 Posted 6/27/2008 6:26:26 AM
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When taking pictures outdoors on a nice sunny day, how do you eliminate the brightness of the grass with out changing the rest of the image? It seems like the grass or trees take over the image with such brightness. Thanks for any suggestions......Sandy
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated...Gandhi
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Posted 6/27/2008 8:13:29 AM
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Have you tried a polarizer? Grass and trees reflect a lot of light.
My Profile Top 12 Image Stats
Canon 40d, Canon 10-22, Tamron SP AF 17-50, Canon 70-300 IS, Canon 100mm Macro
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Posted 6/27/2008 8:34:52 AM
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Richard Hahn gave me the best advice and the images I use his advice with went up over a point. Shoot early in the day or towards evening when the sun isn't as bright or on an overcast day.
His article is Eye-pleasing Exposures
It really helped a lot, with the image ratings 
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Posted 6/28/2008 5:07:23 AM
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| No I have never tried a polarizer. Thank you for the suggestion. And I knew that early morning and evening were the best times but great photo opportunities aren't always present at that time. But thanks it's good information to have.
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated...Gandhi
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Posted 6/28/2008 5:44:53 AM
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Living in Florida I experience this all the time and I have to say there is little you can do about it. The range of light presented to the sensor just plain exceeds the sensors ability to capture it. If it's not too far off you can try capturing it in Raw then using a HDR program to extract as much of the range as possible. My results have been mixed.
I've often wondered why they don't create a program especially for this problem that, on the pixel level, boosts sensitivity for the dark areas. It would seem to me that they could pre-sample then adjust pixel sensitivity, much like they do for a preflash. High speed work wouldn't be possible but for 75% of our images it should work.
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Posted 7/10/2008 6:32:38 PM
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| If it blinds or bothers you're sight, the area will surely be overexposed. You can expose correctly towards the bright areas (or underexpose the scene), but then the dark areas will come out too dark. Just like you wear sunglasses for a sunny day, use a polarizer for your lens. I have a pair of "eagleyes" for driving (they are yellow filtered and by the way I recommend them above any other expensive fancy brands); the other day, while driving, I stopped to a beautifully colured landscape. I grabbed my camera and suddenly remembered I was wearing the glasses; as soon as I took them off, half the magic just disappeared. That is how it goes with polarizers. Get to know your camera; learn to understand different lights and how your camera responds to them; with time, you will see that you will avoid shooting scenes you would have originally photographed, or photograph what originally you would have never thought of doing so. Why? Because you learn to anticipate the result. I personally don't use polarizers much except for a skylight filter, and rather be more selective of what and when I photograph, but everybody has their own preferences and styles. I hope my comments are of some help. Regards, Jorge. PS—as a last recommendation, always!!!!! and I mean always!!!! protect your lens with a filter; even with a plain transparent one if you don't want any particular effect. A 20 or 30 dollar scratch on any filter is worth the cost of a lense.
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Posted 7/10/2008 6:55:10 PM
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I have to ditto this. The first thing I learned was that studying light is necessary if you want to improve your images. It would be nice if we could go out mid day and not have worry about harsh light, but that only happens on cloudy days  So.... If you speak with any really good photographer they will tell you early morning or late afternoon. That's when the magic light occurs. keep shooting Tom
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Posted 7/10/2008 9:00:33 PM
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I have been learning fast on the importance of studying the light since I recently shot 3 sets of engagement photos all outdoors and many of the images were problematic. All three of the weddings are going to be outdoors too. I decided I better get a lot of practice over the next month. For two of the weddings I need to shoot with a river in the background. For the other one I won't be the only shooter because I'm the mother of the bride She is getting married by some waterfalls.
Is there a certain type or brand of polarizer I should get? The filters I bought with each of my lenses to protect them were good ones because I heard that it doesn't make much sense to put cheap glass over an expensive lens.
Linda
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Posted 7/11/2008 5:50:13 AM
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| OK, I buy that; go for a good filter, many people claim Hoya or Kenko are quite good; Heliopan is also mentioned. Mine is a japanese brand I just can't remember the name and don't have it with me at the moment; it cost me like 45-50 USD and it works perfectly. Don't buy anything made in China (sorry if anybody here from that country) but I have bought two or three accesories made there, cheap yes, but of very low quality. Won't do it again. That is as far as my recommendation can go. If you want something much more specific and technical, do try to contact Richard Hahn or Chris Belcher who I'm sure can give you a much more detailed and professional advise. Regards, Jorge
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