Highlight Weighted Metering M11 Monochrom

[Jon D]

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I’ve tried shooting with the highlight weighted meter setting on a number of occasions. I’m finding it difficult to get a usable image from this setting in higher contrast situations. When I come to post produce, elevating the shadows doesn’t recover them enough even at 100 (I’m using Lightroom), so I’m left having to elevate the overall exposure, which in turn blows the higher highlights anyway. It’s worth noting I usually also under expose when shooting by 1 or 2 stops. 
 

Am I best off using a different metering option? 
Am I doing something wrong?
Is Lightroom not the best for M11 Mono processing?

 

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated. 

[elmars]

Highlight weighted metering is not very sophisticated. It is mainly an underexposure of about 1/3. 

[Ecar]

Highlight weighted AND -1 or -2 EV is excessive IMO.

If you are used to the "traditional" M metering, centre weighted would probably work best. That's what I use, with -1/3 or -2/3 EV.

Or try multifield.

[M11 for me]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Jon D:

Am I best off using a different metering option?

I would try that and stop using the highlight weighted. On the other hand do not expect miracles. You can't probably do it without using exposure compensation or even better you shoot several images with different exposure settings (you speak of high contrast sceenes). And shoot in DNG.

But you are right when you mind the highlights first of all. With the 3 channels missing you have no way to recover highlights when blown out. With a colour sensor you have always the chance that either of the 3 channels renders a signal. 

[Luke_Miller]

I have only the MM and M246, but in full sun I set -2/3 EV exposure compensation.

[Gregm61]

I have used highlight-weighted metering with Nikon DSLR’s; the D850 and D780.

There are some highlights that are simply too “high” to be worth saving at the expense of the other 95-98% of the frame. You have to make some choices when utilizing that metering pattern. It’s definitely not a “set it and forget it” mode.

Edited October 17, 2024 by Gregm61

[DadDadDaddyo]

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Here's the thing.

If I select a metering mode designed to weight highlights a certain way, but then, depending on the circumstances, dial in exposure compensation based on my understanding of how the metering treats highlights in comparison to what I'm aiming for....

... haven't I already taken control of the exposure based on experience, goals, and preference?

Why invoke a semi-auto metering mode and then have to bicker with it to get what you want? Who's the photographer here, you or the camera?

You've already intervened in the process and asserted manual control. Why not just take full manual control and put the exposure where you want it?

This is why I use spot metering anytime it's not an instant grab shot and there's even a moment to think about things. 

It's an old fashioned, durable truth. Ever and always: metering exposes to achieve 18% neutral gray. (Were using monochromatic values here. Factoring in color and its influence and perceived brightness is an additional matter)

Look. Put the spot meter on pure black, expose for it (meaning, center the exposure indicator on 0, not + or - anything), that black will come out as 18% gray. Whites will be blown through the roof, but what you've metered on will come out at 18%. Try it. 

Conversely, put the spot meter on white, expose for it, and that white will come out at 18% gray. Black as well as lower gray levels will be crushed to deep black. Try it. 

See? Put the meter on *any value, expose for it, that value will come out as 18% gray. That's what it's designed to do. That's how it's intended to work. You can take advantage of this truth by applying it to the scene in front of you.

So I use spot metering, usually. With that spot meter, I look at the scene and simply decide which value in the scene I want to put at 18% gray. That's all there is to it. 

If there's a little time, I might take a quick look (with the meter) at highlights and shadow values. How many stops apart are they? That provides a sense of the dynamic range of the scene.

Then I might take a moment to think briefly about what the high grays will do if I pick a particular spot in the scene, say a mid or dark gray, to meter on, or, what will happen to the shadows. But all of this happens very very quickly, especially after you've worked with it a while. Before long it's barely even a conscious process. 

This is just my own experience (I ain't tellin' no one what to do), but I find it takes less thought, less fiddling about, less bickering with the metering system, than thinking about which metering mode to use depending on the circumstances, and then, depending on the circumstances again, whether or not to dial in exposure compensation, and if so, how much, all in hopes of getting what I'm aiming for. 

Edited November 9, 2024 by DadDadDaddyo
small typo