Sony Sony RX100 V disappointing results/issue backlight

[Monaco-city]

Hey community,

I recently upgraded from mIII to mV and I have to say that I am very disappointed by my purchase.

When I take photos of landscapes and its overcast the sky totally looks while, even if there is structre in the clouds and some blue spotts. On the photo it just turns out white (i am focusing on the landscape) if I focus in the sky the contrast is very good, but the landscape turns very dark. I am shooting in the superior mode.

Does anyone know hot to fix that? I want a picture that has no backlight issues. I hope I could discriminate my problem as acurate as possible.

I am on holiday at the moment and was very close to put the camera in the bin! Your help is very appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Monaco-city

Here some examples:

 

[mathew]

hi mate
id dial in a different mode and try some shots there ,,idd try aperture mode ,,, also check your ISO ,,, turn on the built in ND filter to help with the highlights and the clouds ,,, there is alot of contrast between the sky and the landscape , you might have to dial in some setting before you get it write, im not a fan of the auto modes but ther is a dedicated landscape mode aswel , give that a try ? ,,,, dont give up on the camera , most cameras would struggle with this situation ,,, have you used sony cameras before ?? iv just made the switch from canon to sony and they are two different animals ,,,, let me now how you get on , put some more photos up ,

 

[sirbenski]

Hi @Monaco-city !
I agree with everything Matthew said above. For the landscape shots, it'd be best to use a higher aperture and shutter speed.
Use the ND filter too which greatly helps in outside conditions.
Also check your Metering Mode (try Multi).
What's your ISO setting? Auto works most of the time but you can set it manually to the lowest and see how that goes.
Finally, I advise you shoot in RAW or RAW+JPEG so that you can still have that RAW file as backup which you can further tweak once you're in front of a computer.

 

[Luke]

that bottom one (the only one that I would call backlit) would be a problem for any camera to shoot.

The other ones are simply a matter of getting the exposure you want. The scene has too much dynamic range to capture it all (from lightest to darkest). You may want to experiment with some exposure bracketing (the camera will take a "properly exposed" photo as it sees the light, and then one overexposed and one underexposed).

Another option for landscape photographs would be to use a graduated neutral density filter. You orient the darkest half of the filter to cover the sky and to keep it darker so it can retain the details without blowing them out and the landscape is properly exposed.

 

[bartjeej]

I'm assuming a camera like the RX100V also has some kind of High DR mode for jpegs, where the scene is underexposed to save the highlights and the shadows are subsequently boosted to give them the correct brightness?

 

[sirbenski]

Oh yes, the RX100V also has the Dynamic Range Optimizer / Auto HDR thing. It can be set from Level 1 - 5. I suggest you try that as well.

Assuming you haven't customized your shortcuts yet, when shooting, press the Fn key then find the DRO option on the second row then change the levels as you see fit. It might help you some.