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EV compensation: how to ?


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Good morning, first of all many thanks to you all for this great site! I've been spent a lot of time reading through the threads here and decided to order the X1, which just arrived yesterday. I have a small window of time to decide if I want to keep this little wonder.

 

First reaction after I downloaded some shots and imported into Aperture 3 was - Wow! What an image quality! Yes, it doesn't do closeups, but wow. I am comparing what I see to my shots from both the E-P2 and E-PL1. Very impressive.

 

Here's my quick question: when I've tried using the EV compensation, I keep getting that "large" rectangle in the LCD that shows which + or - increment I am choosing, but it blocks so much of the scene out that I figure I must be doing something wrong. I've read the manual and just don't seem to get it. I'd really appreciate some pointers regarding this. Am I missing something - as in activating it through the wrong menu?

 

Thanks in advance!

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You need to be shooting in shutter or aperture priority. One of the dials has to be set to a, otherwise in full manual you would compensate yourself by chAnging a setting. It confused me for a min too!

 

Edit, maybe I misread... The ev compensation box is blocking your view, or you are moving the focus box?

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You need to be shooting in shutter or aperture priority. One of the dials has to be set to a, otherwise in full manual you would compensate yourself by chAnging a setting. It confused me for a min too!

 

Edit, maybe I misread... The ev compensation box is blocking your view, or you are moving the focus box?

 

Thanks, Edward. I am shooting in Aperture priority and when I click on the EV compensation button I see a rectangle that lets me know, I guess, which choice I'm making as in negative and positive increments. I was just wondering if this was "normal" and if in order to choose the EV compensation one had to see the rectangle or not?

 

I'm coming from the Olympus PEN where I just see the little increment notation and see the screen change - nothing else comes into my "vision". I guess that X1 doesn't work the same.

Perhaps this changes in full Manual Exposure? Or it may still show up?

 

For me, at least with my first 20 or so shots yesterday evening, I found the rectangle a little odd since it takes up so much room in the LCD. This may just be the way it is, and something I'd get used to. So, yes, it's the EV box that seems to block my view.

 

 

As I said, I am floored by the quality of the image when I upload it to my MacBook Pro (I use Aperture 3 for now)...it's fantastic and very easy to rescue details from the shadows.

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Do you mean the big one that appears when making ev changes (which disappears when you press the shutter button halfway) or the black rectangle at the bottom? I assume the former, which shouldn't be too much of an issue when actually framing? I guess if the former they assumed it wouldn't be adjusted too much while actually critically framing, the quick change allows you to see the effect on most of the scene and the shutter press rids you of the box. If the box isn't going way there may be an issue...also try playing with the info button when easy to shoot to control screen elements. Sorry I cant be of more help...it may just be one of those things that doesn't bother but a few people :/

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Yes, the former - I may well have been in too much of a hurry last night trying it out. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

I will definitely play around with it more and am guessing that maybe I didn't realize that I could get rid of the display by pressing the shutter. I thought I had to click OK/Menu:o

 

Fortunately I have a few days to work with the camera and the viewfinder is coming soon, so I can see how that effects me.

 

It's a real beauty, that's for sure - the image quality is there, that's for sure.

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I find that when I am in the streets shadows between buildings and such leaves no one exposure to be right all of the time. So I turn on the exposure bracketing with 1 or 2 step increments so that each single shot grabs 3 different exposures. You are more guaranteed the right exposure that way.

 

You can search for "bracketing" in the pdf of the manual and find the instructions there.

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What a great Idea - thank you! I'll definitely check that out in the manual. Now that you've mentioned this option, I had heard about it but really had forgotten about it. Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do, too, Richard but with some photos where there are deep shadows vs bright highlights I have to go even more into the negative exposure compensation world. But I, too, am amazed at the ability to "save" photographs.

 

That said, I'm still finding my sea legs with the camera unless it's an evenly lit scene. I am very happy that I bought the camera, just need to get used to it a bit more.

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my problem is with the histogram.. i can get it to appear but when i press the shutter half-way it disappears making it impossible to "fine tune" my exposure....

 

i have gotten in the habit of trying to use the histogram to avoid clipping and maintain as much of the highlights as possible as i take the photo rather than spend time in post doing the same..... it is not obvious to me how to keep the histogram on throughout the exposure process....any suggestions?

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I don't believe this is possible with focus lock in play. I think their idea(no opinion of my own here) is that you use the histogram to get the Proper levels, then you focus on the +- ev meter line to shoot.

 

that sounds like a logical reason-... i will see if it makes any difference with manual focus.....

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my problem is with the histogram.. i can get it to appear but when i press the shutter half-way it disappears making it impossible to "fine tune" my exposure....

 

i have gotten in the habit of trying to use the histogram to avoid clipping and maintain as much of the highlights as possible as i take the photo rather than spend time in post doing the same..... it is not obvious to me how to keep the histogram on throughout the exposure process....any suggestions?

 

Do not forget that the histogram represents a JPEG image. If you shoot Raw you will find far more information in the image than the camera histogram suggests. That is why it is better to shoot Raw and recover any apparently lost data in post-processing.

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It's interesting to read everyone's posted questions and responses.

 

I've started to feel that using manual exposure, and thus the EV metering line, for scenes where there's a big difference between the highlights and the majority of the scene is very helpful.

 

As for RAW, I agree it is amazing what I have been able to recover from the "shadows" when I've metered for the highlighted areas. That's where this camera's image quality seems amazing. Of course I can only compare the X1 to the Olympus E-P2 and E-PL1...that's my only personal RAW experience in my Aperture darkroom. I will say for some shots I have little or no PPing to do, while others seem to need more "edge sharpening", etc. I am still quite new to Aperture.

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The pre-shot histogram is drawn from the live-view screen data, not even from the JPG. It's very inaccurate and not of much use.

 

From a technical point of view Expose to the right is the way to go but in daily practice I find myself more often keeping the camera from exposing to the right too much (ie blowing the highlights). Not only with the X1 btw.

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Which again is even more of an issue with the Arizona superlight. When I was shooting in New York it was a much more rare occasion to completely blow a sky (unless I was really being silly)... Here if you're at any part of the day that isn't 'golden' it's a risk... such is the nature of central cloudless bright skies I suppose. I certainly don't think expose to the right works in Arizona, at least not with any digital camera I've ever used.

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