shooting into the light

[larkis]

What is the most reliable way of dealing with digital over exposure when shooting into sunlight (back lit trees, people, etc) and minimizing that ugly digital clipping that happens when the image finally reaches full white ? Black and white film for example rolls off into over exposed areas in a more graceful, more "natural" way than what I can currently get with digital. I have moved from shooting 4x5 film to medium format digital and while it's much nicer at transitions than smaller formats i still find a bit of that plastic, fake, whatever you want to call it look to areas of strong over exposure. Any tips would be appreciated.

[Alistair]

My approach is to bracket a couple of exposures and blend together in photoshop.

[larkis]

Yes, but this is to retain detail in over exposed areas, how about actually having over exposed areas that roll off nicely instead of having that noticeable step that looks like a paper cutout ?

[Ken Bennett]

You have identified a major problem with digital imaging. This is something I have a hard time with, since I love shooting backlit subjects, and having the sun in the frame.

I'm afraid that I have not found a magic solution yet. Good luck.

[John R]

You have identified a major problem with digital imaging. This is something I have a hard time with, since I love shooting backlit subjects, and having the sun in the frame.

I'm afraid that I have not found a magic solution yet. Good luck.

Ditto here. But one should ask Alistair if the bracketing and multiple exposure technique works, because that was my first thought. Does bracketing and recombining in PS work?

JMR

[Rajan Parrikar]

What is the most reliable way of dealing with digital over exposure when shooting into sunlight (back lit trees, people, etc) and minimizing that ugly digital clipping that happens when the image finally reaches full white ? Black and white film for example rolls off into over exposed areas in a more graceful, more "natural" way than what I can currently get with digital. I have moved from shooting 4x5 film to medium format digital and while it's much nicer at transitions than smaller formats i still find a bit of that plastic, fake, whatever you want to call it look to areas of strong over exposure. Any tips would be appreciated.

Have you tried spot metering a middle-toned area in the sky (away from the sun) and using that reading as a starting point for the exposure?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

One thing I try is to use some kind of a blurring brush along the sharp transition edges.

[larkis]

Yea, that is kind of what I do now. Another technique I found is to select all the white blown out pixels, copy them to another layer and blur them. That basically creates a blooming effect which does help matters a little bit but not always, it very much depends on the image. It would be interesting to hear what others do.