Matrix, Center or spot metering ...

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>I shoot manual... I compensate exposure and adjust shutter and aperture to my liking.. I shoot studio and out on locations. I control my lights and my metering</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It sounds like a very good approach. I was lucky in that I photographed for a long time with an FM2, and there there is no choice but manual exposure. It forces you to take a decision on aperture, shutter speed and exposure for every frame, because the camera won't do it for you. People who learn on more complex cameras are I think at a big disadvantage. Unfortunately, there are very few digital cameras with non-complex control systems. The exceptions are very high-end expensive cameras like the Leica M9.</p>

<p>One of the things that cameras like the FM2 make you realise is that, in most situations, there is a certain level of exposure that is good pretty much no matter what directionyou point the camera in. That is the logic behind the 'sunny sixteen' rule. Unless the sun changes and goes behind a cloud, there is more or less one correct exposure for sunlit areas, and one for shady areas. You can generally go on shooting for minutes at a time, pointing the camera in all sorts of directions at all sorts of subjects, and every frame will be perfectly exposed.</p>

<p>In that situation, an 'intelligent' metering system on an auto camera will be shifting the exposure up and down like a yo yo, and you'll be dialling exposure compensation back and forth to compensate for the meter's failings. All of it unnecessary. Someone in a black coat walks into the scene, the camera tries to brighten the scene to compensate. A bride in a white dress replaces him, the camera tries to make the exposure darker. But in fact, the correct exposure level hasn't changed at all. You want the bride's dress white, not mid-grey.</p>

<p>So there is a huge amount to be said for establishing the correct level of exposure for a particular scene, and locking the exposure, or setting it in manual and leaving it there. Sometimes you barely need to adjust it all day until dusk falls.</p>

 

[Sanford]

<p>My first "good" camera was a meter-less Leica IIIF and I shot Kodachrome. This was an experience that still serves me today and many of the digital only crowd will miss out on. Of course I'd trade my experience for youth anytime.</p>

[bmm]

<p>Yes Wouter is right, D7000 has centre-weighted and indeed one can adjust the 'centre' area from as small as 6mm to as large as the whole image.</p>

<p>To Cynthia, its only my second day with D7000 but the 3 things I am noticing most are AF system improvement, lovely metering, and finally noise (ISO3200 on the new body is about equal to ISO800 on D80 noise-wise). I do still love my D80 though which taught me all I know and did many laps of the world with me.</p>

<p>I am reading Simon with interest - as I've mainly been an A-mode shooter, and will make the effort over summer to go full-Manual a lot more. Part of this of course may be a re-examination of the metering modes.</p>

<p>But... does anyone know the answer to my original question? Does the 'centre' when in centre-weighted move with the active focus point or does it stay always in the centre of the viewfinder?</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

[dan_south]

Digital: Matrix/Evaluative to get a quick estimation of the proper exposure. I evaluate the camera's guess, make

adjustments, dial the result into Manual Mode, and shoot away until the light or the situation changes.

 

 

 

Film: A combination of Matrix/Evaluative, Spot, and Incident readings depending on the subject and the conditions.

 

 

 

When using studio flash units I use a Sekonic flash meter and do all shooting in manual mode, circumventing the

camera's meter altogether.

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>Does the 'centre' when in centre-weighted move with the active focus point or does it stay always in the centre of the viewfinder?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The centre weighted metering ought to stay in the centre and not follow the focus point around. "Ought to" because, who knows, there may be a manufacturer out there who has decided to do it differently. I hope not, because that would rather defeat the purpose of the centre-weighted metering system.</p>

<p>One of the most important things is to separate the metering from the focussing. The default settings on many cameras involve a light press of the shutter release button activating both the autofocus and the metering. That is a real problem, because the chances are that you don't want to meter off whatever you are focussing on, there's no reason at all why they should be the same.</p>

<p>The solution is to reprogramme the controls away from default settings. Assuming you're using some kind of digi SLR, then it ought to have a separate focussing and/or exposure buttom. On my camera, a D700, I've programmed a separate "AF" button on the back to deal with autofocus, and the shutter release button to activate the meter. There's no reason why you shouldn't do it the other way round if you camera lets you - have the metering activated by a button on the back, and the AF activated by the shutter release button. The important thing is that they two functions are separated out.</p>

 

[simon_crofts]

<p>p.s., though separating them out doesn't of course matter so much if you're using manual mode. So long as you meter first off something appopriate, set aperture and shutter speed accordingly, then reframe for focussing, and then more or less ignore what the meter is telling you while focussing.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>So let's propose a shooting scenario inside a church with the bride in white and the groom in black are walking down the aisle. You have on camera flash tilted up toward the ceiling to add bounced fill light. You establish an exposure setting that keeps the bride's dress from blowing out including the highlights in the folds of the dress and prevents the groom's suit from going total black.</p>

<p>You have to add about +1 EV compensation for the flash the camera is expecting full power metering and adjusting TTL and due to it not knowing the flash is bouncing off the ceiling.</p>

<p>How do you pick the right exposure compensation quick enough when the B&G get closer and farther away from the flash as they're moving about going down the aisle and mingling with the crowd of onlookers? You'll have to compensate for that or else you'll get blowouts and plug-ups. </p>

<p>This is one of the reasons I don't shoot weddings.</p>

<p>I don't shoot event photography, just landscapes, macro's and whatever can sit still for me to shoot in any given lighting situation without flash. I've experimented to kingdom come understanding and trying to compensate how my camera will see whites, grays and blacks photographing scenarios with folks moving about in constantly changing light and I'm at a loss how anyone can pull it off with professional looking results. I'm not talking about controlled studio work.</p>

<p>Some of these shots I've seen of pro looking online wedding photographers shooting outdoors and in mixed lighting indoors seems impossible to pull off. All subjects are tack sharp, moving about in low light with what seems impossible shutter speeds given the amount of light and I'm at a loss to know how it's done.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>How do you pick the right exposure compensation quick enough when the B&G get closer and farther away from the flash as they're moving about going down the aisle and mingling with the crowd of onlookers?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If the flash is on TTL, then in theory you won't need exposure compensation except to adjust the ratio between ambient and flash (for example, if you're just wanting a delicate fill flash, you'll dial in a little bit of minus compensation to the flash exposure) since the TTL should take care of regulating the flash power to give correct exposure.</p>

<p>However, in practise TTL flash doesn't work reliably, and one may want to consider other flash exposure modes to get more reliable results. eg. manual.</p>

<p>Also, unless the church has a reasonably low white ceiling, you're probably not going to want to or be able to bounce off it at all. Many churches have high stone ceilings. Even if the flash is powerful enough to bounce off something like that, the reflected light will take on the colour of the stone it's reflected off, so you're likely to turn the bride orange.</p>

<p>Aside from the flash question, the ambient light exposure is dead easy. You just use the centre-weighted metering to measure off a convenient tone like the floor of the church. Typical stone flooring will need around -1 compensation (Zone 4 in zone system terms). Set that, and every frame of the bride and groom approaching will be perfectly exposed, notwithstanding white dresses and black suits.</p>

 

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>...notwithstanding white dresses and black suits.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I see you saved the gotcha for last. Not what I wanted to read but I thank you for your thorough rundown on how to do this from a functional perspective.</p>

<p>I still don't see how you can maintain a decent shutter speed to keep folks from blurring moving about in a church in low mixed light and be quick enough to do all this exposure compensation WITHSTANDING white dresses and black suits.</p>

<p>I guess you'ld have to meter for the white dress and the black suit and pick an in between and shoot in Tv mode set just fast enough to prevent blurring but not over the flash sync limit while letting flash produce more light to compensate and hopefully let high ISO and aperture take care of the rest.</p>

<p>I don't see how you could set up an external flash in a crowd of people moving about in a church. I doubt I'll ever shoot in these conditions but I just want to think it through to understand how to do this fast enough without turning my camera into a game boy.</p>

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>It's never been easier to get good exposures now that we can instantly see the results. Just take an educated guess, shoot, view results, and adjust accordingly.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps you can elaborate on this.</p>

 

<ul>

<li>What are you seeing?</li>

<li>How do you compensate for ambient light levels when viewing your LCD screen?</li>

<li>How do you evaluate whether a particular exposure is 'good'?</li>

<li>How much difference is there between 'good' and 'optimal', and how do you close that gap?</li>

<li>Have you found any circumstances where a 'good' exposure cannot be determined by these methods, e.g. star trails, traffic trails, or neon signs at night?</li>

</ul>

 

[Sanford]

<p>Dan - if the resulting picture looks too dark on the LCD I add a little more exposure and if it looks to light I subtract a little exposure. An inexact method but it seems to work for me. As someone else said here once you have determined a correct exposure for a given subject you can pretty much leave it there with minor tweaks.</p>