hchangphotography

I would but at car events, people will walk in front of the camera and i'm not one to shoot long exposure because I still want bokeh so I go handheld.

I always have my histogram on. What's the difference of spot metering though in comparison with center weighted? I experimented with it one time and tried to see what the differences were. There were barely any differences.

I just recently switched to overexposing but I at times only shoot maybe half to two thirds stop over if it's a high contrast scene. I do shoot raw and recently started shooting either neutral or monochrome (depending on lighting situation and have picture profile set as a shortcut. Yeah I just thought, because I have a sigma art 35mm and a capable sony body, i should be able to underexpose more than I usually could because it should be able to handle shadow noise but at times, when I push shadows all the way to 100, I can see visible noise in either color or lifted shadows. So I'm like crap, no can do. That's when I started looking into overexposure and trying to retain information for shadows areas at the time of the shot, so I'm forcing data that's not there in post processing.

I never knew you could use a gray card to expose. I watched a video recently how people use gray cards to adjust WB but i've never heard of anyone using a gray card for exposure. What if I'm at a car show though? Would I have to experiment with spot metering and set a dark area as 0 EV? I never knew photography was this complex but that was because I didn't factor in true shadow and highlight detail, nor did I know about the 18% metering off gray fact. I've considered and experimented with HDR but the few I've shot in the past all seemed dull with almost no contrast. Senna This photo for example (click Senna), everything is well lit. I personally DM'd him about it, he says he uses center weighted average metering mode to expose off the car and would make the rest of the frame exposed in correspondence to the vehicle, only sometimes raising the shadows and/or reducing highlights. I've heard other people [who have studied his photos extensively] say he raises the midtones just slightly so i've tried all different ways but still cannot achieve the expected result.

Hi community, My first post on here, reason i'm posting in this category is because I'm mostly a hobbyist automotive photographer but have done some paid shoots and I don't know what automotive photography falls under in the practice and technique forum section. I just recently learned all cameras meter for 18% gray, which is why i've been having trouble with exposing a car properly; my personal definition properly exposing is making sure car body is lit exactly the same on all sides as well as the tires. I also over expose by a few stops to retain the full tonal range, in case I need to raise the shadows in lightroom and don't want noise in the shadows. My question is, if say I am shooting a bright colored vehicle against a dark colored background, center the vehicle while locking the exposure using center weighted average metering mode, will the shadows retain detail without me having to move the slider to the right? I'm always trying to aim for a natural look but it's always the shadows that gets to me. I've literally shot with a bright colored vehicle against a bright colored background and the tires, wheels, lip are pretty much nonexistent without me moving the slider to the right by 50 and then i've also done a dark colored vehicle in the middle of the road and could only shoot with 0 EV due to clipped highlights and then shadows don't retain any detail at all in post process.