Getting frustrated with my D700

<p>I'd definitely stay away from b6 "exposure fine tune" which is more of a global meter recalibration. This shouldn't actually be called "fine tune" but "blunt axe" instead. What you're looking for is something more delicate. Sometimes when you are in a certain lighting situation, as above, you would use "exposure compensation" which is available from the fingertip. </p>

<p>Lights and darks fool the camera's meter. I don't know, maybe you realize this already, but..<br>

If you're spot metering off something white or very light, it will underexpose. If you're spot metering off something dark, it will overexpose.<br>

If you're taking a center-weighted reading off a portion of the frame that is mostly white, it will underexpose. If you center-weight off a portion of the frame that is mostly dark, it will overexpose.<br>

And if you matrix meter off a scene that is mostly white, it will underexpose. If you matrix meter off a scene that is mostly dark, it will overexpose.<br>

Because of this, a better test would be to meter off something gray--and make sure you're metering off gray in all the metering modes, if you want to test each metering mode separately. Otherwise, there are too many variables in your original "test"--we don't know whether the camera was metering off the dark label, or the very light vinegar, or some of both, in your original test.<br>

Really, spot metering <em>shouldn't</em> give the same exposure as matrix metering when photographing the exact same scene. If they all gave the same exposure reading, what would be the point of having the different metering methods? If I could point my camera towards a person backlit by the sun, with a very light background, and get the same exposure by spot metering off the person's face as I could by matrix metering the whole scene--what would be the point? Matrix metering SHOULD give me a photo with an underexposed person in that situation; spot metering (metering off the person's face) SHOULD give me a photo with a better-exposed person and an over-exposed background. If they were giving me the exact same thing, then there would be something strange.<br>

So, without seeing pictures of your test... it's hard to know, but your camera may have been doing just fine, depending on what you were actually metering from. It's quite possible that in center-weighted you had much more light than black in the part of the scene that the camera was metering from, resulting in underexposure. In spot you may have had just the black label that the camera was metering from, resulting in overexposure. In matrix you again may have had much more light than dark in the scene, again resulting in underexposure. <br>

Looks like you already found that Active-D Lighting can play a role too, so that's good. That definitely can lead to underexposure sometimes...<br>

Anyway. Hopefully this is all irrelevant and you knew all this and I just misunderstood the question!</p>

<p>If you spot meter on the black, than you need to underexpose by 1/12 to 2 stops, either manually or -2 ev in exposure compensation. In any event, maybe your particular camera is bad, or you are not using correctly for exposure. I've had decent exposure using mine with no problems I could put on the camera. Don't forget, the meter is going to assume whatever you put it on is medium gray. Center average, and matrix evaluate more of the overall, but it still computing mid tone values. If your scene is predominantly black or white, it will foil the metering. </p>

<p>No matter how technologically sophisticated a camera is, you cannot just point it at something and hope for a correct exposure. Cameras just aren't going to magically choose the right exposure value in tricky scenes. I'm sorry, but that's the cold, hard truth.</p>

<p>If there are a lot of dark objects or shadows in the frame, particularly if one of them is under the active autofocus point, the camera will COMPENSATE for these dark areas by OVEREXPOSING the image. Likewise, a lot of bright, highly reflective objects or surfaces will cause the camera to UNDEREXPOSE the image.</p>

<p>This is Exposure 101. YOU, the PHOTOGRAPHER have to UNDERSTAND this and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for it, because tricky exposure problems are beyond the reasoning capacity of software on a microchip.</p>

<p>Don't assume. Measure and verify.</p>

<p>Melissa, the best advice I can give you is this: don't use center-weighted metering. One should think of it as a very crude and primitive way to meter a scene that I think Nikon still makes available on their digital SLRs only to appease "old-foggies" who grew up with center-weighted metering being the ONLY option.</p>

<p>You will get far better and more reliable exposure results if you stick to the more advanced and state-of-the-art matrix metering -- or -- if you take the time to learn how to use the D700 spot meter properly.</p>

<p>Used correctly, both Nikon's advanced matrix metering and its highly selective spot meter will enable you to properly expose a shot. And also learn how to use the D700's exposure compensation function, because a meter reading from the camera is just its best "guess" of what the proper exposure should be. It's up to you, the photographer, to determine if the camera's initial guess was on the mark or not.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>don't use center-weighted metering. One should think of it as a very crude and primitive way to meter a scene</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There is nothing crude and primitive about center-weighted metering in the D700. You use the metering mode best suited for the individual scene.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I think Nikon still makes available on their digital SLRs only to appease "old-foggies" who grew up with center-weighted metering being the ONLY option</p>

</blockquote>

<p>An astute observation. It seems you have managed to be inaccurate, spot metering has been available in cameras since the 1960's, and insulting all in the same sentence. Well done.</p>

<p><em>It seems you have managed to be inaccurate, spot metering has been available in cameras since the 1960's, and insulting all in the same sentence.</em></p>

<p>The first Nikon SLRs with spot metering were introduced in the late 1980s, the F-601, F4, and F-801s. Personally I almost never use centerweighted metering myself - I am accustomed to spot metering, incident metering when I want control and matrix when I don't have the time to deal with those. But I understand how some people may prefer centerweighted. It's just that since the pattern of sensitivity in cw depends on specific cameras and it takes time to adopt to how exactly the different areas of the frame are weighted to an "average" reading - I don't like this kind of uncertainties. The spot meter on the other hand requires a bit more time and thought spent on the metering but it gives far more controllable results when used with an appropriate knowledge of the reflectance characteristics of the subject metered. Each should choose the tool that best matches their way of thinking and produces hopefully the best results... :-)</p>

<p>I think the problem with the OP's testing is that metering should be checked on a known subject, such as a large gray card or other kind of homogeneous surface. This would lead to equal results from matrix, centerweighted and spot. If the subject is not homogeneous but has features in it then all three metering patterns will produce different results, as they should.</p>

<p>"I think the D90 might expose for a punchier image out of the camera, and the D700 will expose more neutrally do preserve information for post-processing.<br>

The spot and center metering modes are used to determe the proper exposure on a specific part of the image, your tripod test would not have addressed this.<br>

I use exposure compensation all the time. The camera can only tell me what it thinks is the right exposure, I have to do the rest."<br>

"I think Nikon still makes available on their digital SLRs only to appease "old-foggies" who grew up with center-weighted metering being the ONLY option"<br>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>

<p>I'm an "old-foggies" and I learned photography first then a get my first camera. A camera with out a light-meter and all those automatization, you have to day, so you can use the 5000 dollar camera like a 200 dollar point and shoot. Don't need brain, the camera has it.<br>

I learned first what is a composition, light, shutter speed, aperture, film type, etc. and pardon me, learned art too. Unfortunately people to day have money to buy cameras and have no idea about photography, art, composition and so on. They think, more expensive a camera, is going to be a better robot, witch can read our mind and create a beautiful image ready to hang-up in galleries or the living room. People complaining about cameras, lenses, 2-5000 dollar top of the line equipment, "not sharp" - "don't producing proper exposures", etc. etc. Photography is not something you learn right a way when you purchased a top camera or lens. You have to learn and wanted to learn and not blame everything, except yourself. I have the Nikon D40, D300, D700, just to mention the digital bodies, and non of them producing bed exposures or unsharp images or s......t images. The bed ones they produce is all, I meant all my fault, not the cameras or lenses. I have the best lenses, but in the main time I haw the old 15-45 year old lenses as well, as cameras like my first SLR, the Practica Supper TL and the first Nikon F with prism finder, etc. etc, and occasionally loaded with Venvia and they producing beautiful image, as mach as my D700 and 24-70/2.8 monster. Oh. And I hardly using any automatization, most of the time "M" = Manual. Well ! I'm an "old-Foggi" or, you can call me an "old fart", but not a lazy one, whom don't want to learn, and expecting from the machine to do the job for me. The machine whom can't read your mind.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Do you have auto ISO selected? If so, turn it off.</p>

<p>

 

<p>Old-foggie here too. I use as much spot metering as I use center-weighted metering. Matrix metering is great but some of us like to have choices. And take them.</p>

<p>And I'm glad Nikon still considers us old-foggies its customers too, otherwise they'd be selling $5k sealed black boxes set to auto-everything with barely a shutter-release button.</p>

 

</p>

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<p ><a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=137575">Peter Lawrence</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub10plus.gif" alt="" /></a>, Apr 13, 2010; 05:16 a.m.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Melissa, the best advice I can give you is this: don't use center-weighted metering. One should think of it as a very crude and primitive way to meter a scene that I think Nikon still makes available on their digital SLRs only to appease "old-foggies" who grew up with center-weighted metering being the ONLY option.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have read some pretty outrageous and ludicrous comments on this site the last almost 8 years, but I think that one takes the blue ribbon. I am one of those "old foggies" who has been using thise crude and primative Nikon F2's since 1972. And although I do not use a camera's built in meter all that often, opting for incident and spot meters, I find centerweighted averaging to be accurate most of the time. Any camera's meter, just like the camera itself, is dumb as a sack of hair. The skilled photographer, knows how to take the camera's meter reading and adjust the output based on the unique lighting characteristics of each shot.</p>

 

<p>Several folks have mentioned the use of the grey card when using the spot meter. I wonder if it might make more sense to say the same thing in a different manner. If you are spot metering anything except a 18% grey card, then you cannot use what the meter tells you directly.</p>

<p>If your meter's spot is on anything lighter than 18% grey (a paler than normal caucasian face, a white label on a vinegar bottle, as examples), then you have to dial in some positive exposure compensation to compensate for the meter trying to tell you an exposure that makes whatever is in the spot come out as 18% grey (i.e. the meter will underexpose, and you have to "fix" it).</p>

<p>On the other hand, if the meter is on something darker than 18% grey (a non-caucasian face, the black part of the label on the vinegar bottle, for example), then the meter will suggest an exposure that will overexpose to make the dark part light enough to match 18% grey. In that case, you have to dial in negative exposure compensation.</p>

<p>To summarize, more often than not, you cannot just put the camera in spot meter mode and use the suggested settings without compensation.</p>

<p>I wonder if some of this is a matter or perception. The D700 matrix metering provides almost perfect results for me. Images require very little contrast adjustment in PS. My brief experience with the D90, however, led me to conclude that it overexposed by one to two stops. It would be useful for the OP to post a sample D90 shot or two and a sample D700 shot.</p>

<p>First of all, you find out that the three metering methods dont agree; and you feel frustrated about that. Dont. The reason you have different metering modes is that they never agree with each other. You say some of them over, the others are under just because they dont agree with your histogram technique. In fact, we , the people here in photo.net, dont agree with each other about the exposure of a picture either. Some say over, some say under, some say it's right on. The most important opinion about your exposure is YOURS</p>

<p>Secondly, we all want a perfect metering, but that never exists. There are always cases that our metering fails. It's good to know why, and sometimes we dont even know why. Fortunately, your description explains why</p>

<p>The spot meter suggested an over exposure because it thought you wanted the black label to be bright and clear. To do that it must overexpose the whole picture</p>

<p>The other meterings suggested an under exposure because they got a lot of light from the white container. The center-weighted was still better (than the Matrix metering) because it concentrated more on "the center" which had the black label in it. The majority of the picture (the white container) was exposed averagely and a small part (the black label) was dark. That's why the histogram shifted to the left</p>

<p>Scott, I use Auto-ISO for most of my photos, only to keep the minumum shutter speed something I can rely on. For the D700 I had the luxury of setting the minimum shutter speed at 1/60, for the D300 I set it to a still manageable 1/30.</p>

<p>According to Nikon's website info:</p>

 

<p><em>"Matrix metering evaluates multiple segments of a scene to determine the best exposure by essentially splitting the scene into sections, evaluating either 420-segments or 1,005 segments, depending on the Nikon D-SLR in use.</em><br>

<em>The 3D Color Matrix Meter II takes into account the scene's contrast and brightness, the subject's distance (via a D- or G-type NIKKOR lens), the color of the subject within the scene and RGB color values in every section of the scene. 3D Color Matrix Metering II also uses special exposure-evaluation algorithms, optimized for digital imaging, that detect highlight areas. The meter then accesses a database of over 30,000 actual images to determine the best exposure for the scene. Once the camera receives the scene data, its powerful microcomputer and the database work together to provide the finest automatic exposure control available."</em><br>

What this means is that the camera is trying an educated guess as to what you are photographing, but in the end it really doesn't know for sure, so it can make mistakes. Another way to break it down is the "Zone System, by Ansel Adams. In brief, you decide which areas of your image, from the darkest to the lightest are supposed to have detail, and not be totally black or pure white and blown out. Most camera meters will guess at what the average exposure is to do that and typically makes the average of the scene as 18 percent gray, but in reality sometimes you have to override the camera's guess work. One way to do this is by experimentally bracketing exposures until you get the highlight detail or shadow detail you desire. Sometimes the dynamic range of the scene is greater than what your camera's sensor can handle. You then have to decide how to work around that, by using maybe the Active D lighting option, or you can make two or three exposures and combine them in your post processing, or sometimes just shooting carefully in raw allows you to get the detail during your raw conversion. I would recommend reading up on exposure so you have an understanding of what the camera is doing and how to control it for your purposes. </p>

 

<p>I second to Scott<br>

" I have read some pretty outrageous and ludicrous comments on this site the last almost 8 years, but I think . . . . THAT ONE TAKES THE BLUE RIBBON. . . . . I am one of those "old foggies" who has been using thise crude and primative Nikon F2's since 1972. And although I do not use a camera's built in meter all that often, opting for incident and spot meters, I find centerweighted averaging to be accurate most of the time. Any camera's meter, just like the camera itself, is dumb as a sack of hair. THE SKILLED PHOTOGRAPHER, KNOWS HOW TO TAKE THE CAMERA'S METER READING AND ADJUST THE OUTPUT BASED ON THE UNIQUE LIGHTING CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH SHOT."<br>

I'm glad too, . . . " Nikon still considers us ""old-foggies"" its customers too, otherwise they'd be selling $5k sealed black boxes set to auto-everything with barely a shutter-release button."<br>

<br /></p>

<p>Any camera meter can be fooled by certain lighting conditions coming off certain subjects, producing different outcomes. With more overall experience, you will learn to look at a scene, subject and lighting conditions, and immediately anticipate if and how the meter will be fooled, then how to compensate. </p>

<p>You simply need to gain experience using the cameras metering systems, learning how a camera's meter works and how lighting affects it.</p>

<p>I'd suggest you shoot a variety of scenes to get a better idea of how your camera is handling different conditions and subjects. At first, just use matrix metering. Merely judging by shooting the type of subject you are using for your test without having the above knowledge, amounts to an inadequate test. You can see in Dave Lee's example above, that there are fairly equal amounts of light, dark, and midtone areas across the frame. The matrix metering would evaluate this, then should and did set exposure quite well. But accurate exposure could also be achieved by spot metering off a mid-tone. </p>

<p>After gaining experience using the matrix metering, then go to spot metering, carefully study your camera manual, which may have a good outline of how to use the spot metering mode, and learn how to be proficient in its use, especially using the manual exposure mode. This will be more specific in terms of how light <em>at any given point in your frame</em> affects the meter and exposure seetings. Center-weighted is also more specific to an area of the frame than matrix metering, but over a broader area than spot metering. Matrix metering is of course more complex in its response to lighting, as has already been well-explained. </p>

<p>In a relatively short period of time, your efforts should give you a good feel for how light affects meters, and how to make good use of this knowledge. </p>

<p>Dan, if you have are metered on a pure black, your meter will make that black mid gray, ie normal metering will OVER expose the black. Therefore you have to, when metering on the black, underexpose to have the black be black. That's exposure 101. Likewise, for white you have to compensate by + EV or over expose. Are you saying something different than that?</p>

<p>In Peter's defense.<br>

There are many tools, methods and camera modes available for evaluating the light in a scene. Center weighted metering was a 60's attempt at matrix metering, and is now the least predictable metering method available.</p>

<p>It's reasonable to assume that the people still using it have used it for a long time, and are not interested in learning anything new.</p>

<p>fogey, <strong>fogy</strong> [ˈfəʊgɪ]</p>

<em>n</em> <em>pl</em> <strong>-geys</strong>, <strong>-gies</strong>

<strong><br /></strong>

 

an extremely fussy, old-fashioned, or conservative person (esp in the phrase <strong>old fogey</strong>)

 

[of unknown origin]

<strong>fogeyish</strong> , <strong>fogyish</strong> <em>adj</em>

<em><br /></em>

<strong></strong><em><br /></em>

 

<em>(borrowed from an online dictionary)<br /></em>

 

 

<p>By the way, why did you not like the D90? </p>

<p>Interesting. I'm so happy with the D700 (i bought it to carry with my F6) that I will be selling all my Sony gear. It captures images that I never thought I would be able to capture in low light and I find the metering to be exceptional.</p>

 

<p>I was taking point and shoot snapshots in London on Thursday with a D3 and pc 35 F2.8 lens. The trip was a spur of the moment thing. I didn't even check that I had transferred the lens data to the camera properly. I thought I had, and only realised afterwoods that I had specified the wrong designation number. But I did remember that matrix metering doesn't work too well with the non cpu lens and so I set centre weighted. My excuse is that photography wasn't the principal purpose of the excursion. I wasn't paying too much attention either to technique or to the results that I was getting. However after a while I did notice that the majority of my shots were under exposed. It wasn't critical because these were snapshots and I was shooting raw anyway. However I switched from single shot to continuous and introduced some bracketing. It's interesting that most of my pictures were about a stop under-exposed. (urban landscapes: mainly buildings but some shots of people in Hyde park and longer vistas looking across the river from Chelsea embankment). I'll have to try to work out why.</p>

<p>Whenever I use a digital camera I don't use the meter. Just make a guess, check the result, adjust, then shoot again. More than 90% of the time I don't need to adjust, the first guess is just fine. <br>

I do have all kind of meters but when I meter I don't take pictures. </p>

<p>Center weighted is the recommended exposure mode when measuring through a circular polarizing filter, not matrix.</p>

<p> </p>