. Why? If your exposures are off, the colors in your photograph will shift in different directions. You can correct the exposure in post processing, but you can’t correct the color shifts. Since the colors shift in different directions, if you try to correct one color (as you will see below), the other colors will get even worse.

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