How have you set up Exposure Metering?

[dangorange]

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Curious to here how people are going about setting up their Q's for metering and any general thoughts on exposure settings. I've been in several situations lately where I found myself taking a lot of spontaneous photos in somewhat inconsistent semi-low light situations and not completely happy with how I exposed some shots. 

 

For the past while I've had my exposure metering set to spot, and then I have AEL set on the thumb button instead of zoom so I can lock an exposure that seems ok in live view and still be able to refocus. Wondering if I should try some other methods and would love to hear other's favorite settings. 

 

 

 

[adam80]

I use multi point most of the time and especially in low light, works for me. The best way to nail the exposure for me is to lock in the iso and aperture and then move the shutter speed dial until I'm happy with the exposure..

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[adam80]

This was helpful for me..

 

"Light metering on the Leica Q

 

The Leica Q has three methods of helping you measuring the light to get the exposure correct:

 

Center-weighted

Measures the center of the frame and adjust the exposure so as to make the average of all included in the center circle middle-gray.

Spot Metering

Measures just a single spot in the middle and adjust the exposure so as to make what is seen in that spot middle-gray.

Multi-field

Measures a number of fields of the overall image, and based on how many highlights, and where they are, the Leica Q tries to choose the correct exposure.

 

I've been using Multi-field the most because the Leica Q is mostly a reportage camera and you photograph a lot of different and fast-changing subjects.

 

I sort of decided on this based on how I used the Leica Digilux 2 in the past, and there I used the multi-field metering. On the Leica M cameras I use the Center-Weighted metering as that makes most sense on that camera type (see page 31 of my Leica M 240 article and the Page 17 of my Leica M9 article).

 

In the Leica Q i find the Multi-field to make the most sense.

 

A note on light metering: As can be seen here not all subject are an average of middle-grey. With this rather simple subject, but tricky lightning, the spot meter hitting the shadow part will light up the whole thing to make that little spot look middle-grey. A lightmeter is always set so that what it think it measures, is a middle-grey scenery. So if you look into a cameras brain, what it is thinking is "if this is middle-grey, then I better set the time to 1/125 and the f-stop to f/2.0." The camera never think, "oh, I see a red wall darker than middle-grey, and with a highlight crossing [oh my!], so I better set time to 1/250 and f-stop to f/4.0 so as to get good contrast and both shadow detail and highlight detail." The camera doesn't think that way; that is what you are there for, the photographer.

 

The closest you get to this are "intelligent" metering methods such as Multi-field metering, "matrix metering," "multi-zone metering" and such new metering methods where someone try to implement this type of reasoning.

 

 

 

The center-weighted metering is useful with manual focusing ont he Leica M, but with Auto Focus it doesn't work that well. That's my experience. It's all good for mixed scenery, but shooting a scene with lots of bright snow around a person skiing, or a portrait with bright buildings behind, this type of metering simply can't comprehend such a scenery that is not even lighted in middle-gray tones. Group photos in grey weather or with the sun coming from behind it can do."

 

Pls see

http://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-Q-Hemingway-digital-rangefinder-.html

to see the pictures he attached to this portion of his review (helpful as well)

[dangorange]

Thanks for this adam80, I read his review early on and have been trying out different exposure methods and this might make most sense to me, keeping it on multi-field. 

 

Curious, do you mostly just watch the built in light meter readings? I'm finding, with multi field chosen, if I go fully manual, the live view basically shows the same optimized view, in low light. If I push an extreme either way, I see the meter react, but the view remains the same.

 

I used to shoot with cameras without built in meters(film days) so I would always carry a light meter with me and work of whatever that told me. Then I got into digital in a lighter way and did much less manual exposure work. Now that I have the Q, I want to be more in control of exposure etc. 

[adam80]

You're welcome, when I have no time I just trust the camera to give me a decent exposure so I set iso and aperture and leave the shutter dial on A and adjust in lightroom later. Also there's the exposure compensation dial that is handy, when used it does show a sort of live view but only showing the true exposure not dof. If I have time I'm in full manual and using the light meter a lot, the full live view (showing true exposure and dof) only really works when using manual focus (half press shutter) so when I want to see what I'm going to get I pop it into manual focus and let the peaking help (it's superb!).

Edited November 5, 2015 by adam80

[@McLeica]

Spot for me. I was finding multi field and center weighted a little inconsistent, particularly when there were lots of light sources across the subject. This was having a knock on effect and my focus was a little off for the subject I wanted.

 

Most of this was street shooting, wide open and shutter at A and auto ISO. With Spot, my subject took centre stage and even in low light ISO's are rarely above 1000 so perfectly aceptable to me. I'm not trying to pull the subject out of shadows.

 

Interesting what Thorsten says, but I'm still trying to use the Q like I used the M with the added bonus of AF. 

[ricky1981]

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I use spot most of the time, I just find it the most consistent and when it doesn't suit the photo it's easy to dial in some compensation.

[dangorange]

Thanks for the replies so far,  I'm sure people's preferences for metering is also tied to how the rest of the settings are set. 

 

Obviously the thing to do is experiment, but it is great to hear what people might be settling on for typical everyday settings. 

[sturkel]

Spot metering 40% and I have this set up on the FN button, as I will change to spot based on the scene.

[@McLeica]

Spot metering 40% and I have this set up on the FN button, as I will change to spot based on the scene.

 

Ditto.