Rich Rohrich said:
It might be worth trying spot or center weight metering off the rider so the sand isn't such a large part of the metering calculation. If you are setting up on a single corner for shots you can easily use manual metering and really nail it.
I was thinking the same thing. Only trouble is that you can not set the metering mode on the Digital Rebel. So that leaves you with 2 options.
1 -- Get used to what your camera does in that kind of light and set your exposure compensation to achieve proper exposure. I shoot 95% of my stuff with my 1D set to the right 1/3 to 1/6 of a stop. I'm not sure if you can use exposure comp in sports mode or not. ----- Ok, I just played with my Rebel, and it looks like no exposure comp in sports mode :(
2 -- Shoot full manual and learn how to read the histogram (something I really need to work on). Thing that sucks is you have no AI servo this way.
I messed with the first shot in PS for a few seconds and it can be made to look a lot better in just a few steps. Try the shadow/highlight recovery and set the shadows slider to 25. Then go into the exposure tool and set the Offset to minus .015 Lastly smart sharpen with the Amount set to 90 and the Radius set to .4 You will notice that the weeds on the right side look a bit over done now, but if you do the above steps on a separate layer, you can always use a layer mask to take care of that problem.