I can’t seem to get the exposure right shooting outdoors on a bright sunny day. The image is blown out. Any suggestions

I would suggest using full manual in everything.
Use \”M\” mode on your camera\’s dial.. and go by the needle at the bottom to get the exposure right. If you are shooting with the sun near the center, or the horizon in the middle and you\’re on the middle AF selection, then it will take the readings from the bright area.

Try looking down, at a darker part of the image, then get the exposure right and look back up.
If you are doing this and getting blown out images, then take a reading from the lighter part (preferable around the middle brightest bit in the image) and take readings from that.

Also use the white balance on manual and set it to the sunny mode, this will warm things up a bit and should help you out with your WB if you haven\’t already done so.

Shooting outdoors on a bright day is tricky, though. Most images you see with everything around the same brightness are HDR images (High Dynamic Range) which is where you take 3 exposures (bracket exposures), usually 1 or 2 stops apart (you can sometimes take more than 1 exposure if you want to) and then merge it together either manually or with Photoshop HDR Pro.

It is tricky shooting outdoors, but just try not to get the sun and a lot of the sky in the shot, if you\’re not going to do an HDR image. If you want more information on doing HDR\’s, then just google it and i\’m sure you will find tons of results. (Sorry i can\’t link you to pages, I don\’t know that many photography forums or sites).

I hope you find what you\’re looking for, and good luck.

By: Sam Turley   313

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Try using a circular polarizing filter. Also check to see if your camera is set on the sun mode.

By: larrycumba   4

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I was having this problem too and my dad (a pro photog) told me that I needed to get my subjects into the shade if possible. He even showed me how to create shade using a car windshield shade (you know the big ones that fold up). If you are shooting in aperature priority, you can set it as wide open as it will go which will distort the background, even if it is much lighter than everything else. Your other option is to fix it in post processing, although it’s kind of a pain to do and make it look right…

By: snoopybaby   12

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