[KellyL]

A summary of the article in Outdoor Photographer:

1. Metering: Use evaluative in most situations, although spot will give you the best readings for the best exposure, if you use a hand held, one degree spot meter.

2. Bracket when possible, using 1/2 or 1 stop increments.

3. Learn how to read a scene. Through trial and error, learn when to use your exposure compensation.

4. When encountering problematic scenes, learn from experience. Use AE lock when you zoom in on a particular part of the scene, then recompose.

5. Chimp your shots.

6. Learn to read a histogram. (Although the article doesn't do a real good job of explaining histograms).

7. Memorize and use the Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE: shutter 1/ISO, f/16) and use it when you don't have time to adjust the camera. Be creative with the BDE. At ISO 200, the BDE for bright sun is 1⁄200 sec. at ƒ/16, or 1⁄400 sec. at ƒ/11, 1⁄800 sec. at ƒ/8, 1⁄1600 sec. at ƒ/5.6 and 1⁄3200 sec. at ƒ/4

7. Use AV mode on cloudy days when BDE is not possible due to rapid change in light conditions.

8. Shoot RAW

9. Learn how to process two RAW files for the same high dynamic scene and combine them in Photoshop.

10. Practice until you learn the brightness range of the camera. Using a spot meter, meter the area you would like to have as the brightest. Since the meter will provide a reading that renders the area at a medium brightness, make a judgment call. If you want that area brighter than the medium brightness, open the camera one or two stops. If you want the area to be darker than medium brightness, stop the camera down one or two stops. With experience, you will learn how to read a scene and how to stop the camera up and down to produce the desired results.

All in all, this is the advice given by the photographers here on this fine site. It is time for me to close this chapter of my Camel experience. I won't be posting in this thread again.

Each one of you has provided a piece of the puzzle, which was nicely summed up in the article that was handed to me this morning.

What began as a quest to understand exposure has taught me many things. Above all else, nothing, no nothing, will help more than practice. But if an individual doesn't know some basic rules, then practice is harmful. Good practice moves one towards perfection. Bad practice moves one towards frustation. You don't have children practice addition and subtraction until you give them the basic rules.

What I was seeking was a set of basic rules that I could use to help me understand exposure better. In the beginning, I thought that there would be some hard fast rules that could be applied in any given situation. What frustrated me was how elusive those hard fast rules are. What I have learned is that each one of us must determine what we feel is a good exposure, and through practice develop an intuitiveness that pleases us.

I have learned that part of surveying the scene is learning that what reality presents is far more dynamic than what my camera can capture. Through practice and analysis, I can begin to read a scene and make a judgment on how I would like to shoot it. Generally speaking, expose for the highlights to keep them from blowing. That seems to be the greater sin than causing shadows to melt into mud.

But the idea, how I want to shoot it, is where the artistry of photography comes in. At the beginning of this thread, I had a mindset that there was an exact science to create perfect exposures. From all that I have seen, heard, and read, that science does not exist. An approximation of the science is available, some fundamentals can be used, but the photographer must develop an eye that can quickly read the scene, meter the important parts of the scene, decide where on the exposure ruler the important parts should be placed, and set an exposure accordingly.

At times, manual will be the mode of choice. But other times warrant the use of other methods. There is nothing wrong with using Av, Tv, or, heaven forbid, P on the camera.

I want to thank each and everyone of you for sharing your knowledge. I understand the value that time is to each one of us, so I thank all of you.

Thank you Michael, Kirk, John, John C, Blumsman, Pensive, Mark, Jay, Brian, Dean, Max, Craig, Dave, Bob (one should never start lists, because someone will get left out)...how do I go through all 26 pages and thank each and everyone of you for writing and sharing and taking the time? Thanks.

I'll see ya later.