"Canon Metering"?

Hey guys,

 

I tried using my friend's XTi after being a strong supporter for Nikon due to

their great lineup of inexpensive yet high quality products. She had been really

ripped off and paid nearly as much as I did for my D300.

 

However, when I was using a D80, I was plagued by inaccurate exposures. Is just

wouldn't look good, whether I used center or matrix metering [sorry, I don't use

spot]. Her camera was simple -- point, shoot, and you were almost guaranteed a

perfect exposure. We were on a bus, and I pointed the camera at two friends,

took an exposure, at is was brilliant -- smooth lighting, exposed to fit their

faces, and wisely blown out the yellow curtains to the right. The effect was a

stunning portrait, surprisingly well lit for the awful lighting conditions that

were there.

 

I then raised the D300, pointed at the same spot -- their faces in the direct

middle, and took a photo. The camera compensated for the harsh yellow by making

their faces blue, and it exposed for a point half way in between the exposure

for the fabric [about 1/400, f/4, ISO400] and their faces [about 1/60, f/4,

ISO400]. The result was an underexposed photo with poor white balance.

 

Is this normal? In order to get "point and shoot" results with a D300 when I

just want a casual, relaxed portrait, would you recommend center-weighted mode?

 

Is there a "high-key portrait" mode I can set it to? I get the feeling I sound

like a buffoon talking about my pro-level camera as if it was a thirty dollar

point-and-shoot, but I love taking technical photographs with a lot of regards

towards reshoots. However, the assumption is that a "professional" camera with a

good user should be getting good results in such a spontaneous enviroment, so it

makes me look like a fool retaking the same photograph three times.

 

I love using Nikons because they are ergonomic and easy to adjust. However, if

something as crucial as the meter isn't functioning right, it may not be the

camera for me. Right now, I find myself metering the ground using

center-weighted, hitting AE-L/AF-L, then recomposing. That seems a bit 1970's to

me, especially with the new 51-point AF selectors, I thought it would replace

the need to recompose.

 

What am I doing wrong?

I suspect that if you used a D40 in auto mode you would get results similar to the xti. The D200, D300 and above never been pushed as "point and shoot" dslrs. They don't have selection knobs with settings for portrait and lanscape.

I went through the same thing when I bought a D40 for my fiance. I had been using a D2x and was kind of thrown off by the seemingly superior quality of the D40.

Like my D40,my D200's exposure is always quite accurate. I can't say the same about my D300.

Pro level dSLRs offer flexibility and versatility at the expense of convenience. They offer, in effect, the equivalent to a complete workshop full of tools.

 

Entry level dSLRs are equivalent to a Leatherman and P&S to a Swiss Army Knife. They're quicker and easier for opening a bottle of beer, a can of beans, whittling some kindling and gathering around a nice warm campfire.

 

But you wouldn't want to build a house with one.

 

I prefer my Olympus P&S digicam for snapshots in JPEG format. And I can just hand the camera to anyone and get good results. But the limitations become immediately apparent when I try to do much more than take snapshots.

 

I suspect a lot of folks have fallen for hype with the D300 and advanced amateur dSLRs and are buying more camera than they really need or care to learn to use.

 

One of my cousins has a Coolpix 8800. We've occasionally taken photos of the same events. Her photos, while not always as well composed, generally look better onscreen and are ready to print, while my D2H photos usually need some tweaking, especially from NEFs. I've had to tweak my JPEG settings very carefully to get the same results she gets with a simple icon mode.

<b>"...However, the assumption is that a "professional" camera with a good user should be getting good results in such a spontaneous enviroment..."</b>

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I think your defintion of "good user" needs some re-evaluation.

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Almost anyone that is serious and has taken the time to learn the D300 will be able to produce a high quality image straight out of the camera.

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Too many people think that since they found out how to turn the camera on they are ready to produce great images. Read the manual - learn what the different settings are that can produce the image quality that you are looking for.

Don't get me wrong, I know how to use every feature of the D300. The inclusion of a mirror lock up and the PC-cord port are my favorite inclusions over the D80. When I'm taking landscapes and long exposures, the results are brilliant and I'm thankful for the customization possible.

 

I'm not asking for a so-called "idi*t mode", I'm asking if my meter is a bit faulty. If I set the aperture in Aperture mode to f/4 and the ISO to 200, why would the camera think of setting the shutter speed to something that is unworkable?

 

I *love* the ergonomics and the ability to change settings through only two or three menu levels. When I read a review of the D300, though, they said that the metering problems of the D80 were no longer present. They gave examples of photos shot in matrix-meter mode that were exactly what I was looking for. I remember one shot of some back lit wheat grass that exposed for the mid tones, while only slightly over-exposing the highlights, it gave it a realistic look. It seems that for me, the D300 exposes for highlight detail in matrix metering mode, which is unfortunate. If you're not carry around a portable studio lighting kit or using fill-in flash, it's much harder to get a good result.

 

Whenever I take portraits, I either use aperture mode and hit AE-L and get a reading from a shadow area, or I use manual mode. It's a shame that Nikon didn't want to appear to be "point-and-shooty"; that when you buy a D300 you're going to be carrying around light meters, tripods and lighting accessories. Just because it's a professional tool, it doesn't mean you won't want to occasionally take a portrait thinking only about composition. It's frustrating to read "1/400" in the viewfinder when I know it should be around 1/80.

 

I love being technical when I'm taking my landscapes, but for a quick portrait, it's just not worth it. Around half of my shots either have clipped shadows or blown highlights, because the meter is shooting for the lowest common denominator and not fulfilling either a high-key or a low-key shot.

 

Looks like it's manual mode for me.

Reading Lex's comment again, I think he's on to it. Why doesn't the D300 have exposure settings that you can select that mimic the output of a Coolpix 8800? The dynamic range, colors, focusing, lenses and tones are better on a D300, but the 8800 gets better exposures. Why is that? Unless they use flash, people's pictures from point and shoot cameras are usually more favorable out-of-the-camera.

I agree with you, Charles. I enjoy using a pro-level camera for the physical quality but am not too enthused about having to spend time on a computer to make things look as good as some P&S cameras. I may be opening a can of worms by revealing that viewpoint but that's what I think.

 

Has anyone read the March 2008 issue of Outdoor Photographer to see the photo Dewitt Jones took with his iPhone?

 

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2008/mar/basic-jones.shtml

 

I have a friend that got an iPhone the minute they were available and was a little ticked that the photos on it looked as good as they did.

Could you post a couple of side-by-side shots taken with your D300 and your friend's XTi with full exif data? I see a lot of conjecture here based on your attempts to describe the comparison. What did the histograms look like? What were the respective contrast settings (which would speak to the dynamic range)? What about white balance? You've described a situation where her camera compensated for backlight and nailed the WB and yours didn't. That could be the camera. Or it could be the settings. You don't use spotmetering (Why not? But that's a different thread...) but was her camera set to spotmeter-- perhaps inadvertantly? Are you making all of these judgements from the LCD?

 

I think we could put a lot more effort into figuring out why this occurred. I will say that even Nikon's vaunted Matrix metering doesn't usually compensate enough for significant backlighting. Her camera clearly disregarded the backlight-- now let's figure out why.

I tend to agree, Charles. At least with the D2H quite a bit of tweaking in-camera was needed to consistently produce the quality I wanted from simple snapshots, with or without flash, and JPEGs that were ready to go out of the camera without editing.

 

Usually, nudging the exposure *just* until the highlight warnings are flashing does the trick. In the finished photos the highlights are seldom overexposed, so the histogram and highlight warning display on the D2H are not 100% reliable. (If I'm recalling correctly the D2H displays only one channel, which may account for the discrepancy.)

Charles, I have had this problem too ("If I set the aperture in Aperture mode to f/4 and the

ISO to 200, why would the camera think of setting the shutter speed to something that is

unworkable"!) but never quite thought of it this way! Even on my D70, I found that using

Matrix Metering with camera on tripod pointing at the same scene, a manually metered

exposure gave better results than the camera derived exposure used in any other modes.

 

I thought of dynamic range but that didn't seem to be cause of the issue as it happened in

cases where there was only a 3-4 stop difference between highlights and shadows at

most.

 

I will have to try out what Lex had proposed (nudging the exposure) - first I have to figure

out how to do this while metering (right now I can see highlight warning in the rear lcd

screen after taking the picture)