Just for Fun No C&C will be given: My squirrel

Playing with my new setup I am finding that I am in an unusual predicament at times. It seems that I am overexposing a lot. This is new to me as I am usually having to add light to my shots with Photoshop Elements. I didnt think this shot was fixable but I pulled it into the BETA version of Lightroom 3 that I am playing with and was pleased with the outcome. I saw the other squirrel posts and even though I thought it would be "NUTS" to post another pic.....LOL. I did anyways.

This shot is taken thru a window.
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/5.0
Focal Length: 170 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Wayne Stratton said:

Playing with my new setup I am finding that I am in an unusual predicament at times. It seems that I am overexposing a lot. This is new to me as I am usually having to add light to my shots with Photoshop Elements. I didnt think this shot was fixable but I pulled it into the BETA version of Lightroom 3 that I am playing with and was pleased with the outcome. I saw the other squirrel posts and even though I thought it would be "NUTS" to post another pic.....LOL. I did anyways.

This shot is taken thru a window.
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/5.0
Focal Length: 170 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Click to expand...

Wayne,

You setup is working well for you! Overexposure is common when the main subject is so dark comared to the bright sky. You might take a shot under-exposed so you can add in sky or else, down the road you can add in sky from any other nice cloud picture.

I'm impressed with the lens. I like the added feature of the bark of the tree as this makes for great squirrel picture with a contrasting element. I have found that they move very fast when they are on the tree trunks, but maybe this is a result of playing tag in the mating season. They love to scamper around trees.

You did a good job catching this one and the rust on its ventral surface. These are interesting animals. They must be responsible for a lot of new trees being planted and hawks being able to feed their offspring!

Asher

This photo provides good subject matter for discussion.

First, I would not call this shot 'overexposed.' It might be a matter of semantics, but I would general consider the squirrel the primary subject of this photo, and as such, it is underexposed if anything. The fact that the background is overexposed is secondary.

The challenge here is that the dynamic range, the range from dark to light, in this scene, is simply too broad, and detail and proper exposure just cannot be obtained for both the subject and the background. Expose one properly, the other suffers.

Since the squirrel is the main reason for taking the shot, I would expose him properly, and if the background is lost to overexposure, that is an acceptable loss to me. You can play with exposure settings, use various Photoshop techniques, etc., to minimize the loss, but there is a price to be paid.

The other option is to use Flash. You can then set your camera to properly expose the bright sky (by cutting down the overall ambient light exposure), and use flash to properly expose your subject. That will give you the best of both worlds in terms of exposure (although the price to be paid here is posibly some red-eye or other undesirable effects of using flash on a living animal).

Some food for thought anyway. Thanks for posting!