Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-16-2007, 06:28 PM
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Much better! In situation like this I would personally add +0.5 or +1.0 since it is a well lit scene with sky dominating the background which is brighter than the average gray, but this is close enough and minor post processing could make it perfect without over stretching the image data.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-03-2007, 07:54 PM
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I think described parameters explain everything: using spot meter with P, Av or Tv modes and especially without exposure lock and exposure compensation is a pure gambling.
I would recommend center-weighted with P, Av and Tv in combination with exposure compensation. Here is how it works: every camera always sets aperture and shutter speed to record any scene as average gray. Then, YOU use that as a starting point and dial in exposure compensation -- positive if scene is bright, negative if scene is dark. This way you are "telling" you camera how would you like final result to be recorded: brighter or darker than calculated average gray.
Without YOU your camer can not possibly know what to do. Try this: find one black and one white t-shirt (or towel, or any fabric just to avoid reflections for now). Set your camera to P mode and any metering mode, and come close enough to fill the frame. Take a shot of a black then white t-shirt. Compare results, and... SURPRISE!!!
So, for good results you'll HAVE TO compensate.
Here is my mapping of exposure compensations to shades of gray: -2 black with details, -1 dark gray, 0 average gray, +1 light gray, +2 white with details. (Just for completeness, let me add that in manual mode I use -3 to get pure black with no details and +3 for pure white with no details).
How to practice this? With my "parking lot exposure exercise" (tried several times with my friends with great success):
Set your camera to P mode and center-weighted metering. Go to a parking lot: you can find cars of various colors there. Take a series of photographs filling your frame with a car but choose angle to avoid reflections and to have actual color filling most of the frame (not windows or wheels). You can take pictures of only doors for example.
Now, learn to think this way (focus on luminosity only, ignore colors!):
Gray car: "My camera will record gray and this car is an average gray. That is what I want, so I change nothing."
Navy blue car: "My camera will record gray but I want it darker, although not black. I dial -1."
White car: "My camera will record gray but I want it white. I dial +2."
Light blue car: "My camera will record gray but I want it lighter gray. I dial +1."
Black car: "My camera will record gray but I want it black. I dial -2."
Yellow car: "My camera will record gray but I want it bright, although not white. I dial +1.5."
And so on... Go slow at first, THINK before taking each shot about the compensation required. After some 30-40 shots it will go very easy. DO NOT review each shot immediately. Just shoot, review later on your computer monitor. Once downloaded, examine EXIFs and histograms and compare appearance with compensation. Ask yourself for each shot: do I like it? If not, check compensation value and see why it is not good: too much/little compensation? Perhaps -2 would have worked better than -1? Perhaps leaving it at 0 would have been the right choice? (and so on).
Repeat this exercise two or three times and I guarantee you'll improve your exposure accuracy 10X! Practice on buildings, benches, cars, furniture at home, just about anything.
Next step would be to learn how to use spot metering in M mode or in combination with AE-L in "auto" modes for even better control (for assigning and examining tonal values), but mastering "auto" modes with exposure compensation would suffice in 90% of situation.
Hope this helps.
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