Dealing with bright background?

[Tintype_18]

My granddaughters were having a riding "recital" to show what they learned about horseback riding. I was more or less stuck at the spectator's platform so the horses wouldn't spook. At the far end of the barn was a large open door. Any way to deal with this in the future? Attached isn't edited but reduced 50% to fit.AV, f/405, 1/25, ISO-400, 0 step, 120 mm

[jrhoffman75]

Eighty or greater percent of your frame is the open door. I am assuming the horse and rider will be indoors (and thus backlit). That means you will probably need positive exposure compensation to get the subject exposure correct, which will blow out the background more.

Pretty tough conditions.

What camera are you using: f/405 or f/4.5? What does "step"' mean?

[Tronhard]

Are you allowed to use a flash? If so do ypu have one - not the on camera one?

[jrhoffman75]

Flash with animals not the best idea. 

[Tronhard]

I agree but the lighting from where he is apparently seated is way too back lit.

John did you take the photo at the same time of day as the event?

[stevet1]

john,

There are three things I can think of:

1) Lower your ISO. It looks like you're shooting directly into the sun, and you don't need an ISO of 400.

2) Change the time of day when you are taking this shot so that the sun is not shining directly into your face.

3) Any reason you are taking this particular shot? I don't see any horses or children, just an empty blue barrel. If you can't change the time of day when you are taking a picture, could you swing your camera around to take a picture of the other end of the arena where your back is to the sun and the sun is shining on your subject?

Steve Thomas

[Tronhard]

The first sentence of the OP is what you missed: "My granddaughters were having a riding "recital" to show what they learned about horseback riding".  So, a specific event, at a specific time and he is shooting from a specific (challenging) location.  I did ask if the sample shot was taken at the same time of day as the actual event in the hope that the light might be different.

We all seem to be singing from the same song book here.  The backlight is brutal and will be blown out big time to get a decent exposure on the riders.  I think metering for the inside and shooting manual exposure seems to be the only reliable way to get an image of the riders.

[shadowsports]

I put his image into DxO.  There are subjects in the corral outside the door, but they are so blown out there is nothing which can be recovered.  I took it down 4 stops and it barely made a difference.  Its further limited since the file is .jpg

Since flash is not an option, lower iso and positive exposure compensation, then edit RAW in post like the guys suggested is probably all that can be done.   

[wq9nsc]

Spot metering directly off your granddaughter and then locking in those exposure parameters will get you close to the correct setup.  In a situation like this, there is no way to avoid blowing out the background so it will never be a "great" capture.  You will find that light bleed around the subject will result in poor contrast even with a lot of editing work.

I run into this with sports on rare occasion where I am out of position and need to capture a play backlit by the sun.  Heavily backlit subjects are extremely difficult to capture well and the best you can do is set the exposure correctly for the subject and shoot in RAW to give you the most editing freedom in post. And although you are restricted to the spectator area, analyze the layout to see what angle works best to try to avoid perfectly lining up your granddaughter with the intense backlighting.  A severe angle shot from one or the other side of the spectator area will often work better than "front row center" in a situation like this.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

"Flash with animals not the best idea." and definitely not the answer nor the solution.