G7 spot metering.

Please, observe the attached photo. It is not the photo I will tell you about, but it's there to explain the

context. I was photographing this statue today and the overcast sky was strongly white. So I used spot

metering to make sure I had the correct exposure on the statue, and aimed it right under the left

breast. I was exactly in the same position as this photo shows, about a meter and a half away, with the

same framing. To my utter dismay I got an extremely over-exposed photo, almots washed out. I tried

different spots on the statue, with the same results. Only when I zoomed in, to almost entirely exclude

the sky, did I manage to get a proper exposure. The attached one was finally made in evaluative mode.

 

I would have understood an under-exposed shot, what with the bright sky behind, and would have

attributed it to a too wide spot, albeit with a strong doubt. Even center-weighted would have given me

a slightly under-exposed photo. If that. But almost washed out?

 

I am sorry I can't show you the incriminating images since my first reflex was to trash them.

 

What do you make of that? Could it be a defect of my particular unit of G7?

 

Thanks.<div></div>

Sorry, that should read: "...right under the RIGHT breast."

I forgot, this was shot in Aperture priority, not manual.

Bernard, I just did a test with my G7 and spot metering works very well. I put a can of Sprite in front of my Computer monitor and took a picture with evaluative metering (Sprite totally underexposed) and then switched to Spot and took the shot again - Sprite correctly exposed, screen way over exposed. Maybe there is something wrong with your G7! Try the same test I did and see what you get!

Thanks, Juergen. I've had some excellent results with spot metering so far, though I find

the meter tends to over-expose a bit in general. Only in this particular instance did I get

that weird result. I'll try to go back there tomorrow and see if I can reproduce it.

I have used spot metering on numerous images where I was concerned by potential exposure problems, to date it has worked fine even with flash.

 

Difficult to tell from the image, but if the statute was not reflecting true 18% grey it would appear washed out, it looks considerably lighter.

 

Interesting to see what happens when you return with different weather conditions.

 

It is great to see all of these G7 postings appearing as more people buy the camera. So far, everyone seems very happy with their purchase and the results speak for themselves.

I have found the metering to be pretty consistent, but have dialed in -2/3 stop

compensation to protect highlights during the cloudy fall. With the histogram

function on live view you can get perfect exposures every time.

 

So far I have been amazed by the image quality of this camera. At 80-100 ISO,

prints at 8x10 and under are every bit as nice as my Nikon D200/17-55 combo.

Noise is of course much higher from 200 iso up, but with image stabilization you get

two free stops anyhow! I've owned a bunch of p&s cameras and this is the first point

and shoot digital that has image quality that makes it a serious alternative to my dslr.

It positively mops the floor with cheaper cameras like the Fuji e900 and any of the

current crop of Sonys.

 

I'm planning on printing some larger (11x14) images tonight to see how far this can

go. I know there has been a lot of carping over RAW and the LCD not tilting but if we

focus on the image quality potential and the overall responsiveness of the camera it

looks like the best point and shoot available right now.

Is there any chance you unknowingly had too high an ISO selected? Most of my white outs have turned out do to sensitivity for the camera to compensate for. I don't have a G7, I'm usually mopping my floor with an E900, but it's just a thought.

well, If you spot meter on a darker area of course the sky's going to blow out. The camera wants to bring up the levels on the statue, aka overexpose the brighter areas not metered in the scene. If the statue was over exposed, then THAT is strange.

I took this shot using the spot meter, the weather was very overcast and flat and I think the camera has done a superb job with it.

 

Shot 210mm setting, 200ASA - 1/160 @ f5.6.<div></div>

That's a nice picture of the pipe and wire, but it seems that the white stuff is a bit blown out. Or is that intent of the high contrast post processing, assuming it was tweaked?

Caleb, the whole photo was blown-out, statue and sky.

 

Dean, there is no way the ISO was way up. This little dial is hard to dislodge by accident.

And everything was fine in evaluative mode right after. The posted photo says 1/20 at f:8,

ISO 80. Besides, I was in Aperture

priority, so if that had been the case the meter would have just dialed in a faster speed.

The G7

has 1/2000, and the day was overcast so, even at 1600 it would have easily fallen in the

EV

range.

 

Now, I went back today, but I couldn't, for the life of me, reproduce the problem. Very

strange. Maybe there was something that completely eluded me. If it ever happens again,

I'll let you know what it is.

 

Ian, I also find that the bark in your photo looks a tiny bit washed out here and there. Did

you do any correction to levels or curves in PS?

Yes, I admit I did use curves and a touch of added contrast. The original image looks fine in Photoshop, but when reduced size wise and posted it certainly does look as if the highlights are blown quite a lot. Hmmmmm sorry.

 

If you look at the image posted in my Portfolio of G7 shots, search under member name Lloyd-Graham, then look at the G7 Portfolio and you will see this image is much better as the highlights are not blown.