Metering (Nikon Coolpix 5700)

[a_n2]

I'm a total beginner in photography, and I just got a Nikon Coolpix

5700. The thing is that I've read several articles and books on

metering and I'm kind of confused.

 

The camera has a built in meter and currently I have it set to matrix

mode. I've read you should meter off of a mid-toned subject and base

your settings on this. What does this mean? Should I use matrix

metering, point the camera towards a midtoned subject, take note of

the readings and then, when I'm all set to take the picture, change

the new settings with the settings I took note of?

 

I'm sorry if this is a newbie question, but I'm really interested.

 

Thanks so much for your time and help. I truly appreciate it.

[lachaine]

You have to understand a bit more about how meters work. Matrix metering as used by Nikon meters for the whole scene automatically. There's no need to do anything else, really - especially with a digital camera, where you can see the result well enough right away. Metering of a mid-toned portion of the subject is for when you want to meter and make the exposure decisions yourself. It's only useful with either the centre-weighted averaging meter or the spotmeter. Both of these are sort of dumb compared to a matrix meter. A dumb meter just tries to average out everything to 18% grey - there's no computation or artifical intelligence involved whatsoever. If it's the centre-weighted meter, it will average the entire scene so that the average exposure will be the equivalent of 18% grey overall. If the scene does indeed average out that way, the exposure will be about right. If it's the spotmeter, and you use the exposure it suggests, the thing you meter on will end up being about 18% grey in tone value. So if, for example, it's a black bicycle seat, the seat will end up being grey in the picture. If it's white snow, it will also end up medium grey in the picture - unless you compensate the exposure up or down by a couple of f-stops. Photographers will sometimes find something that actually is about medium grey in the scene and use that to meter off of (like a rock, pavement, a tree, etc.). But on the other hand, Nikon's matrix metering is probably right 95% of the time, and close enough for the other 5%.

[a_n2]

I truly appreciate your response.

 

So your saying that in those cases where you have an "extreme" like the bike seat and the snow, matrix metering will do fine? The what's the point in having other kinds of metering? What should I use them for?

 

Thanks again!

[gib]

if someone is standing in the winter in a field of snow, you may want to try spot metering on their face and there is an exposure lock to lock in the meter reading.

 

I find what I do sometimes in that situation is another approach, to keep matrix metering, but use exposure compensation to dial in +1 f stop compensation.

 

btw I am finding that a lot of time I am using matrix metering and -0.3 compensation for general shooting.

 

You can also try to experiment and review the results.....and when you look on your computer using Nikon View it will tell you what metering method and compensation you used.

 

Matrix is good for most situations.

 

I find that this camera does so much that I ended up sitting down with the manual every week or so and trying to learn one or maybe two new things....if you try to learn it all, well, if I tried to learn it all in one short burst of time, my brain would lock up.

 

I have a lot of 5700 shots in my folders.

 

have fun with it.

[a_n2]

Hey William, thanks so much for your response!

 

I just got some feedback on a couple of photos I took on Sunday. It was late afternoon and it was an overcast day. It was at a soccer field and the subjects had orange shirts. The thing is that this person told me that the "orange is blazing as compared to the muted greens". Is this a problem? What am I doing wrong?

 

I was working with aperture priority so the camera would vary the shutter speed accordingly.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks again.

[gib]

first off, nice timing in your shot.....it seems to me that you might want to try TV mode shutter speed rather than aperture for this kind of shot.....

 

if you use focus mode: AF Area Mode - Manual on......

 

and combine it with spot metering since your soccer player is dead centre might give you a better exposure....

 

A little hard to tell from the small image.

 

Have you got saturation set in its default position....you could try setting it lower in the camera, but....

 

you can of course adjust some things in software, I dont use Nikon Editor that much, I prefer Adobe Photoshop Elements 1.5 (came with a Canon G2 - now in version 2 about 130 dollars or so) or JASC Paint Shop Pro 7 (about 100 dollars). Full blown Photoshop seems more bang than I need for what I do.

[a_n2]

Sorry about the size of my picture, I was afraid it was going to be too big for what photo.net allows and it seems I over did it. :(

 

I took a series of shots and not all of them were dead center.

 

The problems that I get when I use shutter priority is that my pictures are often too dark if I don't use flash, and I certainly did not want to use flash in these photos.

 

I do have saturation in it's default position.

 

I'll try to upload a larger version so that you can take a look. I appreciate all your input.<div></div>

[a_n2]

Ugh! Sorry for the poor quality, don't know what happened there!

[a_n2]

Better...

[gib]

it is hard to judge on a monitor, and I dont know what the jersey looks like, just your photo.

 

It looks okay to me. Overall the shot would have more punch if you got closer.

 

There is a high speed option w. the 5700 which can allow you to hold the shutter down and take a series of shots like a motordrive....have you given it a try?

[a_n2]

Took more photos on Sunday thus I have more questions on the subject :)

 

Here you can see another action picture. It was around 6:45 with the sun at about a 45 degree angle, maybe a bit lower. My problem this time is with the sky. It looks terribly flat to me. Am I doing something wrong?

 

I truly appreciate your help!

[greg mccracken]

You may try to use exposure compensation to reduce the exposure of the shot. Try a setting of -1 for a shot with as much sky as this. Even better, take your original picture, load it into Photoshop, click layer, duplicate layer. Then make sure the Layers Info screen is in view by clicking Window, then make sure there is a chck mark beside Layers, then on the Layers tab of the Layers window, change teh Normal setting to Multiply. Beside the Multiply setting, change the opacity to whatever looks best. You wil find the colours get richer, but the whites stay the same. The effect is the same as looking at two duplicate slides stacked with a light behind them. Then select the duplicated layer, click Layer, Add Layer Mask, Reveal All. Then use the Lasso tool to roughly trace any areas that are too dark (such as the boy's body) on the inside of his form, click Select, Feather and enter 10 in the field. Then select the Paint Bucket fill tool and making sure the black is the foreground colour and that the new layer mask on the duplicated layer is highlighted, click inside your selection circle. The body will brighten to the background layer level. It only takes about 30 seconds once you know how and really improves the images! I love this trick! Give it a shot.

See my upload...

Greg<div></div>