Exposure Technique: This is not a lens question

[zigzag]

There's too much talk about gear on this forum and not enough about technique.

<br><b>Question 1:</b> How could you set your camera to get exactly or close to

this (eventual) exposure setting?

<br><br>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/1photo-pages/beach-children.shtml<br><br>

Here's <b>Rule #1</b>: Your answer cannot be the same as the previous answer,

any Canon camera is eligible, doesn't have to be that top of the range one - and

the answer is NOT 'read the EXIF'. I do hope that M. Reichmann doesn't mind his

photo being used as an example - wasn't meant to be too hard.

[ken munn]

Shoot RAW. Use wide area metering. Tweak (if necessary) settings in a RAW converter before

publishing.

[john clark]

Graduated ND filter, lower contrast print film, expose for the water, bracket, choose the best neg, print with great skill and care.

[john clark]

Ah cock! I got this from the unified view, didn't realise it was categorised under 'digital SLR bodies'. Still, Canon made and still make film SLRs, so I guess it stands :-)

[mohammed_abidally]

Shoot manual say and aperture of about f8, spot meter of the reflection on the water and then the sand and then set shutter speed halfway in between...

[bernardwest]

That's easy! Just use the green square on the dial...

[bob_osullivan]

This isn't such a mystery. You just want to put the water into zone 3 and the sand into zone 7. While this would be easier with film this scene isn't so contrasty that digital can't handle it.

 

Here's an example of some shots with similar contrast scenario I shot at a rodeo. The sand and dark hide some of the bulls presented a high contrast situation. The digital sensor picked up more detail than the eye could gleen in the bright light.

 

http://www.pbase.com/bob_osullivan check the rodeo folder.

 

The actual setting would vary widely because your not telling us our starting point, ISO and EV.

 

Techniques used, the zone systems and the sunny 16 rule (if meter is failing).

 

I would just meter off the water and underexpose 1.5 stops. Or meter off the sand and over exose about 1 stop.

 

Depth of field is deep so a smallish/mid F stop, but it also appears to have been shot from a boat so a faster shutter would also be needed.

 

The real mystery is how bright was the sun that day. Bases on the above and using the suny 16 rule, I'm going with ISO 200, F5.6 1/800th.

 

Metering mode is irrelevent. Because we all have our way of doing things and many approaches could work. Pattern meetering in this with minus 1 stop, or spot with minus 1.5 stops would have yeilded about the same result. A quicker way to do it would have been to just point the cameraup (away from the sun) in any metering mode and meter off the blue sky with no adjusting. That's how I do it with slide film (unforgiving and no post to correct exporsure)on the ski slopes. Shot's always come out dead on, assuming there's a blue sky of course.

[sheldonnalos]

No specular highlights, no need for deep shadow detail based upon the end result published image - I honestly think metering technique is unimportant for this shot.

 

It was probably shot in Av mode, no exposure compensation, as the camera metered - which is how I would do it.

 

There's so much latitude in a RAW file that you could probably produce this same end result image from any exposure within +/- two stops.

[zigzag]

Thanks, maybe that one was too easy to stretch your imagination - too crowded a histogram(I must learn the zone system though).

 

Follow up in <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00O6ZK">Casual Conversations</a>. Hopefully that one is a little more interesting.

[zigzag]

Nice photos Bob - I like those Xmas lights too.

[photographicsafaris]

My two pence.

<br>Midday sun Somewhere near the lower tropics. Hence very strong sun.

<p>

<br>Obviously polarised. No discernable Neutral density graduate filter.

<br>I think that this is a Long lens, possibly 300-400mm

<br>With a reasonable aperture of about f11-16.

<br>High shutterspeed to freeze movement.

<br>Probably centre weighted metering orientated towards the sand, and not Evaluative.

<br>Probably AV mode.

<br>ISO 100 maximum.

<br>Centre third of a landscape shot cropped.

<P>

I would like to think that this was shot with an XPan with 90mm lens, but probably not. If

so same settings but with Provia 100F slide film.

<p>

Cheers G