Understanding Exposure

[KellyL]

Pensive: You did not get off track at all with your statements. Your questions are exaclty why I started this thread. The creative exposure issue came up when it was suggested that shooting on AUTO would be the best way to go. It would be very difficult to create stunning images that showed creativity if the camera was always set to auto. Not that it couldn't be done with composition, but the sacrifice of DOF might hinder the creative aspects of exposure. This is the only reason I brought creative exposure up to begin with.

Pensive, so you know, my oringial question was "where does one meter in order to get the best exposure." That is what I want to know.

I have limited experience, and have been able to get good exposures part of the time. I want more consitent results.

Knowing that Experience is the best teacher, and the best teachers are those who are experienced, I posted wanting to gather knowledge from as many willing folks as would offer their opinions. 98% of our conversation here has been civil, and I appreciate that greatly, since the PhotoCamel is the FRIENDLY photo community.

Interestingly, Bryan Peterson also suggests using the gray card to determine correct exposure. So now I have three folks who have said this. After his discussion about light, Bryan does begin to say, when in this situation, meter here...when in htis situation meter there.

At this point, I want to do a few things next time I am out doing photography for the sake of learning. I want to photograph a white area as Brooks suggested...for the exercise of it and to just get a better sense of what f/stops do to exposure.

I also just want to go out and meter different areas of a scene and take very careful notes of how I am metering and compare the results. ONce again, exeprience is the best teacher, and experienced teachers have the best lessons. Kirk will be happy to hear I am getting around to doing what he has been tellling me to do F-O-R-E-V-E-R (to quote one of the best films of all time, "The Sandlot").

Okay...why am I rambling? Probably because I am tired of post processing pictures.

[KellyL]

Originally Posted by JohnC

I liken AV and TV modes more towards manual control. You are making a conscious decision about how you want the scene to look. Are you more interested in depth of field? Go into AV mode and select the aperture you need. Do you need to stop motion? Go into TV mode and select the shutter speed you need. You can use the exposure compensation dial then to adjust your exposure. But in either case you are engaged and making decisions with the help of the built-in meter.

John, this is how I traditionally use these modes.

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by JohnC

Not a direct challenge just to you. Open for anyone. What do you do in these situations where the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capture ability of the film or sensor? Do you expose for the highlights and let the shadows go black? Do you expose for the shadows and let the bright areas blow out? Do you average and have black shadows and blown highlights? Do you do something else?

I'm going to address this with LIVE examples. No knocking me on composition. IMO it was the ultimate illustration for this.

[KellyL]

Originally Posted by JohnC

Not a direct challenge just to you. Open for anyone. What do you do in these situations where the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capture ability of the film or sensor? Do you expose for the highlights and let the shadows go black? Do you expose for the shadows and let the bright areas blow out? Do you average and have black shadows and blown highlights? Do you do something else?

I appreciate this John, because this is really one of the first questions I asked in post number 1.

For outdoor portraits...it appears to me that spot metering is the best way to meter for an outdoor portrait. You have a family against a lush green background. You meter for their faces and shoot. Simple solution? Seems like it. But what part of the face do you meter? The shadow side, the highlight side?

After rereading portions of Bryan Peterson's book, he suggests what someone else here suggested. Move in close, fill the frame with a face, note the exposure, either lock it or remember it when you reframe, forget what the camera tells you when you reframe, and shoot. I can't remember who said that on this post.

He also gave Michael's tip on using your hand as a gray card. Meter your hand in the same light that your subject will be exposed in, open the camer 2/3 of a stop, and shoot. Bryan says you should calibrate your hand to the gray card by doing some tests in open sun and open shade first.

[KellyL]

Pensive: This is NOT a composition thread...like you said. So POST AWAY your experiments. I truly am appreciative of the vigor with which you have taken on this thread. We are on the same pages. (Fifteen to date!)

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by JohnC

Not a direct challenge just to you. Open for anyone. What do you do in these situations where the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capture ability of the film or sensor? Do you expose for the highlights and let the shadows go black? Do you expose for the shadows and let the bright areas blow out? Do you average and have black shadows and blown highlights? Do you do something else?

Depends on the scene. If I can, I'll use a flash to flatten the DR. You can also combine multiple exposures. And you can expose for the subject, or any other element in the scene.

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by KellyL

Pensive: This is NOT a composition thread...like you said. So POST AWAY your experiments. I truly am appreciative of the vigor with which you have taken on this thread. We are on the same pages. (Fifteen to date!)

Thanks Kelly!
I'm going to try numbering them and talking about them, but I've never done that successfully.

[Brooks]

Originally Posted by JohnC

Not a direct challenge just to you. Open for anyone. What do you do in these situations where the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capture ability of the film or sensor? Do you expose for the highlights and let the shadows go black? Do you expose for the shadows and let the bright areas blow out? Do you average and have black shadows and blown highlights? Do you do something else?

Assuming you're talking about outdoor scenes not in the studio, when I'm shooting digital or transparency, I meter for the highlights and let the shadows go.

If the outdoor scene is small enough, ie: a portrait or close-up I'll use a silk if I can cover the entire area or subject, or a fill card if I just need to slightly lighten the shadows. Occasionally on some jobs, I've had to use electronic flash and softboxes and i rented a large diesel generator to power a couple of 4800ws power packs.

What I won't do is use on-camera flash fill or small source battery powered flashes because I don't care for the hard quality of the light from these small sources and I think on-camera fill flash just looks nasty.

[jfrancho]

Expose for the subject (actually, I overexposed the subject here)


Use a flash to balance the exposure of subject and background:


Use multiple exposures and HDR software or luminance masks to combine properly exposed elements:

[expensive_hobby]

I metered (hopefully accurately) on three different spots since I was informed two wasn't the best way to go.

Spot #1: glare on grill
Spot #2: arch on stone
Spot #3: shadowed underneath

Spot #1 said: f11, 1/500

Spot #2 said: f5.0, 1/100

Spot #3 said: f4.5, 1/80

So, I took all of them and decided it was I was probably best at:
f7.1, 1/200

Now, to me, this is *subjective*. By underexposing I didn't risk blowing out the corner of the grill being tortured with glare from the sun; nor did I overexpose the grill itself. Of course in comparison to the arch and the "cabinet" (where doors are suppose to be and that ridiculous tank gone) it's a tad darker than it probably should be. But also by doing this, the barely green leaves/grass in the background (we're in a drought) is a nicer color-- if by chance anyone is looking there.

Now I say it's *subjective* because #1 someone with more experience is probably going to say: I would've done this (feel free to). And because I know with my non-fancy Canon software I can manipulate the brightness or contrast if I so desire.

[KellyL]

Pensive, if you get a separate gallery account, you can post your pictures like at Photobucket, upload the URL instead of a picture and discuss your pictures one at a time. I don't know if that works with the Photocamel gallery. I've not been very successful understanding how the photocamel gallery works.

[KellyL]

Whoops! Slow computer.

[KellyL]

Oh my word, you call those photographs? Those compositions are really horrible. What were you thinking?

Sorry, I am bad. I couldn't resist. THOSE ARE EXACTLY THE KIND OF PHOTOS I WOULD EXPECT TO SEE WHEN SOMEONE IS TRYING AND EXPERIMENTING!

John's were greatly appreciated as well. But he's not experimenting. He is providing examples from his experience.

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by KellyL

Oh my word, you call those photographs? Those compositions are really horrible. What were you thinking?

Sorry, I am bad. I couldn't resist. THOSE ARE EXACTLY THE KIND OF PHOTOS I WOULD EXPECT TO SEE WHEN SOMEONE IS TRYING AND EXPERIMENTING!

You know, if the product was finished maybe the composition wouldn't be so bad. Or are you guys to going take my husband's side?!?!?! I love my husband, so I'll play nice. And yes, there's plenty of my own blood, sweat and tears in that grill too!

Now maybe I was cheating because this is my favorite subject to test this exposure stuff out on (my neighbors probably think I'm in love with it! ). But really I think it's the perfect example between the shade, shadowing and harsh sun reflection.

[jfrancho]

That last of the grill shots is clearly the winner, if you want to portray the whole grill. If the elements in the darker portions are the point of interest, then composition does enter the discussion, since you can crop out the overexposed ares by moving your feet. Same for the overexposed areas.

I will make a suggestion, since this is a static subject, you can decide on aperture first, and then lock down ISO and shutter. narrow each setting down to a range of acceptable values. ISO 100 in sunlight, 1/focal length+ for shutter speed, f/5.6 for DOF. Once you get these in the area, M, Tv, and Av mode become much more useful to you.

And for this scene, I bet Evaluative metering would have yielded acceptable results.

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by KellyL

John's were greatly appreciated as well. But he's not experimenting. He is providing examples from his experience.

Thanks Kelly. I don't need to go out and experiment, since I've already done the work. Those are just three examples where some compromise was reached to accomplish what I wanted. All of my pictures are like that, though.

[Brooks]

Here's a shot from two weeks ago under the seas in the Florida Keys.

Camera was an Olympus 5mp P&S set on aperture priority at f 8 and an ISO of 200. No Flash, available light in 20 ft. of water.

Depending on the depth, you do have to check that the shutter speed chosen by the camera in Aperture Priority is not too slow for any current or movement. IF it is then it's easy to change the f=stop and force the camera to choose a faster shutter speed. 20 ft. is very shallow so there was a lot of light on this sunny day.

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by JohnC

I liken AV and TV modes more towards manual control. You are making a conscious decision about how you want the scene to look. Are you more interested in depth of field? Go into AV mode and select the aperture you need. Do you need to stop motion? Go into TV mode and select the shutter speed you need. You can use the exposure compensation dial then to adjust your exposure. But in either case you are engaged and making decisions with the help of the built-in meter.

I missed that, you are saying what I was trying to say, but much more eloquently.

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

That last of the grill shots is clearly the winner, if you want to portray the whole grill. If the elements in the darker portions are the point of interest, then composition does enter the discussion, since you can crop out the overexposed ares by moving your feet. Same for the overexposed areas.

I will make a suggestion, since this is a static subject, you can decide on aperture first, and then lock down ISO and shutter. narrow each setting down to a range of acceptable values. ISO 100 in sunlight, 1/focal length+ for shutter speed, f/5.6 for DOF. Once you get these in the area, M, Tv, and Av mode become much more useful to you.

And for this scene, I bet Evaluative metering would have yielded acceptable results.

Composition was by no means any part of this; for me, this was one of those "tricky exposure" scenes due to the dramatic variances of the elements.

Thanks for the tip on the static object and choosing aperture first. But....
you've lost me on the "1/focal length+". Can I get some clarification here?

You know, I may have to test evaluative metering just to compare.

[cyclohexane]

you've lost me on the "1/focal length+". Can I get some clarification here?

The general rule for handholding is that one can handhold any particular lens at a shutter speed of 1 over the focal length or faster. For example, if I have a 50mm lens, then I can safely handhold it at 1/50 second or faster.

Of course, practical experience will show that there is some deviation from the rule, and of course you have to factor in the size/weight/balance of the equipment.