*Pace and Cap* Day at Saratoga

[Tim Y]

Glad all had a good time, but a few suggestions from a old photographer that might make future photo captures a bit better balanced.

ALL modern day cameras, film or digitally based, use through the lens metering and try to make the image 18% neutral gray. The camera does not know WHAT about a shot is of interest, it just averages the amount of light coming in top 18% neutral gray. IF there is a lot of reflected light,usually from a strong back lit situation, as when people are standing in front of a window, or, in your cases here, in the dark under an awning, the camera AVERAGES the exposure to the total amount of light coming in, so it will UNDER-EXPOSE the images in the shade, OR, in the case of the very white shirt, it will overexpose. Most professionals "bracket" exposures of shots (like at a wedding) by taking progressive shots increasing half an F stop over exposed in two steps (like F4, then two hales over to F5.6)and two progressive halves under, in order to compensate back-lighting or reflected light. The photo of mine HERE, the avatar, required metering ON the horse or otherwise the back lighting of the sky behind the rider would have UNDER-exposed the horse in the foreground

Many of the newer cameras allow the user to spot meter in the area of a composed shot so that the meter only averages the light within that narrow parameter and NOT the entire field of view. I use this often at the gate since the horses are coming in from very bright light into the shadows of the gate which would be UNDER-exposed when they enter that shadow. Some other cameras use lower centered weighted metering, some allow pre-metering shots.

Just remember back lighting, white objects (or very bright objects in a dark field like a spot light in a darkened room) need to be balance before you hit the shutter for better light balance.