Exposure - how to get it right?

[jprime84]

After finishing the PP on my photos from my weekend in Charleston, SC - I learned two things:

1. It is really hard to get a nice exposure in bright sunny conditions
2. Shooting with RAW is a lifesaver

Basically, I took a lot of architectural photos of the old homes and buildings in this colonial era American city. The weather was gorgeous and sunny all weekend, so most of the shots were taken from 1pm-dusk. I generally used evaluative metering, and occasionally spot metering if the buildings were too dark in front of a bright sky. I did not use any exposure bias.

What I found while PP and saving my images is that I had to turn down the exposure of probably 90% of the RAW files. With the bright skies and the pastel color buildings, many architectural details were lost to hot spots on the buildings as they reflected the sunny sky. Luckily most were saveable by reducing the exposure in ACR, resulting in a darker but much more detailed photo.

So heres the question, how do you handle this? Evaluative metering usually exposed more for the sky than the buildings, but when you use spot metering the sky is very much blown out. I guess you could say to not take pictures of houses facing the bright side of the sky, but when you are walking around a city you can only take pictures of what you see when you are there.

I will post some before-after images later so you can see what I am talking about.

[autofocus]

What if you spot metered off a highlight on the building? I believe the saying was, "meter for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves." (or something like that) This may help keep some of your details from getting blown out. Remember, the dynamic range of the typical digital sensor is probably more than half of the range of the human eye/brain...so we can see far more stops than what the current generation of cameras can see.

[jprime84]

Yeah, I guess I was being a little careless with the spot metering (using on the building, but not specific spots on the building).

On the other hand, I had a few interesting results where I created multiple jpgs at different exposures from one RAW file and combined them to make HDRish shots from them.

[kencaleno]

It's a question of timing-before 10am and after 4 pm are the best times for outside day photography,where the sun isn't high overhead-but for perfect exposure generally, the starting point is to find out how your camera's meter reads exposure. I know mine overexposes by 0.3 to 0.7 EV,depending on lighting,so I set exposure compensation for -0.3. To check this:

With camera on tripod, exposure compensation at 0-0 and a scene with all tones:

set Exposure compensation (+/-) at +1 take a shot

Now in 1/3 (0.3) increments adjust exposure compensation and take a shot,all the way to -1, giving you seven images.

load these into imaging programme and select the image with best detail in shadows and highlights.

This setting will be your standard,set this on your camera,and you will never need to do this again your camera will be calibrated for optimum exposure.


One more thing to do to ensure the perfect exposure,is to auto bracket set for 2/3 (0.7) increments,so no shot will be more than a third, (0.3 EV) off target exposure.

Regards, Ken

[vandergus]

Yeah, I usually meter for the highlights because you have a lot more options for dealing with shadows in post processing than you do dealing with highlights (i.e. it's much easier to recover details in shadows than it is in highlights). Since you're probably shooting at a low ISO and in RAW, you should be able to bring up the shadows significantly without introducing a lot of noise. The hard part is doing it in a way that looks natural.

One technique that I've been playing with is the contrast mask. I don't have all the ins and outs nailed down yet but it seems to give better results than a simple curves adjustment.

Hope that helps.

[Ishyid]

Originally Posted by auto-focus

What if you spot metered off a highlight on the building? I believe the saying was, "meter for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves." (or something like that) This may help keep some of your details from getting blown out. Remember, the dynamic range of the typical digital sensor is probably more than half of the range of the human eye/brain...so we can see far more stops than what the current generation of cameras can see.

I'm new to photography and have a small understanding of these terms. What do you mean by "spot metering"? Or in other words, what is it?

Thanks,
Joshua

[autofocus]

The D60 has three metering options: 3D Color Matrix II, Center-Weighted, and Spot. The 3D Color Matrix II setting integrates exposure information from a large number of areas across the frame.

Center-Weighted metering measures light from the entire frame but places the greatest emphasis (75%) on the center circular area.

Spot metering takes a reading from a 3.5mm circle centered on the active focus area only. With this feature you can expect to get more accurate readings especially in difficult lighting situations...like back lighting (bright backgrounds) Remember, it is linked to your focus point so the camera will meter, and set its exposure calculations based on the point.

Hope this helps...have fun with your new D60

Vince

[Ishyid]

Originally Posted by auto-focus

The D60 has three metering options: 3D Color Matrix II, Center-Weighted, and Spot. The 3D Color Matrix II setting integrates exposure information from a large number of areas across the frame.

Center-Weighted metering measures light from the entire frame but places the greatest emphasis (75%) on the center circular area.

Spot metering takes a reading from a 3.5mm circle centered on the active focus area only. With this feature you can expect to get more accurate readings especially in difficult lighting situations...like back lighting (bright backgrounds) Remember, it is linked to your focus point so the camera will meter, and set its exposure calculations based on the point.

Hope this helps...have fun with your new D60

Vince

Yes that did help. So if I where to be taking a picture of a buiilding, and there was an area that had a lot of sunlight on it is sucking up all the detail, I could point my camerah at that area and then point it back towards the lighter spot on the building and It will help keep the detail in the bright spot?

[autofocus]

I'm glad that helped. Yes, you can try that, but you have to remember a few things:
First of all when you do that, make sure you hold your shutter button half way down before you recompose and shoot your final shot. That will lock in your exposure settings and also your focus on that particular spot. If that's not the point in your image you want to be in sharp focus you'll have to consider other options. I'm not real familiar with the backside of the D60, but there should be and AE-L / AF-L button (auto exposure / auto focus lock) You may have to go into your custom settings to configure the button the way you want it to function. Being that this is all new to you I would recommend you not muck with the custom settings until you get more comfortable with the camera. So for starters, I would practice with the first option.
Also, because of the limited dynamic range of digital image sensors maintaining good details in both the shadows and the highlights can be a bit of a challenge. So when you want to maintain the highlight details by metering off them you do so at the expense of dark shadows or an overall dark image. (BTW, the reverse is true if you meter of dark / shadow areas. This will probably yield blown out highlights) So spot metering has to be done with all that in mind. If it's a "must have image," I'd recommend multiple shots of it by metering off different points of the image, and also consider center weighted metering. By doing that, it's a bit of an insurance policy that you'll get at least one good image.
Lastly, can I assume you know how to change metering modes...I believe there should be a three position rotary switch on the camera back.
My very last piece of advise: READ YOUR MANUAL, AND CARRY IT WITH YOU

[Ishyid]

I do know how to change my metering positions.