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Overexposed on the Branch

Among the remarkable qualities of the Nikon Z cameras is their exceptional exposure latitude.

I don’t set out to make bad photos, but every so often I simply have the camera set incorrectly.

The other day, on our Sunday drive, Kris and I spotted Norfolk Southern’s local freight on the New Holland Branch at Leola, Pa. I pulled over and made a photo using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens set to 175mm. The problem was that I had the ISO set at 1000 and the f-stop set to f2.8.

The camera gave me the fastest shutter speed, 1/8000th, which still left my photo more than a stop over-exposed. Working with Adobe Lightroom, I was able to recover most of the data from the NEF RAW file and present a decent representation of the image, including considerable sky detail.

I also made a series of properly exposed photos, but I’m aiming to demonstrate that even in situations of extreme overexposure, it is possible to adjust the file to present a decent image if your equipment has captured the data in RAW.

NEF RAW file, converted to JPG without adjustement. This is at least one full stop overexposed.
This is the same file as above, but featured my first round of adjustments to correct for the over exposure. In my opinion, the photo still needed some work.
NEF RAW file after my second round of corrections.
This is my Lightroom work-window that shows the postion of the slider controls and the degree of adjustments necessary to correct for the overexposed photo.

Tracking the Light Posts Everyday!