Will bright background of fast subject be overexposed? (help)

<p>I have yet to test this, but is shooting a fast moving subject on a very bright (white or yellow) background something I need to watch out for? <br /><br />For example, you often have to reshoot a bright background (like a sky) with a second underexposed shot, if you want a good chance at not having everything in that background get washed out. However, if you are panning a camera to follow a fast subject, you don't get a second chance to take that shot (Not unless you pan back, anyways) Did my question make any sense?<br /><br /></p>

<p>It makes sense. Usually, in a sports shooting situation, you have a chance to meter for what's <em>going</em> to happen, and then shoot manually to keep the meter from being fooled as unimportant things happen in the background.</p>

<p>That makes more sense than just winging it.... Set up the mono-pod, meter the bright background, and then just shoot the subject as it passes through it and see what happens.<br /> My concern is that I will have to, at best, underexpose the background leaving me with fewer options while capturing the subject, and then, of course underexposing the subject itself. Hmmm.</p>

<p>If you are shooting with the sun to your back, your exposure for the subject and background should be the same, unless the subject is in shadow. If the subject is going to be backlit, you'll end up with an over-exposed background. If you can get the sun behind you then you should be able to use the background (assuming both background and subject are in full sun) to adjust your exposure.</p>

<p>If your camera meter has a chance to pick up a lot of the bright background then in any automatic mode it is going to cause underexposure of the background and thus also the subject. You want to make sure that the subject is properly exposed which will tend to washout the background if it is that much brighter than the subject. </p>

<p>Hopefully you will have time to experiment and set a proper exposure manually or dial in correct compensation in your auto mode. </p><div></div>

<p>Yes your background might be blown. Generally, if shooting team sports or vehicles, you would position yourself with the sun behind you or off to the side. However this isn't generally a big problem because in most cases you are using a fast aperture to isolate the object from the background so it will be blurred anyway.</p>

<p>You need to make sure that your subject is not under exposed. If background is over exposed, then there is not much you could do during shooting, an leave it for any post processing if necessary.</p>

<p>I shoot figure skaters on glaring white ice all the time. I expose for their faces (using an incident reading if I can) and let the backgrounds fall where they may. "reshoot a bright background" sounds like an HDR approach but nothing I've ever heard of doing in sports.</p>

<p>Thank you all for your input.</p>

<p>Generally, I post-process whatever background brightness down to acceptable levels, and for completely motionless subjects, a second exposure that's darker is a no-brainer if I want to make sure the detail doesn't get washed out. <br />I at least then have the option of layering in a darker sky (if necessary) with Photoshop. <br>

Dan makes a good point about the aperture and sport photography.. if the aperture is wide open, there is less of a need to worry about the background getting overexposed, seeing as it will be blurred anyway.<br>

I don't use any HDR because I don't like it very much + it's way too trendy looking. lol.</p>