Can I capture both a bright lamp and the dim glow it casts in one shot?
Asked 7/10/2011
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I’m learning manual exposure on a Canon EOS 600D / Rebel T3i and ran into a scene with very different brightness levels: a textured glass ceiling lamp with a bright bulb inside, and a much dimmer warm glow on the ceiling around it. If I expose for the lamp’s texture, the surrounding glow is too dark. If I expose for the glow, the lamp itself blows out.
Is there a way to capture both well in a single exposure, or is this a dynamic-range limitation of the camera? I’m specifically interested in one-shot solutions rather than combining multiple exposures later.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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Well it depends on how big the difference is between the dark and light areas. Every sensor as a certain dynamic range that it can capture - right now most DSLRs are in the 10-14'ish EV range. Your particular camera can capture 11.5 EV in a single exposure. This is the range you can capture in a single go. This doesn't mean this is the dynamic range of the picture you're seeing rendered in a JPG.
In a high dynamic range scene like a bright light source and dark walls or such, you're very unlikely going to be able to get in all in one shot. You'll have to make a subjective call about what parts of the scene are most important to you creatively and expose properly for those.
Because of the wide DR of many DSLR's you may also be able to take one exposure, digitally push and pull it to create separate shots and combine to form a single shot HDR or Exposure fusion.
Often times in a situation like the hanging light, if you want to expose properly for the light - you'd spot meter off the light and then exposure compensate a little to get the rest of the scene like you like.
Originally by user1917. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1917
15y ago
0
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Usually this is a dynamic-range limit. A camera sensor can only record a certain range from darkest detail to brightest detail in one exposure, and a lamp bulb plus the dim ceiling it lights often exceeds that range.
So in a single shot, you typically must choose what matters most: preserve the lamp texture, or expose more for the surrounding glow and accept blown highlights.
What can help in one shot:
- shoot RAW, which gives more room than JPEG to recover highlights and lift shadows in processing
- expose as carefully as possible to protect highlights, then brighten darker areas from the RAW file
- add more light to the darker parts of the scene (other room lights, flash, continuous light) to reduce the brightness gap
- in some situations, a filter can compress dynamic range, though that’s not usually practical for a lamp scene
If the scene’s brightness range is still too large, one shot won’t hold both perfectly. Then the usual choices are compromise, add light, or bracket exposures for HDR/merging.
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