The nice weather has hit Vancouver and it has been great to be getting outside and enjoying the BBQ. The other evening, I was over at some friends enjoying some wine and company. The conversation moved to photography and one of the folks asked if I could take a look at their camera. They were planning on taking it to the repair center because it was no longer exposing the pictures properly.



I took a look at the camera and everything seemed fine so I asked what the symptoms were. According to my friend, the camera had started to have really bright areas in the picture where they could not make out any detail or sometimes the subject would be really dark. The camera had just started doing this but up until now it has been a great camera. After talking a little further I discovred that they had never used the camera outside until now. It turns out that there really was no problem with the camera other than the inherent limitations of the cameras sensor.



Camera sensors have a limited dynamic range. That means that they can only record a limited difference in brightness between highlight and shadow. If the range between the highlight and the shadow is greater than the camera can record, then the highlight will be burned out (white without detail) and the shadows will block up (black without detail).



So, instead of taking the camera in to be fixed, I showed my friend a couple of techniques that would let them photograph within the dynamic range so that the cameras sensor could handle it. The first technique was to look for open shade and stay out of the bright sunlight. The second was to turn on the flash to put light in the shadow area.



Photographing outside on a bright sunny day does create some problems. Keep in mind the limitations of your camera so that youdon't get burn out. Also, try not to let the sun shine directly on the front of the lens when taking your picture. If this happens, the quality of the picture will be greatly reduced.