Bright Sunlight - Overexposed

[Vicknesh PS]

Good day. I am still new to photography and I am seeking your kind advice on photographing planes (especially white ones) bathed in bright sunlight.
Equipment (entry model) : Camera-Nikon D5600 Lense-NIKKOR AF-P DX 70-300mm F4.5-6.3

Most on the time on the camera LCD, the pic looks "OK" only to go home find out the pics are overexposed and too bright.

Target : Multiple shots of an aircraft landing (lighting changes as it approaches)
1. What should I prioritize for my camera settings?
2. Can I add any filters to my lense?
3. Will a higher end lense, say a Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 G2, help in this matter?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Best regards
Vicknesh

[brianw999]

I use Nikon D7000's. In bright sunlight I underexpose by 0.7ev.
I use Aperture priority at 100 iso with an aperture of f8 to f10.
Metering is centre weighted.
A higher end lens will always improve matters. Use the best that you can afford. My favourite is the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. I also have a Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR on my second D7000 body which is a damn good lens.

[seahawk]

Hello,

use P or A mode (set to F and the following settings:

Metering: centre weighted
exposure compensation: 0,0 or maybe -0,3.
Active D-Lighting - off
AF-C priority: focus

And a "better" lens will not fix an overexposure problem. This is a camera settings problem. You need to learn the exposure modes and how to use exposure compensation.

[Vicknesh PS]

I use Nikon D7000's. In bright sunlight I underexpose by 0.7ev.
I use Aperture priority at 100 iso with an aperture of f8 to f10.
Metering is centre weighted.
A higher end lens will always improve matters. Use the best that you can afford. My favourite is the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. I also have a Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR on my second D7000 body which is a damn good lens.

Thank you Brian for your quick reply.
I have tried the first 2, but I haven't tried metering centre weighted. Thanks for the advice.


My NIKKOR AF-P 70-300mm has very strong vignetting when zooming >135mm in normal sunlight.
I have to keep my aperture at F8 to prevent this. This also limits my days to reasonably bright sunshine days otherwise the photo will be too dark+vignette.
That's the reason why I was looking into the Tamron 70-300mm F2.8.
Of course it could be the case of a lousy photographer
Will look into the 2 NIKKOR lenses you mentioned.

Thanks again!

[Vicknesh PS]

Hello,

use P or A mode (set to F and the following settings:

Metering: centre weighted
exposure compensation: 0,0 or maybe -0,3.
Active D-Lighting - off
AF-C priority: focus

And a "better" lens will not fix an overexposure problem. This is a camera settings problem. You need to learn the exposure modes and how to use exposure compensation.

Noted. Thanks for the advice.
My settings are as you mentioned, except for the center weighted metering.
Will definitely give that a go.

Thanks Seahawk!

[seahawk]

that is the key, the matrix metering always tries to expose the biggest part of the the frame correctly, so it will aim for the blue sky.

Vignetting is simply to correct in editing. I would not worry too much about it.

[snddim01]

Keep an eye on the histogram after every shot, and if your highlights are blown reduce the exposure comp 1/3 stop at a time until that no longer happens.

Or shoot raw which allows you to recover detail in the highlights afterwards.

[PMN]

This is the reason in consistent light (like that you get on blue sky days) I always shoot manual and use an incident reading from an external lightmeter, it completely gets around the problem of how easily reflective lightmeters (the ones built into all cameras) get confused. Blown highlight simply don't happen.

[Vicknesh PS]

Thank you everyone! Greatly appreciated.

[Petr Simacek]

RAW

Thank you everyone! Greatly appreciated.

You can try to use RAW format. This format gives you more chances when edditing a picture that is so not good.