Taking a backlit photo

[jk3700]

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I have a bird feeder outside my window and I am trying to take some bird shots.

Sadly, most times any birds out at this feeder are backlit.

What can I do with my d7500 to fix the exposure and make these better shot?

I know the focus is off, but I will work on the focus later.

 

[Ralph]

Try spot metering and single point focusing. Place on the eye. You might consider moving the feeder so some trees or bushes are in the background.

 

[jk3700]

I think spot metering would work. Can you help me with how to do it on the d7500?

 

[Ralph]

This is an example of a great deal of backlight so I put the focusing point and spot metering right on the eye. Not a wall hanger but the exposure of the nuthatch is really good.

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[Ralph]

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Here is another. Hope this helps.

 

[Ralph]

They appear much sharper in the original images.

 

[jk3700]

You are right. I agree. The exposure of the bird is great.

I was off looking in my d7500 manual trying to find how to do spot metering.

No luck yet!

 

[jk3700]

If I did spot focusing would that do spot metering too?

 

[Ralph]

No, they are different settings. When you set it to single point focus and set it to spot metering , the metering will occur at the spot of the focusing Point. Steve did a great video on that recently. on the D500 the selection of spot metering is on the dial to the left of the viewfinder. I’m sure it’s the same on the 7500.

 

[jk3700]

ok. I'm looking for the procedure to set the spot metering.

Thanks for all your help!

I've been thinking for a long time on how to fix this issue.

You helped a lot.

 

[Rassie]

Look at the buttons on the back of the camera - the ones to the left edge of the LCD panel. The second button from the bottom is the one you want. Press that, hold it in, and dial one of the control wheels. That toggles you through the various metering modes. Page 123 of the camera manual shows the different options.

 

[Whiskeyman]

I realize that your question is about spot metering, but after you get your camera configured for that metering mode, you might be served well by adding fill flash to your repertoire. That would help to make the colors in the shadow "pop!"

W

 

[aolander]

Dial in some + exposure compensation and skip the spot metering.

 

[DRwyoming]

What can I do with my d7500 to fix the exposure and make these better shot?

As posted above, spot metering on the bird can help but the simple way would be to dial in positive exposure compensation to deal with a backlit subject. Adding a stop to two of positive exposure comp and leaving my camera in matrix metering is what I typically do for shots like this.

Also as posted above, flash can be very useful in shots like this but that adds other complexities like limiting your shutter speed to flash synch speeds.

[edit] looks like I doubled with @aolander above

 

[gbodave]

See this --https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/d7500/en/15_exposure_01.html

 

[LL4D500]

You are right. I agree. The exposure of the bird is great.

I was off looking in my d7500 manual trying to find how to do spot metering.

No luck yet!

Great excuse to buy Steve's book on "metering/exposure"! Just finished going through that book after finishing the one on Auto Focus. He has a section in his Metering/Exposure book that addresses this with recommended settings and shows pictures with "not so good" results and "great results"!

 

[bleirer]

Your exposure is not too far out of bounds. Increasing is going to risk blowing out the bright reflected light, so you have to decide if you care about that area having some detail. If you have some editing software using a curves adjustment or otherwise opening up the shadows and maybe pulling back the whites would make a nice shot out of an exposure like that. I do agree with the positive EC but you have to monitor how much is too much, depending on if you care about the brights washing out.

 

[Woodyg3]

It looks to me that your shutter speed was too slow, which I think is causing most of the blurring.
This is the kind of situation that exposure compensation is good for. You might dial in an extra stop nest time and see how it looks. Don't hesitate to look at the image on your back screen to help determine if the exposure looks on.