Pronea 600i

I am having some hard time with my Nikon Pronea 600i. I use it to

take airplanes pictures and I am noticing that most of the pictures

taken are extremely contrasted - fuselages are extremely white and

the undersides of the planes get almost black.

 

I prefer to use the camera with shutter priority, letting the

camera's computer to adjust the correct lens apperture. Speeds vary

from 1/250 to 1/500, in most cases. I am using ISO 200 film (100 is

not available in my hometown).

 

Since a picture is worth a 10,000 words, I have attached a picture

of an aircraft taken last saturday. The lens apperture are set to

f/13.5 and the shutter speed at 1/500.

 

I do not know what to do to solve this issue.

 

Any help will be gratefully welcome.

 

Thank you !

 

Greetings from Brazil

 

Ricardo Ramos

FOZ DO IGUASSU - BRAZIL<div></div>

This is a normal exposure for ANY camera. When you have bright sunlight and a white surface, everything else is underexposed. It's a great photo; nobody cares about the underside of the plane. Only solution for a subject this large is to shoot on cloudy days.

Ricardo,

 

When I look at the image you posted, I see a black stripe that separates the blue on the side of the fuselage from the gray on the bottom. Most of the lower fuselage is in shadow and appears very dark, but I do see a narrow area of gray just beneath the black stripe.

 

I'm not familiar with the metering system of this body, does it have a spot meter mode? If so, and if you have the time to make use of it, spot meter the shadow area of the fuselage. This will likely blow out the sky, but you should get a better exposure of the lower areas of the subject.

 

If the body does not have a spot meter, you might want to experiment with slight over exposure. Use manual mode and open the aperture by on half to one full stop over what the meter reading suggests. Using the aperture and shutter speed you mentioned as an example, change the aperture to f/11 or even f/8. This will lighten the shadow area but will blow out other areas.

 

You could also use an ND grad to tone down the bright sky. This should result in a better exposure of the underside of the subject. The more I think about it, this would be the better solution.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Vernon