How To Avoid &/Or Fix Photo Problems

[Arubalisa]

... A "Help me" section where you can post a problem picture and have it analyzed and suggestions offered on how to fix it or avoid the problem in the future....Dave

:D You read my mind...Been thinking about what are the necessary settings to be used on an Olympus E-500 EVOLT on a really really bright sunny Caribbean beach day such as

I do okay when the sun is behind me, BUT there are sometimes when that is not the case and end up with something like

Also have some filters I have no clue what to really do with...used the "blue" one in Curacao and 1 out of 50 came out okay, the rest were trash :o .

 

TIA, hope you don't charge by the question. ;)

[pierces]

You read my mind...Been thinking about what are the necessary settings to be used on an Olympus E-500 EVOLT on a really really bright sunny Caribbean beach day such as

 

Ok, I'll bite!

 

The picture above is technically well-exposed and the colors are great. The other technical part is a little vague. What's the subject? Sea or sky? One of the basics of composition is the "rule of thirds". Imagine the viewfinder is divided into three sections horizontally and vertically like this:

 

 

If the sky with the dynamic components like the clouds it to be the focus, line up the horizon with the bottom third. If you had crashing waves, you may want to minimize the sky and line up the horizon with the top third. Here's an example:

 

 

In the edited picture, the eye is drawn to the expanse of sky with the clouds and then to the boats, the spit of land and the wedge of beach. That's the rule of thirds in a nutshell. It's not a rule, by the way, it's a guideline. There are no "composition police" (At least none that have caught up to me!) Sometimes having something centered just works better. If you are unsure, shoot and recompose moving things from one third to another and pick the one you like later!

 

 

I do okay when the sun is behind me, BUT there are sometimes when that is not the case and end up with something like

 

Snow and sand are cruel to light meters. The picture is actually pretty good, considering the mix of light and dark that you were shooting into. (Good rule-of-thirds split too!) In a case like this, a polarizer will help a lot. I removes glare from sand and water and deepens the blue of the sky (if you are facing the right way). Lacking a polarizer, you can simply bracket exposures; taking three pictures with one at -.5 stops, one at the recommended exposure and one at +.5 stops. (I believe your E-Volt has an auto-bracketing feature that lets you set it to continuous drive and it will automatically take three exposures offset like I described above.) In the example, I just toned down the brightness by about 2/3 of a stop and increased contrast a bit to illustrate.

 

 

Also have some filters I have no clue what to really do with...used the "blue" one in Curacao and 1 out of 50 came out okay, the rest were trash.

 

List the filters (numbers like 81A, ND 4x, etc. will help.) and I'll try to explain their intended purpose.

 

TIA, hope you don't charge by the question.

 

Hey.....:D

 

Dave

[Arubalisa]

Okay, have taken some time to digest your post. I definitely now understand the rule of thirds. Went back and looked at my most recent beach photos and it was like a line drawn down the middle with the exception of 3 or 4. Pretty boring I presume. :o

List the filters (numbers like 81A, ND 4x, etc. will help.) and I'll try to explain their intended purpose.

Here are my filters:

FLD

skylight 1A

C-PL

PL

 

I think the PL is the polarizer? Will come in handy trying to practice on those sun, sand, water, glare...will check the owner's manual about the auto-bracketing too. Thanks a million again.

[pierces]

Okay, have taken some time to digest your post. I definitely now understand the rule of thirds. Went back and looked at my most recent beach photos and it was like a line drawn down the middle with the exception of 3 or 4. Pretty boring I presume. :o

Boring? Not really. The subject matter is what ultimately makes the picture and that is very subjective. What the rule of thirds does is capitalize on how people perceive things. It actually originated with the old masters in their paintings and preceded photography by hundreds of years. It is, as I said, a guideline for composition and not a firm rule.

Judge your current photos by their content and how you like them and next time you're out, give the "rule" a test drive and see what you can do.

 

Here are my filters -

FLD

skylight 1A

C-PL

PL

 

I think the PL is the polarizer? Will come in handy trying to practice on those sun, sand, water, glare...will check the owner's manual about the auto-bracketing too. Thanks a million again.

 

FLD - Used for correcting daylight film for use under fluorescents. In-camera white-balance (WB) takes care of this for you.

skylight 1A - This warms and removes the blue cast in open shade. Still used with digital even though the "cloudy" WB setting does the same thing. Since the warming effect is minimal and it reduces UV like a UV filter. People use it as an all-the-time filter for protection.

C-PL & PL - Circular polarizers (C-PL) were developed for photographic use when it was found that many SLR autofocus and metering systems won't work with regular (PL) linear polarizers. Retire the PL.

Is this what you had in mind for this topic area?

Did the answers make sense?

Dave