highlight spots

[Valerio Tarone]

I like this kind of highlight spots, do you? or not? or in other words are absolutewly to be avoided or not?
thanks.

[Jeff Parker]

Are you talking about the backlighting? If so, they can be used to great effect.

[Valerio Tarone]

thanks. Not exactly back lighting , the sunlight is semi-backlighting or a bit slinting.

[David Stephens]

I like this kind of highlight spots, do you? or not? or in other words are absolutewly to be avoided or not?
thanks.

It's a great effect and it is "backlighting" whenever the light is coming from anywhere on the 180-degrees in back of the plain of the subject.

In your example, I'd like it better if you had more depth of field so that much more of the subject was in focus.

Here's an image that I took last weekend with some blown out highlights (on the leaves) due to strong backlighting:


In Post, I let the leaves blow out, once I'd lowered the bird's brightness enough so that none of its feathers were blown out. Notice that its brest is in shadow and the light is very strong, so I wanted the bird as bright as I could get it without blowing its details. When you get a strong pose, then the little bits of blown out detail don't really disturb most of us.

I leave the blowout indicators on in the camera and when processing, but I will don't always totally eliminate blowouts. Some images stand up well to blowouts and your example is one where it worked. If I were taking that image, I might have tried -1EV and maybe even -2EV to see how it looked with the highlights preserved and the light level pushed up in Post. It might have looked slightly better, but I wouldn't be certain until I tried it both ways.

[Valerio Tarone]

Thank David Stephens
Yes I understand. My previous was: f 16 1/45 spot metering o EV
Yes better negative exposure correction. But, perhaps,also a larger metering?

[David Stephens]

Thank David Stephens
Yes I understand. My previous was: f 16 1/45 spot metering o EV
Yes better negative exposure correction. But, perhaps,also a larger metering?

For your sample picture, evaluative metering would have been better than spot, almost certainly. Even then, you'll also need some -EV. For this kind of shot you probably don't want to totally get rid of the blown out highlights, just reduce them some.