Taking Pictures of Black or White Vehicles

[truckbutt]

The metering systems of cameras is based on the color 18% grey. That means that your camera's metering system is trying to get a scene that averages out to grey. That usually works out OK when your picture includes objects of various colors. It can be a problem however if you fill your viewfinder with an obbject that is black or white. The camera will try to make your dark black car or bright white car look grey. This is the same problem faced by wedding photographers- white dress and black tux. Camera makers have spent a lot of time and money developing computer algorithms to fix this but computers can only do so much. If you are taking a picture of a black car and the photo taken by your camera looks washed out, dial in -1 to -1 and 1/2 exposure compenasation. If your car is white and it looks grey in the exposure taken by your camera, dial in +1 to +1 and 1/2 exposure compensation. You may have to try different settings in between to get the result you want, something called exposure bracketing.

[LegacyGT]

Scott -

Bracketing is great for things that stand still, such as cars, however for shooting something like a wedding, bracketing will not work for candid shots.

Best yet is to shoot in RAW where you can correct the white balance, and calibrate with a grey card where you can. Bracketing is great when you can use it, but having the ability to fix the white balance during the post processing is huge.

[truckbutt]

Scott -

Bracketing is great for things that stand still, such as cars.

Exactly!

[offthahorseceo]

of course that requires a camera capable of shooting in RAW format. these can get expensive.

[truckbutt]

Let's not make this a technical conversation for photographers. Forget about RAW. You can do this with any camera that has exposure compensation. We don't need to get into white balance and grey cards for the purpose of this discussion. This was true long before there were digital cameras. Just remember your camera wants to make things look grey. So black objects need to be underexposed and white objects need to be overexposed from the point of view of your camera's meter.

[clintb]

Good start, but there's a blending of different problems going on. Correct on the white balance, but the exposure settings are a result of having too much or too little ambient light.

Manually setting white balance is very helpful, especially if auto white balance in your particular camera is either a) crappy all around, b) only crappy with particular settings, such as auto or incandescent. If your camera has no provision for changing white balance and is crappy, well, stop reading and buy a better camera. A good example of white balance out of whack can be seen right here on the forums in Mike's post here. Check out the second set of pictures, first two, and compare to the rest on the same yellow vehicle, presumably in the same light.

Exposure compensation is for situations when you have too much, or too little light and details are either blending in or washing out. Simplified...

[truckbutt]

Good start, but there's a blending of different problems going on. Correct on the white balance, but the exposure settings are a result of having too much or too little ambient light.

Manually setting white balance is very helpful, especially if auto white balance in your particular camera is either a) crappy all around, b) only crappy with particular settings, such as auto or incandescent. If your camera has no provision for changing white balance and is crappy, well, stop reading and buy a better camera. A good example of white balance out of whack can be seen right here on the forums in Mike's post here. Check out the second set of pictures, first two, and compare to the rest on the same yellow vehicle, presumably in the same light.

Exposure compensation is for situations when you have too much, or too little light and details are either blending in or washing out. Simplified...

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely wrong. Exposure compensation is being used here to correct fot the fact that the color black fools the camera meter into wanting to expose for too long and white wants it to expose for too little. Both yielding grey pictures. That is precisely when you use exposure compensation. This has nothing to do with white balance which has to do with the color of the light source and not the object being photographed. White balance affects the overall hue of the picture and not the exposure. This is basic zone metering. No knowledge of digital photography, raw files, or white balance needed.
While I fully respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their opinion, they aren't entitled to their own facts.

[courtdale]

Going to try the exposure tweak this weekend on my Black. I have a Nikon digital SLR that I have NO idea how to use. If there are any other tips that go along with this one, please feel free.

Thanks.

[truckbutt]

Going to try the exposure tweak this weekend on my Black. I have a Nikon digital SLR that I have NO idea how to use. If there are any other tips that go along with this one, please feel free.

Thanks.

Look for the Exposure Compensation button on your SLR. It's a square with a diagonal line across. 1/2 is black with a minus sign and 1/2 is white with a plus sign. Hold down the button and turn the associated control wheel. There should be a graded scale in the lighted area on top of the camera that shows the ISO.
-2.....-1......0.....+1.....+2. Every camera is different in where the control button and scale is. You may also have to have the camera in a mode other then AUTO to be able to set it. For greatest effect the car should take up at least 75% of the viewfinder. Don't forget to reset it back to 0 when you're done or the next time you use your camera you'll get some funky results. Let me know how it goes.

[BobbyG]

If you set your exposure using a gray card in that light wouldn't this get it right?