While teaching basic camera skills, I wanted to demonstrate that when having the light source behind your subject, it will fool your camera’s built in meter, and and what steps you should take to correct this without any additional lighting. The image below was taken against a plain white garage door. The light is coming through three windows above the door. If I had simply relied on the cameras built in meter , the image would have been very dark and muddy looking (under exposed). The meter would have been fooled into thinking that this was a very bright scene, and would have tried to increase the shutter speed and or close down the aperture (depending on your camera settings). The simple soloution is to use the exposure compensation dial turning this to the + settings, in this case +1 1/3 stops.

For the very observant of you, a hint of  “Catchlights” have been added in Photoshop to give a more natural look.

Camera Data

Canon 5D MK3

Canon 85mm f1.2

Manual setting: 1/80th sec @ f4.0

ISO: 2500

Exposure compensation:  +1 1/3