9. Backlight bugaboo
Pitfall explanation
Here's the happy couple, celebrating their first Christmas in a new house. Thanks to the strong light behind them, which fooled the camera's metering into thinking there was more light in the scene than there was, they're celebrating anonymously, and the moment is permanently blacked out.
Can this photo be saved?
Sort of. You can bring up the exposure in the midtones, which makes the couple and the stuffed animal she's clutching visible, but not without exposing a lot of image noise.
How can I avoid this problem?
Tip 1: Use fill flash. Force your flash on to illuminate your subjects' faces. One of the drawbacks to this approach is that it usually blows out the brighter areas in the scene.
Tip 2: Use exposure compensation. Bump up the exposure by about a stop -- more if necessary -- to fool your camera into thinking the scene is darker than the meter says. The drawback here is that it will lighten the entire scene, which will render the bright areas as overly bright.
Tip 3: Use spot or centre-weighted metering. If your camera supports it, use one of these metering modes; they weight the light on the subject -- in this case, the couple's faces -- more heavily than any other area in the scene. Spot metering measures only around the point you choose, while centre-weighted metering will weigh that area more heavily but not exclusively.
Tip 4: Use a Backlight scene mode. If your camera has a lot of program scene modes, you've probably got an option for backlight compensation. This mode generally sets the camera to automatically use one or more of the previous methods.
Tip 5: Move the subjects. If there's no reason for them to be parked in front of a bright light source, why not ask them to move?
Which cameras handle these scenes best?
What it takes: Either the appropriate scene mode or some basic manual-exposure controls. Some models include in-camera processing, which automatically corrects for this sort of exposure problem after the fact.
Suggested models:
Pitfall explanation
Here's the happy couple, celebrating their first Christmas in a new house. Thanks to the strong light behind them, which fooled the camera's metering into thinking there was more light in the scene than there was, they're celebrating anonymously, and the moment is permanently blacked out.
Can this photo be saved?
Sort of. You can bring up the exposure in the midtones, which makes the couple and the stuffed animal she's clutching visible, but not without exposing a lot of image noise.
How can I avoid this problem?
Tip 1: Use fill flash. Force your flash on to illuminate your subjects' faces. One of the drawbacks to this approach is that it usually blows out the brighter areas in the scene.
Tip 2: Use exposure compensation. Bump up the exposure by about a stop -- more if necessary -- to fool your camera into thinking the scene is darker than the meter says. The drawback here is that it will lighten the entire scene, which will render the bright areas as overly bright.
Tip 3: Use spot or centre-weighted metering. If your camera supports it, use one of these metering modes; they weight the light on the subject -- in this case, the couple's faces -- more heavily than any other area in the scene. Spot metering measures only around the point you choose, while centre-weighted metering will weigh that area more heavily but not exclusively.
Tip 4: Use a Backlight scene mode. If your camera has a lot of program scene modes, you've probably got an option for backlight compensation. This mode generally sets the camera to automatically use one or more of the previous methods.
Tip 5: Move the subjects. If there's no reason for them to be parked in front of a bright light source, why not ask them to move?
Which cameras handle these scenes best?
What it takes: Either the appropriate scene mode or some basic manual-exposure controls. Some models include in-camera processing, which automatically corrects for this sort of exposure problem after the fact.
Suggested models:
 Nikon Coolpix P1 Read review |
 Kodak EasyShare V550 Read review |
 Casio EX-Z750 Read review |
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Sergei Plishka
11/02/2006 01:21 PM
If you do notice a reflective surface in the background, simply take the shot at an angle to the surface so that flash reflects away from the camera instead of right back at it.
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