Exposure

[ammitsboel]

Hi everyone,
I've started learning how to expose my captures correctly, I'm using my hand with the M8 "spot" meter at the moment. My question is how do you cope with mixed lighting and the variations that comes during the day outside and the varying indoor lighting.
Do you keep measuring almost constantly with you meter or hand, or do you learn what a stop looks like and adjust it accordingly up and down as you shoot?

[jaapv]

What I do is to point the camera at a part of the image that is "right" for what I want to expose like and lock focus, or more often, do the same in manual mode, as it will show up to one stop under and over as I recompose.

[jlancasterd]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Hi everyone,
I've started learning how to expose my captures correctly, I'm using my hand with the M8 "spot" meter at the moment. My question is how do you cope with mixed lighting and the variations that comes during the day outside and the varying indoor lighting.
Do you keep measuring almost constantly with you meter or hand, or do you learn what a stop looks like and adjust it accordingly up and down as you shoot?

In difficult lighting conditions, or when using a lens that can 'fool' the meter (Eg. the CV12mm) I resort to using a hand held meter in incident light mode.

[dcsang]

I'm like Jaap.
Aim the camera, focus, move the spot around to "see" the portion of the scene with the greatest shadow detail and I expose for that.

Sometimes, with this method it means I'm overexposing certain areas of the scene (i.e. sky), which I can deal with. What I can't deal with is underexposing the image too much - I find it makes it a lot more difficult to bring back detail (if it was there in the first place).

Cheers,
Dave

[ammitsboel]

Originally Posted by dcsang

I'm like Jaap.
Aim the camera, focus, move the spot around to "see" the portion of the scene with the greatest shadow detail and I expose for that.

Sometimes, with this method it means I'm overexposing certain areas of the scene (i.e. sky), which I can deal with. What I can't deal with is underexposing the image too much - I find it makes it a lot more difficult to bring back detail (if it was there in the first place).

Interesting.
So you expose as you do with film? for the shadows?

John, don't you find that you miss some shots if you have to measure to keep track of the changing light, like being at a street marked or similar when the sun light changes in intensity?

[dcsang]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Interesting.
So you expose as you do with film? for the shadows?

I treat exposure on the M8 as I would on the M7.

I think the problem folks had when many of them went with the M8 is, I believe, an expectation that the metering would be more akin to "normal" or "standard" digicams - you know, the whole 4billion matrix metering points or some such - of course, I'm talking about folks that came from that school of exposure in the first place

Dave

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Interesting.
So you expose as you do with film? for the shadows?

John, don't you find that you miss some shots if you have to measure to keep track of the changing light, like being at a street marked or similar when the sun light changes in intensity?

In high contrast situations I would advise to expose for the highlights, just like slide film. Never mind specular highlights, they are supposed to be blown, I find the shadow recovery of the M8 rather good, whereas the recovery of highlights in ACR (or c4 for that matter) leaves much to be desired.

I dont think you would miss many shots, this measure-recompose method is rather quick and as you get used to it, you can often combine it with focus-recompose, as normally you want your main subject to be both in focus and optimally exposed.

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by jlancasterd

In difficult lighting conditions, or when using a lens that can 'fool' the meter (Eg. the CV12mm) I resort to using a hand held meter in incident light mode.

Last time I tried to do that I was forcibly removed from the stage
Seriously, of course you are right, but the drawback is that you have to stand next to your subject.

[ammitsboel]

Thanks jaap, do you ever adjust from eyeballing? like doing small adjustments and such?

[Philinflash]

One of the liberating things about digital photography is the ability to correct things like exposure in post. Using CS3, there is so much you can do so that you don't have to worry so much about getting the capture exposure dead-right. This way, you can fiddle with the exposure values in the solitude of your work station rather than wasting a lot of time (and missing opportunities) when shooting.

Focus, on the other hand, is one thing you want to get right the first time so take care with that instead.

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Thanks jaap, do you ever adjust from eyeballing? like doing small adjustments and such?

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean?

[ammitsboel]

Originally Posted by jaapv

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean?

Do you find it valid to just use one setting if you are in a situation where the light is changing? Could it be a worthwhile effort in situations such as these to know what a stop looks like and make corrections on the fly?

Originally Posted by Philinflash

One of the liberating things about digital photography is the ability to correct things like exposure in post. Using CS3, there is so much you can do so that you don't have to worry so much about getting the capture exposure dead-right. This way, you can fiddle with the exposure values in the solitude of your work station rather than wasting a lot of time (and missing opportunities) when shooting.

I'm not so much into fiddling around in post production, I find that I get better results from deciding as much as I can while capturing.

[luigi bertolotti]

With M8, my method is, generally speaking, to expose for the highlights YOU want to be well readable : as for the shadows detail, in which M8 imho is really GREAT, you can be rather sure that a raw developer (I use LR, but think the same with C4) can "rebuild" it fine.

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Do you find it valid to just use one setting if you are in a situation where the light is changing? Could it be a worthwhile effort in situations such as these to know what a stop looks like and make corrections on the fly?

No, you are quite right to make corrections as you go. The only correct exposure is the one that needs only minimal or no correction in post-processing.

I'm not so much into fiddling around in post production, I find that I get better results from deciding as much as I can while capturing.

Quite right. Each exposure correction costs you in dynamic range. But it is of great help that it is possible. From time to time events are going so fast that all you can do is keep track of focus, and let exposure fall as it may...

[ndjambrose]

At risk of pointing out the obvious, you do realise the M8 is a digital camera? :-)

The reason I ask is I don't know why you're making approximate metering choices (metering reflected light off your hand) when you can make an exact metering choice of light in the scene using the histogram. The M8's light meter only shows you average light for a given tone. But the histogram shows you the exact ratio of tones for all of the dynamic range.

There's quite a difference in behaviour between metering for film and metering for a sensor. The M8 is very sensitive to highlights; overexposure can clip them. By all means continue to guess the exposure you want, but don't overlook the fact that the histogram is a precise indication of where the light is falling - much more accurate than the built-in meter.

Also don't forget that there's no such thing as a correct exposure. It's only correct if it's what you wanted. There's a lot of room for artistic interpretation in under / over exposure outside of what the meter considers an average. The histogram is the best way to see how your choices affect the captured image.

[sean_reid]

Originally Posted by ammitsboel

Hi everyone,
I've started learning how to expose my captures correctly, I'm using my hand with the M8 "spot" meter at the moment. My question is how do you cope with mixed lighting and the variations that comes during the day outside and the varying indoor lighting.
Do you keep measuring almost constantly with you meter or hand, or do you learn what a stop looks like and adjust it accordingly up and down as you shoot?

With practice one learns to be able to adjust things on the fly and, as needed, one checks the histogram. With practice, one also learns that "X" change in exposure results in "Y" movement of the histogram distribution.

I haven't metered from my hand in a long time. I sometimes start with what AE suggests and then switch to manual and adjust by feel and by histogram. Using one's hand to estimate a Zone V reading was perhaps more useful before histograms could give us exposure feedback on the fly.

Cheers,

[sean_reid]

Originally Posted by luigi bertolotti

With M8, my method is, generally speaking, to expose for the highlights YOU want to be well readable : as for the shadows detail, in which M8 imho is really GREAT, you can be rather sure that a raw developer (I use LR, but think the same with C4) can "rebuild" it fine.

My approach is similar. I always expose for those highlights that I want to retain detail. The M8 does not have an enormous amount of headroom in the highlights.

Cheers,

Sean

[sean_reid]

Originally Posted by ndjambrose

The reason I ask is I don't know why you're making approximate metering choices (metering reflected light off your hand) when you can make an exact metering choice of light in the scene using the histogram. The M8's light meter only shows you average light for a given tone. But the histogram shows you the exact ratio of tones for all of the dynamic range.

There's quite a difference in behaviour between metering for film and metering for a sensor. The M8 is very sensitive to highlights; overexposure can clip them.

I agree with what you say here, in general, and would only add that the histogram is never exactly on the money - though its quite close. The histogram is certainly at the heart of my metering for digital.

Cheers,

Sean

[ammitsboel]

But I'm sure looking at the histogram is not just about clipping or am I wrong?
Do you adjust the exposure to make it look a certain way?

[misha]

Originally Posted by sean_reid

I agree with what you say here, in general, and would only add that the histogram is never exactly on the money - though its quite close. The histogram is certainly at the heart of my metering for digital.

Cheers,

Sean

for some reason , obvious "keepers", usually, have much better than average histograms.