Any ideas Why This is Blown Out?

[jbtaylor]

I did have a polarizer on at the time. I don't think my camera was set correctly. In fact, it was just a test shot but I was surprised at the backboard being so blown out.
EXIF is f2.0
ISO 800
Speed 1/8000

[01af]

It's blown out because it's over-exposed---as simple as that.

The overall subject contrast is very high, from deep shadows up to the sun-lit bright backboard, i. e. a wide dynamic range. The polarizer tends to further increase contrast. The camera can handle only so much contrast so something has to give. If the exposure had been chosen for the backboard then the shadows would have lost detail.

However the image contrast seems very high ... too high actually. Is this an in-camera JPEG or did you process it yourself from raw? If the former then did you increase the Contrast setting in the camera's menu? Don't do that for high-contrast subjects. This is exactly the kind of subject that would benefit from shooting in raw format.

-- Olaf