Deliberate1 Posted June 4, 2015 Share #1 Posted June 4, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) Friends, I have often wondered what happens inside my M9 when I set the EV dial to compensate for certain conditions. Is the adjustment made to the designated aperture opening or shutter speed, or is there some other alchemy going on. I ask because it may make sense, depending on the situation, to manually adjust the camera in order to get the same result so as to preserve either the DOF or necessary shutter speed, which ever is the more critical creative factor. Thanks David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 Hi Deliberate1, Take a look here How does EV adjustment work. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted June 4, 2015 Share #2 Posted June 4, 2015 Shutter speed, as the camera is unable to adjust the aperture. Personally I recommend to take the camera off "A" and adjust manually, using the light metering on the camera (spot is ideal) or an incident light meter. EV compensation is a bit of a guesstimate IMO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Albertson Posted June 4, 2015 Share #3 Posted June 4, 2015 Shutter speed, as the camera is unable to adjust the aperture. Personally I recommend to take the camera off "A" and adjust manually, using the light metering on the camera (spot is ideal) or an incident light meter. EV compensation is a bit of a guesstimate IMO. I recommend the same, for the principal reason that I experience brain-fade, and forget that I set the EV-comp and why I did it. Another short-cut is to let the camera auto-exposure set choose the shutter speed, then depress the shutter release halfway to lock in that speed and then vary the aperture to suit (without letting up on the shutter release). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpitt Posted June 4, 2015 Share #4 Posted June 4, 2015 +1 for not using the dial. Point the camera at the subject so that it will give a correct exposure time. (point it on medium grey subject in the same light) Then depress the shutter half way until you see the lock exposure dot, recompose and take the shot while keeping it locked. For me this is faster than the dial, and you can not forget to turn exposure compensation off that way. Most of the time when shooting RAW you can get away with just using auto exposure without even doing the lock exposure routine. One stop can always be corrected in PP. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbengtson Posted June 5, 2015 Share #5 Posted June 5, 2015 In terms of actual mechanics of operation all it is doing is adjusting the sensitivity of the light meter by EV instead of ISO. -1 EV is one stop of underexposure which is the same setting the ISO to half the current value, +1EV is the same as doubling the current value. It is only a convenient (to some) way of adjusting the meter sensitivity to conditions or operator preference. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
esquire53 Posted June 5, 2015 Share #6 Posted June 5, 2015 the EV is a or can be seen as a fine tuning of the shutter speed. With the MM, I used a -1/3 for a while and as mentioned above to give a certain preference, to create a certain gray tone. However, we all usually use DNG and process based on the subject and that usually changes that certain effect by mid contrast or so. If you want to see what the dial does, don't post process, or shoot in JPG to see the effect of the dial. I'm back to "0" and use , depending on contions, all the metering methods mentioned above, including "A" I see the EV setting as a left over from the film days ... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoffrey James Posted June 7, 2015 Share #7 Posted June 7, 2015 Advertisement (gone after registration) The moment you start using Automatic exposure, even with compensation, you are handing over control to the machine. A digital camera is an instant feedback system. You can establish light levels by taking a picture and then checking your screen and histogram. Do not be deterred by the pejorative term chimping, Monitoring what you are doing is better than getting home and realizing that all the highlights are completely blown. If you work with camera, rather than for it, you will quickly get a sense for the right exposure, and you can change the shutter speed ( or the f-stop) as you see the light meter LED in the view finder. It really isn't hard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblutter Posted June 16, 2015 Share #8 Posted June 16, 2015 I usally start by picking an apeture, then take a test shot with exposure lock to get close. Then adjust speed manually for density, saving highlights etc Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jvansmit Posted June 17, 2015 Share #9 Posted June 17, 2015 all the above advice is probably fine if one is taking photos at a relatively leisurely pace or in consistent light conditions but is not so practical in more rapid street or reportage situations (especially with wider lenses) when the light can change quickly from dark shadows to blinding glare, from contre-jour to frontally-lit, and dynamic subject matter might not even give you time to use the viewfinder. For me, exposure compensation has become even more relevant with digital cameras with their easy to change ISO speed, and depending on light conditions, I'll usually have -1/3 EV dialed in on most of my cameras during the day, and even up to -1EV on my MM in blinding midday sun on city streets. It's fairly simple to bring back shadows with today's digital cameras but can be a pain to recover highlights. On a long shooting day in varying light, my feeble brain simply can't handle manual exposure across multiple ISO speeds....something I could do when using Tri-X. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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