metering modes.

[Andrew Ng]

so okay, hmm lets say.. i want to take a picture of someone with the sunset in the background. would i then be correct to say, i meter the sky. lock the EV. then compose the picture with the inclusion of my subject. but at the same time use a flash to properly expose the subject? would this be correct?

Yes... That would get you a properly exposed picture.... Less if iTTL/ ETTL is working as it should be... You might need some modifications to the power of the flash. Sometime iTTL May be over compensated.

Think I give free lesson on this one. Shooting sunset.. not setting sun (Where about more than 50% of the Sun is Under the horizon. Anything above I Term it Sunset).. where before the sky is turning blue...

We... call this a Challenging Situation. High Contrast of difference between the light source and subject. The Background is the the light source and Its Freaking Bright. Your Subject is looking at you and her face look freaking darker than the background.

So you have something very Bright, and something Very Dark. No Mid Tone to Meter... How?

Use High Shutter and small Apeture.. (As in f/8, 11,16,22..) You loose the model's face features.

Things that can be done...

1. Ask Model to face the Sun. Shoot in opposite Direction. or...
2. Shot as usual but turn it into a Silhouette picture. or...
3. Throw in a reflector and bounce some light onto the subject. Or..
4. Use fill in flash - Strength up to you. May need M annual/ EV override than just use iTTL, ETTL at 0.
5. Choose to take half the f/stop and Half the Shutter metering (Giving you a Half overexpose sky and half underexpose subject).. Metering the sea gets you this kind of picture at times...
6. Move to an oblique angle and shoot (i.e. Photographer climb high shoot down, Lie down shoot up where the Sun is not too 'straight directly' coming into the camera)

Remember.. Our Eyes have varying ISO Feature. Can see in varying light source. The Camera is stupid. We are not.

Understand light (ie direction, color property, how humidity and vapour affects light..e.t.c) , you understand how to make pictures with the light that you have or do not have. Create the feel and mood that you desire.

Read More, Shoot More, Listen More, Shoot More. Critic your own picture more.

Cheers. :-}

 

[catchlights]

hey guys, i was just curious? i just want to know from a show of replies what sort of metering methods you guys use.

i was reading this very detailed article on spot metering and, to me i feel that i have to go about learning how to use my imagination to see "middle-grey" in every shot i take. or just get a "middle-grey" card for metering purposes.

i have one question. when people mention metering "middle-grey" i am meant to meter it to the correct exposure yes? and the once metered on the "middle-grey" i EV/L, compose and shoot??

you learn to evaluate a scene, know where is highlight, where is shadow, and where you want to place your mid tone at. so take the meter reading accordingly.


for an instant, you are taking sunrise sunset landscape, and on spot metering mode, you should take the meter reading from the area around the sun, but not including the sun, this is the area which you want to exposed correctly.

 

[Andrew Ng]

hey guys, i was just curious? i just want to know from a show of replies what sort of metering methods you guys use.

i was reading this very detailed article on spot metering and, to me i feel that i have to go about learning how to use my imagination to see "middle-grey" in every shot i take. or just get a "middle-grey" card for metering purposes.

i have one question. when people mention metering "middle-grey" i am meant to meter it to the correct exposure yes? and the once metered on the "middle-grey" i EV/L, compose and shoot??

Forgot to answer this ....

Mid Gray... That is difficult to look at at times.. Sometimes... I can't find a single gray... So I look for MID-TONE.... i.e. the Medium brightest thing in the picture. Else... meter skin tone of subject. Spot.. not easy to use. For Nikon.. when you get it correctly.. you get the highest contrasting colour picture.

When all the surrounding brightness is almost equal, in a big wide open landscape, just use Matrix. I often use -1/3, -2/3 EV for the colours to stand out.

Cheers. :-}

 

[night86mare]

just a note, no one is going to think "what is mid grey"

after a while, you shoot enough, and you think enough, and you note the response of your camera..

you will know what to do in each situation

even for sunset, you don't NECESSARILY have to use spot metering. it is probably the most technically sound way, but if you find that centre weighted for certain compositions and +0.5EV tends to work for you, why not?

anyways, just a note, metering (at least centre weighted/evaluative) might differ from lens to lens. most of the time slightly, for some cases quite a bit.

 

[screambitch]

thanks guys for all the very informative tips and pointers.

okay i've got another question. lets just say i've spot metered the setting sun.
and now i want to compose my shot. if i move my composition my my light meter starts to go towards the negative.
cause it no longer pointed at or near the setting sun.

do i meter the setting sun then use AE/L and then compose and shoot?

 

[calebk]

its pretty simple...if the white balance can be easily done, centre-weighted is recommended. If so difficult till eventually just leave on auto, use spot metering.

I think you are the one who needs to read up more. 18% grey is an exposure level; it is independent of white balance. If I use a handheld spot meter or incident meter to meter a scene, I don't have to set a white balance on my meter, do I, so what does white balance have to do with metering?

 

[Andrew Ng]

thanks guys for all the very informative tips and pointers.

okay i've got another question. lets just say i've spot metered the setting sun.
and now i want to compose my shot. if i move my composition my my light meter starts to go towards the negative.
cause it no longer pointed at or near the setting sun.

do i meter the setting sun then use AE/L and then compose and shoot?

I thought it was mentioned not to meter the sun??? After you meter.. You play with your ISO, Shutter and Aperture to get the exposure you want right? You did not AE-Lock right....

You have asked a very worrying question... Think you need to read up on exposure...

 

[screambitch]

I thought it was mentioned not to meter the sun??? After you meter.. You play with your ISO, Shutter and Aperture to get the exposure you want right? You did not AE-Lock right....

You have asked a very worrying question... Think you need to read up on exposure...

okay, maybe i should do just that. ;p

 

[screambitch]

why is it that alot of people just reccomend using the Matrix Metering on Nikons and playing with EV Compensation??
is it adequate enough?

 

[night86mare]

why is it that alot of people just reccomend using the Matrix Metering on Nikons and playing with EV Compensation??
is it adequate enough?

because matrix metering is very consistent under certain types of settings

spot is ley chey, a lot of people find it ley chey to switch ,and then slowly spot meter the correct portion...

me, i use center weighted most of the time.

 

[screambitch]

because matrix metering is very consistent under certain types of settings

spot is ley chey, a lot of people find it ley chey to switch ,and then slowly spot meter the correct portion...

me, i use center weighted most of the time.

ahh okay.. i can see that spot metering is leceh, cause of the zoning system that ansel adams created. well i guess i'll just play around more with matrix and ev compensation for the mean time.

 

[Andrew Ng]

For Me.. when Light comes from everywhere.. I choose Matrix, Center weight for if I want to focus on 1 Main Subject... Spot when I want Contrasty pictures. :-}

I use Spot and Matrix. Toggle between the two is easy on a Nikon.

 

[calebk]

I "grew up" in photography using spot metering, and because I was educated in a film school, we used spot reflective metering, or incident metering only, so I'm pretty used to spot. It takes getting used to, and you have to be very familiar with your metering system to know how large the spot is.

It is also more lay chay with an auto-exposure mode, but since I use Manual most of the time, it's not much of a hindrance to me.

 

[screambitch]

I "grew up" in photography using spot metering, and because I was educated in a film school, we used spot reflective metering, or incident metering only, so I'm pretty used to spot. It takes getting used to, and you have to be very familiar with your metering system to know how large the spot is.

It is also more lay chay with an auto-exposure mode, but since I use Manual most of the time, it's not much of a hindrance to me.

mmm~ i see. i've been keen to take up a credited photography course ever since i got interested in photography last year. but i see so many people who take spectacular shots, all of whom are self thought. make me think i should just keep shooting and understand my camera.

 

[megaweb]

why is it that alot of people just reccomend using the Matrix Metering on Nikons and playing with EV Compensation??
is it adequate enough?

Yes, for DSLR, to get a good exposure is so simple and easy. Snap and preview the shot, perform exposure compensate and re-take the shot. Use histogram to assist you on exposure check. For SLR film, you cannot do that. So to get good exposure for film, either you master the metering mode or perform bracketing shots or do both.

 

[screambitch]

Yes, for DSLR, to get a good exposure is so simple and easy. Snap and preview the shot, perform exposure compensate and re-take the shot. Use histogram to assist you on exposure check. For SLR film, you cannot do that. So to get good exposure for film, either you master the metering mode or perform bracketing shots or do both.

any websites where i can see the difference between a "GOOD & BAD" histogram?

 

[megaweb]

any websites where i can see the difference between a "GOOD & BAD" histogram?

See http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml

try to search the term "histogram" at Clubsnap or Google.

 

[shutterstation]

Understanding metering modes takes a little reading and a lot of practice. Once you've played a few times with them you'll get the idea and understand which one works in which situation. We actually just wrote a short article about this at shutterstation.com if you're interested.

As someone mentioned previously, if you're shooting someone backlit (ie. the sun is on their back):

• Using Matrix metering, you're likely to get a nicely exposed background and a black subject (in silhouette). The camera is trying to balance the whole scene and will try to get a "correct" exposure for what's dominating the frame, in this case the very bright background.

• Using Spot metering, you'll probably get a well exposed subject, but the background will be completely blown out (totally white) with no detail.

• Using Center Weighted metering, you'll probably get the same as using Matrix but a little lighter depending on how big the difference is between the light of the background and the dark of the subject.

Your best bet to get a "balanced" exposure is to use Matrix metering to ensure the background is OK and use fill-flash to expose the subject. The idea is that the flash will "lift" the exposure of the subject to a level similar to the background.

 

[YoungPictoraider]

Yes, for DSLR, to get a good exposure is so simple and easy. Snap and preview the shot, perform exposure compensate and re-take the shot. Use histogram to assist you on exposure check. For SLR film, you cannot do that. So to get good exposure for film, either you master the metering mode or perform bracketing shots or do both.

+1.

Why to complicate when things are simple today, indeed ? When using digital camera, no matter what metering mode is in function on your DSLR and no matter if this metering mode is well calibrated or not, you just have to refer to the histogram and preview the shot, and adjust to your taste using EV compensation. When using bridge like S100FS and liveview, you can have a look to the histogram and the image in real time at any time, and of course before shooting, so to my point of view metering modes are more than never both equal and efficient to get good exposure.

I must say i don't care what metering mode is selected on my digital cameras...if back LCD panel works, of course.

 

[YoungPictoraider]

In case, you want to know the basics about metering modes, you can access to a very well-done website available in english version : http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm