I often face the sun and end up with an image (video and camera) that is washed out and filled with glare. How to avoid or remedy this?
Recommended SPARK camera settings for facing the sun?
- Thread starter Thomherr
- Start date
The glare is the biggest problem. To be honest shooting into the sun there isn't much that can be done on that. A polarizer will help a little bit. To get rid of the washed out I use a faster shutter speed and lower ISO. That will keep the sky from being washed out, but then the ground or anything in the foreground will in most cases be much darker, sometimes loosing all detail. A graduated ND filter (not sure if made for Spark?) will help darken the sky with out the ground getting too dark.
You could also try AEB mode that will take three photos at three different exposures and combine them to create a HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo. I does require the software to combine the photos. Unruely is correct, it's difficult to get a good photo when facing the sun.
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Many thanks Kendallford and Unruely! I will take your advice about ISO and shutter as well as AEB mode...
If going with the AEB HDR route you will need to expand the different exposes wide as the correct expose for the sky and the ground will be widly different. I forgot that the Spark even has the AEB. LOL
AEB on the Spark will take care of the three staggered exposure values for you with a 0.7ev separation. After getting your exposure correct at 0.0ev, one press of the AEB button will shoot three shots automatically, #1 @ 0.0ev, #2 @ -0.7ev and #3 @ +0.7ev. All three are taken within a second of pressing the shutter button. If more EV separation is wanted then one can still do this manually with more shots or with bigger EV values but it's tricky with a moving hovering camera as you want to keep the bracket of shots all in the same frame. I find the default just fine for most purposes, although sometimes I would prefer taking 5 or 7 shots.
Yes. See our discussion on this at Improve your pictures with an HDR program!
I like shooting in this mode anyway, because you can still pick the best exposure even if you do not combine them.
Hello from the Hoosioer Heartland Thomherr.
If you want to try something with the exposure settings on the fly, assign one of the two Fn buttons on the remote to AE LOCK if flying under automatic camera conditions and experiment.
Hover the Spark, start with the camera pointed down to the ground, slowly pan up a little until you see what you like and then press the AE LOCK.
This will lock the exposure at that setting.
Probably doesn't work for video since the Spark is flying about at a locked AE. ?
Good luck and welcome to the Forum.
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