Nice line-up there George. I can see some similarities in relationships but will wait for your "who's who."
Most of the time a camera's Auto setting works pretty well. However, in this case the bright sky is competing with the darker background for attention. The auto sensor is reading the brighter sky so adjusts its settings accordingly by exposing for the sky. It's most likely giving a smaller aperture, which means less light is reaching your camera sensor, even when your flash has fired. Ideally, you need a larger aperture to let more light in to capture your darker areas. If you did this though your sky would be overexposed and look much darker.
To the human eye, the scene would have looked okay - no problem you might think. But the eye is much more sensitive and interprets differing lighting conditions with much more sophistication. A camera sensor is not as good as that, and needs a bit of molly-coddling and persuasion to get it right.
You have two main choices here. I'll try to give you the easiest ways to achieve your best results. The last thing I want to do is bombard you with a complicated list of button presses, where you can change numerous settings to achieve perfect results.
So, firstly, to get a correct balance you need to override the Auto setting, by going into Manual mode and setting a larger aperture. You will still get a darker sky, but your background will be better exposed.
On manual cameras there is a term called 'bracketing', where you take several shots of the same scene by reducing and increasing exposure levels either side of the default reading, as given by either a separate exposure meter or an inbuilt one in the camera. This gives a range of shots to be able to choose the best exposed frame.
With digital cameras you can still take control of these settings in Manual mode. It's not ideal when all you want to do is quickly take a nice picture of your family and friends. The last thing you want to do is keep everybody waiting whilst you play around with all the menu settings.
A familiarity with your camera's
Scene Modes is best here. If you have one that covers night-time parties or sunsets, for example, it's worth trying them. Experimentation when not 'under pressure' of getting a particular scene is the best. Try taking pictures of anything, maybe flowers, at different times of the day into evening time using various camera settings. Take several photos each time so that you can compare the best results for a particular lighting condition.
Once you know which setting to use in almost all weather and lighting conditions, will make it easier the next time you are ready to take that all important shot. You will be able to take it with confidence that it will turn out okay.
The second option is to move your camera angle so that you don't have a large expanse of sky to contend with, so your camera sensor is not overwhelmed with conflicting lighting conditions. During the daytime the sun is giving pretty much even light over a bigger area, so problem shadowy areas are not such a problem. However, move into twilight when the sun is going down then you lose a lot of the overall good light.
You have a third option as well. This is where your software intervention comes to the rescue after the event, especially when you are probably not able to get that same set-up of people again.
In your case George, Photoshop Elements'
Enhance -
Adjust Lighting -
Shadows/Highlights would be a good place to start. Here you can brighten the darker areas and at the same time reduce the highlights (the sky).
This may sound like a complicated set of procedures when all anyone wants to do is just 'point-and-shoot' and be done with it.
Some people are quite happy with the default results their camera gives them, no matter what the scene is, and that is perfectly okay.
If, however, you're like me (a perfectionist
), I like to go that extra mile and make the result the best I can achieve, by putting my camera in the best 'mode' possible to give me what
I want, not what the camera wants.
Laurie.
