Sometimes, it helps to look at bad photos in order to learn from them. Today's photo is definitely a bad photo.

Specifically, this photo suffers from some terrible hot spots or "blown out" exposure. Basically this is what happens when white areas of the photo lose detail. This happens when you either over expose the photo by leaving the shutter open too long, or by having the wrong white balance set, or most likely when you have the wrong metering mode selected.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM with Kenko Teleplus PRO 300 "DG" AF 2x Teleconverter at 1000mm, 1/50 sec at f/18.2. ISO 200. Dolica AX620B100 tripod. No post production. Kanawha State Forest, Charleston, WV.

Why This Photo: While wandering around Kanawha State Forest, I noticed several turtles in the pond. Periodically they would crawl out on a log to bask. Since any of the shots of the turtles swimming were coming out even worse, I wanted to get one of them out of the water.

What Works: Honestly, not much. The framing is probably the nicest thing, with the turtle's slightly turned head showing off the colors on its head and neck.

What Doesn't Work: Just about everything else. The focus is off leaving most of the photo slightly blurred (possibly from the use of the teleconverter), and there are distracting elements all over the place. However, by far, the worst element is the fact that almost the entire carapace (shell) of the turtle is completely blown out.

Granted this turtle's carapace was pretty muddy, so you couldn't make out much in the way of color, but they are so intricately patterned and textured, that it is extremely unfortunate to lose all that detail. There are some hot spots on the log as well, but the photo is already lost.

This photo was shot almost at noon in late May, so the sun was high in the sky and obviously pretty strong (the turtles were using it to warm themselves). This is probably one of the worst times to be shooting on a sunny day. Had the weather been overcast, this photo would have probably come out very different (though the colors may have been muted).

Other than waiting for the sun to go away, or wishing for different weather patterns, there are a couple things I could have quickly used to find out that I was taking bad photos. Specifically, I could have used my camera's highlight alert or histogram features, but we'll save those for another day.

If I had used one of those features or simply been paying more attention, I could have easily fixed this problem. I could have checked what my camera was using for its exposure, and then manually "under" exposed the image to eliminate these hot spots by either using a faster shutter speed or using the same shutter speed but with a narrower aperture (which actually would have also increased my depth of field to capture more clarity along the entire length of the turtle).

Remember - you probably wouldn't want to frame your bad shots, but sometimes they're good to keep around to review and remind yourself of things you need to pay attention to in order to get better photos.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'll try and find a more pleasing photo to look at for next time.

- Bill