To EV or not to EV?

[wstotler]

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Just a follow-up. . . .

 

Working extensively with the Digisix and M8/M6 indoors and out. Love it. No more exposure mysteries, for sure.

 

I'm now tinkering with adding/subtracting EV on the Digisix and seeing what that does to my shots, too. (Bracketing.)

 

I can completely say that the Aperture/DNG process is incredible for me now. . . I'm tweaking a *small amount* here or there (the equivalent of an EV +1/-1) with my exposure to get my photos to be the way I intended.

 

And, eventually I'll be able to return to the M8 in-camera meter with confidence. Work with "middle gray" concepts is indicated first, though.

 

Instead of. . . .

 

Before the Digisix in Aperture it was all too often crank exposure way up or crank exposure way down, crank shadows up and/or crank highlights down, crank saturation up because color was lost. Photo "recovered"? Maybe. But all too often: "Looks like crap." So. . . . Apply monochrome filter, up contrast, sharpen, and call it a "good" black and white photo. (Went through some of this with the Digilux 2 RAW, also.)

 

Anyway, not anymore.

 

I will say that a *great* side effect is that the color in my photos has improved--part of that function of "proper exposure" giving better colors back than under/overexposure.

 

I will also say that the Auto Whitebalance M8 fickleness is more apparent to me now. I'd get it a bit here and there before but couldn't always tell. Now, I can *always* tell and it happens a lot. Considering manual adjustment there.

 

My WhiBal card works better in post, too. Before (with under/overexposure issues) the white balance didn't always work as expected in Aperture because colors would skew very badly when white balance was applied--mostly because I'd tweaked everything else first. So white would go white but unexpected things would happen to the other colors, also.

 

On another note, I did pick up "The Negative" by Ansel Adams this weekend. Reading through it. The Zone System is interesting and his other comments about light are useful. I'm not going to adopt too much, I think--not ready yet--but it's good reading *especially* for the ongoing M6 TTL work. So, thanks for the recommendation Carsten!

 

More later, if warranted.

 

Thanks,

Will

[giordano]

Will,

 

This thread prompted me to get hold of JF Dunn & GL Wakefield's _Exposure Manual_ which I used many years ago and which has the most thorough technical exposition I've ever found of exposure and exposure metering (incident, spot and averaging). There were four editions between the 50s and 80s, so there's nothing about digital cameras, but a lot of it is still valid.

[newyorkone]

Never use it...

 

I prefer to exposure lock and recompose.

[wstotler]

Will,

 

This thread prompted me to get hold of JF Dunn & GL Wakefield's _Exposure Manual_ which I used many years ago and which has the most thorough technical exposition I've ever found of exposure and exposure metering (incident, spot and averaging). There were four editions between the 50s and 80s, so there's nothing about digital cameras, but a lot of it is still valid.

 

Thanks for mentioning this book--I ordered it used through Amazon. It was cheap, even with shipping, which made the decision easy. I'll take a look when it comes in! --Will

[Piers]

Please excuse excerpt from a post I made in July as seems relevant here:

 

"Can also use the auto exposure lock as a shortcut to a pseudo-zone-system: lock on subject or equivalent (= medium gray) then whilst locked use the click stops of the aperture diaphragm to count up/down to place in your zone of choice (and this way you get the readout of shutter speed as well).

 

I still find the discipline of zone system a valuable route to determining a link of intention between the original exposure and the final print (perhaps even more valuable in the absence of a fixed film negative)."

 

i.e. the lost art of previsualization as opposed to "post-visualization", AKA chimping, I gather...

 

Best

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I do this all the time lock down at the 2 stage release than go back and recompse my shot . My way of EV compensation