what did i do wrong

[wilson44512]

i finally was able to get a shot of the hawk that flies near my house. but when i took the pics they came out dark? it was cloudy out but still had plenty of light. can some one tell me some tips on how to do this better?
here are the pics. the dark ones are right out of the camera. and the lighter ones are from using picture project. there all shot at
F7.1
1/3200
ISO 400
200MM
Center weight and the whitebalance was set on cloudy

http://i30.tinypic.com/28i95b7.jpg

http://i26.tinypic.com/71qk41.jpg

http://i25.tinypic.com/4uv0cy.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/28qwwva.jpg

[JBO]

hey

what setting did you have it on? p/s/a/m?

wheneven i am outside and there is plenty of light, i always put my iso at 100

i typically use (m) all the time. I believe that your metering was off and your shutter speed was too fast. even though you center weighted it, there was still a lot of light around the hawk being that it was so small. next time try spot metering on the hawk and you may get better results.

Hope this helps

[wilson44512]

it was in aperture priority. and i didnt know it would put the shutter speed so fast

[toriaj]

You can try looking at the LCD display of the image and the histogram right after you take the photo. That gives you some idea of how bright the image is, so you can adjust the settings to get the exposure you want. Since the sky behind the hawk is so much brighter than the hawk is, the sky would need to be very bright (maybe even blown) for the darker hawk to be properly exposed. 1/3200 is a very fast speed, typically you'd never use it unless you wanted to get a silhouette.

[XaiLo]

Please allow me to suggest "Understandinfg Exposure" Revised Edition by Bryan Peterson. It's under $20 a lite read that will help you to understand the basics of exposure.

[tim11]

If there is bright light surrounding a dark object put EV to + will help (on A mode).

[Rooz]

JBO pretty much hit the nail on the head, it has not metered for the hawk so try spot metering. even then though at that distance its gonna be tough cos the hawk itself has alot of tones to it so a slight movmenet will throw your metering off again. its real tricky to get that shot right so dont be too hard on yourself, theres alot of shades going on in the frame, and trying to nail the right exposure is tough, especially when you have a moving object.

did you shoot it in raw ? if so, you should be able to recover some of it. how cropped is it aswell ?

[theMadHatter]

Wilson

Played with one of your photos (hope you don't mind). Is this the exposure you looking for? ;)

http://homepage.mac.com/themadhatter/.Pictures/71qk41c.jpg