I am traveling with my family through Central America and worried that nearly every picture that I take is ruined. The sun just seems too bright and makes everything appear black with over-exposed areas dominating the frame. How can I avoid this? Please respond quickly...

you could try deliberately under exposing the shot slightly in order to capture more detail and then fix the brightness and colour in an image editing program later....

Do you mean the backlight is very bright and all you're getting is silhouettes? If that is the problem, then you need to expose for the black areas. This will blow out the background to white, but the black areas will have detail.

I dont think he does - I had this problem in Kaua'i - sometimes the sun was so intense the scenery looked almost monochromatic and yet the day after at the same time it could look entirely different.

sounds like a job for a circular polarizer?

that worked for me sometimes and lifted the grey colours but on other occasions even that didnt help

We get that high contrast bright light a lot in summer. There really isn’t much you can do about it except wait for better conditions like late afternoon / early morning or overcast days.

So said (sorta) the people at fredmiranda, except they don´t know me. :-)

The sky is overwhelmingly bright, and so is the sunlight on just about anything. When I take pictures for my own purposes, I have the time to make adjustments and can position myself to make the conposition less hostile or can just wait for better times of the day. On the otherhand, my family won´t live without the typical tourist pictures. *shakes head in disgust* I just don't want them complaining back home when it is very difficult to get normal pictures under such circumstances.

If you are not familiar with the camera at hand (an Olympus C-4040), you are blessed. It accepts no filters of any variety except those built in (whiteboard???) or those in post processing. I figure it is better to under-expose than the opposite, but again, it takes time to change such things. I like subjects that are more patient. Like a good rock. :-D

I am in Guatemala right now. Overall, it has been a good trip. Sure, I missed the contest, but how cool is it to have a genuine "Ñ" in one of my posts here online for the permanent record? ¡Thanks to all who responded! :-)

Luke - it may not help you now but you can get a circular polariser for your camera from Olympus - albeit with a bit of jiggery pokery - see here for more info.

push comes to shove, buy a pair of polarizer sunglasses and stick em in front of the lens?

Hehe. You guys are as helpful as Darryl was with his sugestion regurading lens hoods. He says you can make one in an oven with a lampshade or duct tape a supersize cup ontp the camera. :-)

Thanks, though. I will enjoy working with the 20D. I really wish I hhad a low density filter on hand on this trip, but then again, a real lens can most liekly slow down further than f10. ¡Post when I get home! :-D

You shouldn't dismiss ideas just because they sound cheap. Ok, sure, the LP lens hood was tongue-in-cheek and a little over the top, but a lens from a pair of polarized sunglasses is roughly equivalent to a linear polarizer, which in turn is equivalent to a stop-or-two neutral density filter. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but you said you were in a bind, and what's easier to find than a pair of sunglasses in a touristy area? Even regular sunglasses should decrease the contrast of the scene so the range of the camera can handle it better. It wouldn't be the perfect solution, but it would be simple and very cheap.

Haha, it was a little cheap humour on my part. Myself, I would just order the darn thing and leave great ideas to the manufacturer. Anyone have a better use for eight tracks than using them as door wedges:-0

no - a door wedge sounds like the limit of it's abilities...

Well, thanks for the advice. I apologize for not taking seriously a good suggestion. They actually sold brand name "Tommy Hilfigger" models for less than $3...I should have picked some up...

I am back now, and hope to post some images soon. I mostly tried to be very picky about what light my subjects were recieving, and all the nasty ones were deleted later. I really wish that I didn't have to make a choice on such a small screen, but Smart Media is so limited on size!

Thanks again!