what am I doing wrong

[gazzer147]

Canon 1000d
1/80s
f/7.1

[William Wilson]

To light the subject at the window and keep the outside scene exposure you need additional light either from a reflector bouncing the window light back onto the subject or the use of fill flash.

[mistermonday]

You are shooting a backlit high contrast scene. Sensor arrays on digital cameras are very sensitive and have a limited dynamic range, although you will get the about the same result with film. As William points out, one solution is fill light from a flash or reflector. Another solution is to take two shots - one that meters for the backround (as you have) and another that meters on your foreground subject (which will overexpose your background). Then composite the two photos with your image editing software.
Regards, Murray

[Bro Photo]

Your camera metered off the background scene thus underexposing the foreground. Like said above, the only way to have an overall correct exposure is to use a flash to fill the shadows or wait until the light outside is even with inside (near dusk).

If you were to meter off the subject, the background would be blown out. Without a flash, you're going to have to compromise :/

[igot2pman]

Use spot or center weighed metering when trying to meeter the dark foreground.

Another option is to do two exposures, one with the BG exposed and one with the person exposed. Then bring them together in PS.

-Keven

[AFrazier]

I'm not sure what the "film" latitude is for your digital camera, but I expect you can get probably 1 stop under and 2 stops over.
Set your exposure with a gray card for the facial features of your subject so you can adequately capture the detail. Then reduce that exposure by one stop (or two if the camera's sensor will retain shadow detail two stops under exposed).
Your sky will be a bit brighter than a proper exposure, but the detail should still be visible.
That's the traditional way of handling the problem with natural exposure.
Your other option, as several have mentioned, is fill flash or bounced light. Bounced light off a reflector or white board would probably have been preferable. Fill flash might have been too harsh to maintain the mood of the photograph.

[0lBaldy]

gazzer147, It seems as if I have seen this picture before under a different name! I can't find the other post so I am unsure if solutions were provided for the picture.. The question of what you are doing wrong as far as shooting the picture has been answered pretty well

The picture still has the same problem... low resolution and highly pixelated!

I am sure that at a much higher resolution, say 300 to 600 resolution, you could do a single image HDR and get an acceptable image.. use the search button above to research.. or look in this forum: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/hdr-hdri-tone-mapping/
or for single image HDR this thread may help: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/hdr...tml#post184086

This is what can be done to try and salvage a picture with the low resolution, badly pixelated, small sample you provided by doing a single image HDR... A better image will give better results

[OhThatGirl2001]

Here's a great little video clip that will help you. It's from a photographer name Candice Stringham.
http://www.shutterfly.com/inspire/video/index.jsp
Picture perfect metering tab

It specifically deals with backlit subjects. Candice suggests you go right up to the subject metering off the skintone and lock your exposure in AE. That way you are metering off a skin tone.

Lisa

[AFrazier]

That's basically what I was saying. I just suggested using an 18% gray card. Place it under the chin, or in front of the face.
But if you leave the exposure there, you'll blow out the highlights in the sky behind the subject. You have to stop down to preserve the brighter highlights if you want to retain them in the image. How much you can stop down really depends on your camera. With film, it used to be that you could get, on average, two stops under and as much as six stops over. Digital isn't as forgiving. It probably allows one under, two over.
The best I've ever managed is two under, but that particular shot was itself a forgiving scene.

[Algarve Images]

Can't recall if it's been mentioned above, but you have a better chance of recovery if you shoot raw and not jpeg,
regards,
Gary