Someone can help me out ?

[JesseFrank]

I try to make some pictures from the interior of my house, to be used in a sales ad, and therefore use my Galaxy Note.

From some rooms I would like to include the outside view they have, like the view on the swimming pool for instance. However as soon as I point my camera/phone towards a window, everything inside the house turns very dark while outside is focused, to the point that you can't even see from which room the picture is taken.

How to avoid this. I have all the setting from my camera on automatic, as I thought as a noob that would be the best.

[Fiddlesticks]

The difference in light intensity between the inside and the outside is too great. This can be mitigated by evening out the light between the two environments. I would suggest:

1. waiting for the light outside to be less intense (early evening/early morning/cloudy day) AND
2. flooding the interior of the house with more light (turn on as many interior lights as possible or use flash (probably not possible with a cellular phone camera)
3. use a better camera and a tripod then bracket a least three exposures to capture the correct interior exposure and the correct exterior exposure and combine them using HDR software (probably not feasible unless you are at least an avid amateur photographer)
4. as a friend who has the skill to do #3 to take the photos for you

Hope this helps!

[JesseFrank]

Thanks for your response however it is a bit disappointing, as i had hoped it could be solved by changing some settings, which is clearly not the case..

[Fiddlesticks]

Thanks for your response however it is a bit disappointing, as i had hoped it could be solved by changing some settings, which is clearly not the case..

The problem is that the differences in the lights intensity is beyond the range of the camera's sensor. Even with a camera costing several thousand dollars it would not be possible to have the interior and the exterior correctly exposed unless the intensity difference was reduced and you would do that by using suggestions 1 and 2. Sorry but it's purely technical.

[Rob8891]

If you are restricted to your mobile phone camera, check to see if it is capable of doing panoramic shots. If so do a SLOW pan round the room, which might allow the sensor to adjust between the different light intensities. This is probably a long-shot, so you would need to follow Fiddlesticks' advice. Mobile phone cameras, no matter how much the manufacturers would have us believe otherwise do not have the range of capabilities that you are hoping for.

If all else fails, you will have to have several shots of the rooms... 'internal view 1'...'internal view 2'....'view from window' etc

Good luck anyway!

[samuijimmy]

As Mr Fiddlessticks suggested in one of his comments, try the shot when there is not as much bright light out side...also light up the room as much as you can....

and try not to make the brightest area the centre of the shot... You'll need to experiment!

Otherwise follow Rob's last piece of advice....

Most Mobile phones and iPads/ Notes can be good if fairly even light in daylight, but most that I have seen, are not so good trying to mix light and dark areas...or night shots...

Good luck~ !.

Edited February 10, 2014 by samuijimmy

[ETatBKK]

If all else fails, you will have to have several shots of the rooms... 'internal view 1'...'internal view 2'....'view from window' etc

'view from window' could be a good idea to elaborate the good view through the window.

once you took 'interior view 1', 'interior view 2', then you could take a picture close to the window and leave the window as a silhouette, then you associate the 'good view' with perfect exposure.

[JesseFrank]

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys, I will keep your advices in mind.

[ThaiBob]

Additionally, go to camera settings, turn off matrix metering and select spot metering. Play with the scene mode, may try Backlighting. Play with Exposure value settings. Experiment. I have the Note too.

[Fiddlesticks]

Additionally, go to camera settings, turn off matrix metering and select spot metering. Play with the scene mode, may try Backlighting. Play with Exposure value settings. Experiment. I have the Note too.

Using spot metering will likely exaserbate the problem. You can play with the scene mode and exposure values but unless you find a way to even out the actual lighting between the bright light of the outdoors and the low light of the indoors your camera sensor will not be able to perform a miracle it was not intended to perform and that is to capture such a high dynamic range! Either the highlights outside will be blown out so the interior can be exposed properly or the inside will be too dark if the outside is exposed properly.

[ThaiBob]

Yes,it very well might make things worse. it is difficult to meter on a specific place with these cameras but that's the nice thing about digital photography, its is so easy to experiment. Imagine if we were using film in this challenging lighting situation.

OP, I have discovered your camera has an auto contrast setting. It is off by default. Go to settings and turn it on. I toyed within it in a similar setting as yours and it helps.

[Daffy D]

How about taking two pictures of the room. One with the exposure correct for the room with the window washed out and another with the window correctly exposed but the room dark.

Then on the computer cut and past the good window on the good room.

Would that work?

[Fiddlesticks]

How about taking two pictures of the room. One with the exposure correct for the room with the window washed out and another with the window correctly exposed but the room dark.

Then on the computer cut and past the good window on the good room.

Would that work?

In reality your concept is what is done in many high dynamic range situations. Two, three or even more exposures are made then BLENDED together in Photoshop or some similar program. In this way the borders of the inside and outside edges are blended together at the pixel level and the transition looks natural. Doing it with a cut and paste will likely look very kludgy and fake and that is not the impression you are trying to make.

Have you tried waiting till early morning or evening when the outside light is less intense and at the same time, flood the interior with lights? I think you will be happier with that result.

I think I have exhausted my recommendations at this point. Best of luck and I hope you can achieve the result you desire.

[ThaiBob]

How about taking two pictures of the room. One with the exposure correct for the room with the window washed out and another with the window correctly exposed but the room dark.

Then on the computer cut and past the good window on the good room.

Would that work?

Daffy D, the OP has a HDR feature on his Note that will accomplish this and will be a lot simpler. He needs to experiment more with his camera.

[Daffy D]

How about taking two pictures of the room. One with the exposure correct for the room with the window washed out and another with the window correctly exposed but the room dark.

Then on the computer cut and past the good window on the good room.

Would that work?

Daffy D, the OP has a HDR feature on his Note that will accomplish this and will be a lot simpler. He needs to experiment more with his camera.

OK I'll admit had no idea what HDR was

But having Googled seems you're right he has all he needs right there on his Note.

Another bit of knowledge gained

[JesseFrank]

I had some positive results by changing the metering setting to Matrix.

Not perfect, but visible better.