Exposure

sep9001

sep9001

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Name
Kev
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Hi

Just took some shots with my camera in manual mode. I made sure that the meter reading was in the center to see what the photos come out like and I think they have all come out under exposed.

Is there something wrong with the way I have taken the photos or the camera.

On the LCD when I took the photos they looked okay, but on my screen which is a Dell 2209WA calibrated with a Spyder3Pro they look very under exposed.

Thank you

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Sticking the needle in the centre is what the camera thinks is the right exposure, it doesn't mean it is.
You may as well not use manual mode if that's all you are going to do, as any other mode will provide the same result.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Sticking the needle in the centre is what the camera thinks is the right exposure, it doesn't mean it is.
You may as well not use manual mode if that's all you are going to do, as any other mode will provide the same result.
Click to expand...

Umm, care to expand on this? Where would you say the needle should be?
 
Skies look great but buildings are a bit under maybe?

Heather
 
TCR4x4 said:
Sticking the needle in the centre is what the camera thinks is the right exposure, it doesn't mean it is.
You may as well not use manual mode if that's all you are going to do, as any other mode will provide the same result.
Click to expand...

Thank you all for your comments.

I know you don't have to have the meter in the middle, however, when I do the same with my D80 I get results that look correct obviously not creative but with the D90 they look underexposed.

I am note sure if the setting in the camera that is doing this or if it is something else. I have reset the camera before taking the pictures.

Thanks
 
It will depend on how the camera meters. I suspect the d90 uses slightly different metering to the D80, the results will vary.
 
jon ryan said:
Umm, care to expand on this? Where would you say the needle should be?
Click to expand...

Depends on the light and what you meter from.

The camera meters what it thinks is correct. Say you meter off a black object, the camera will expose for this and the rest of the shot will be overexposed.
The whole point of manual mode is you take control of the exposure, as you will know that the camera is going to get confused by extremes of either bright or dark in an image.
So you will either overexpose from what the camera thinks is correct, or underexpose.

If you shoot a snowy landscape, in manual mode, it will be underexposed by quite a bit and come out very grey, as the camera just sees lots of white. As a competant photographer, you will realise this and over expose from what the camera is telling you to get the correct exposure.
 
The images look perfectly exposed on my monitor, perhaps yours needs calibrating?

Chasing the needle so that it points to the centre isn't really shooting manually. You'll get exactly the same results if you use Av or Tv modes (or whatever it is that Nikon call them) with fewer buttons to press.
 
Thank you all for the comments.
 
Your camera meter, with some anomalies according to metering mode, will give you a correct exposure around mid grey.

That picture has a dominant sky, which is well exposed, at the cost of the buildings. Most camera meters would do something very close to that.

Your camera doesn't know what you want to expose for, for that matter neither do we. So you've got a great picture of the sky, if that's what you wanted you've succeeded. If you wanted to expose for the buildings you've failed.

To expose for the buildings, give the camera a hand and take your meter reading from there.

If you think that Manual should be offering you a better picture see my post on the AV TV thread from today.
 
Thank you. Will do.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Depends on the light and what you meter from.

The camera meters what it thinks is correct. Say you meter off a black object, the camera will expose for this and the rest of the shot will be overexposed.
The whole point of manual mode is you take control of the exposure, as you will know that the camera is going to get confused by extremes of either bright or dark in an image.
So you will either overexpose from what the camera thinks is correct, or underexpose.

If you shoot a snowy landscape, in manual mode, it will be underexposed by quite a bit and come out very grey, as the camera just sees lots of white. As a competant photographer, you will realise this and over expose from what the camera is telling you to get the correct exposure.
Click to expand...

So how do you use the meter needle? Or do you ignore it?
 
Im manual mode you look at it and decide how far under or how far over you think it should be according to the scene you are faced with.

If you stick it slap bang in the middle every time, you are doing no more than shooting in green box auto mode, but making more work for yourself
 
TCR4x4 said:
Im manual mode you look at it and decide how far under or how far over you think it should be according to the scene you are faced with.

If you stick it slap bang in the middle every time, you are doing no more than shooting in green box auto mode, but making more work for yourself
Click to expand...

How would you make such a judgement? Why wouldn't having it in the middle be better than over or under?
 
jon ryan said:
How would you make such a judgement? Why wouldn't having it in the middle be better than over or under?
Click to expand...

Experience. Pointing the camera at a snow scene, the metering system on most cameras will be fooled by the vast expanse of white, and will consequently underexpose the scene. If you are shooting manually and just put the needle in the centre, you will also underexpose the scene.

With experience, you will know that the camera will struggle with this scenario and will make the appropriate adjustment. If shooting in an auto mode, you dial in some exposure compensation. If shooting in manual, you can adjust your settings until the metering needle is to the right of centre.
 
jon ryan said:
How would you make such a judgement? Why wouldn't having it in the middle be better than over or under?
Click to expand...

Ive already said, the camera guesses what it thinks is the correct exposure based off what it sees. If it sees a lot of black it will over expose, if it sees a lot of white, it will underexopose. The camera is always trying to get 18% grey, or middle grey, as this is what the camera believes is a correct exposure for any given scene.

If you point the camera at a white wall, it will expose it as grey, if you point it at a black wall, it will come out as grey. If you shoot a scene with both white and black, and one is more predominant than the other, the camera has no idea what is right. It doesnt know what you want to acheive, all it knows is it wants to have everything at 18% grey, so it makes a best guess at it.

You make the judgement by experience and knowledge of light and exposure. If you dont have that experience or knowledge, then stick to Av or Tv. There is nothing wrong with using those modes.
 
Off topic, but I keep waiting for 'LWT' to wind it's way across the frame :)

EDIT: I think I mean 'THAMES' :blush:
 
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jon ryan said:
How would you make such a judgement? Why wouldn't having it in the middle be better than over or under?
Click to expand...

In my answer above, the camera meter will always give you the equivalent of mid grey.

Leave the camera to meter and shoot a grey wall, you'll get a grey wall. But a white wall or black wall will also give you a grey wall.

You need to be able to tell the camera to overexpose the white wall and underexpose the black one.

Again, the camera can't read your mind, to complicate matters, you might want to make a grey wall white or black, that's photography I'm afraid. You make the decisions and get the camera to create it for you. Then you polish it with your post processing.
 
Do remember reading this in the Bryan Peters on book... Creative Photographer. Thank you all for making it more clear.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Ive already said, the camera guesses what it thinks is the correct exposure based off what it sees. If it sees a lot of black it will over expose, if it sees a lot of white, it will underexopose. The camera is always trying to get 18% grey, or middle grey, as this is what the camera believes is a correct exposure for any given scene.

If you point the camera at a white wall, it will expose it as grey, if you point it at a black wall, it will come out as grey. If you shoot a scene with both white and black, and one is more predominant than the other, the camera has no idea what is right. It doesnt know what you want to acheive, all it knows is it wants to have everything at 18% grey, so it makes a best guess at it.

You make the judgement by experience and knowledge of light and exposure. If you dont have that experience or knowledge, then stick to Av or Tv. There is nothing wrong with using those modes.
Click to expand...

OK, so in the scene offered by the OP, would you say that checking the needle is more or less in the middle of the scale, regardless of exposure mode, would be a useful check to make? Do you think that a central needle would be a good thing to have in this scenario?

If not, what meter reading would you look for to ensure the best chance of a good exposure?
 
TCR4x4 said:
You make the judgement by experience and knowledge of light and exposure. If you dont have that experience or knowledge, then stick to Av or Tv. There is nothing wrong with using those modes.
Click to expand...

Here I have to disagree.
AV or TV will give you the same result as Manual given the same amount of knowledge and skill it's this attitude to Manual that's pushing newbies into these quandaries. Learning about exposure and metering has nothing to do with AV TV or M or even P.

Your choice is either learn what your meter is doing so that youre in control of the camera or learn to be satisfied with mediocre photos.
 
^^^^ this ^^^^

The meter isn't going to give you a perfect exposure every time. No one instrument will. But, until you have accumulated a considerable amount of experience, the meter is going to give you a pretty good indication of whether a given exposure will be within the boundaries of acceptability.
 
jon ryan said:
OK, so in the scene offered by the OP, would you say that checking the needle is more or less in the middle of the scale, regardless of exposure mode, would be a useful check to make? Do you think that a central needle would be a good thing to have in this scenario?

If not, what meter reading would you look for to ensure the best chance of a good exposure?
Click to expand...

For the OP in this scenario, if he wanted the buildings well exposed, he should point the camera at the buildings and lock the exposure there. Whether Manual or Auto, with a caveat.

If the buildings were particularly dark or bright, he'd have to meter from a neutral area or use exposure compensation.

Or he could meter as he did from the scene, then use exposure compensation in Auto or put the needle at about a stop over.
 
...or perhaps take a reading from the buildings, another from the sky, and set an exposure somewhere in between these, or use matrix metering to do this? Or decide which part of the scene - the sky or the buildings - were most important, and expose for this accepting that part of the scene will be wrongly exposed?

My long-winded point is, that until you have accumulated a fair bit of experience, getting the needle more or less in the middle of the scale is likely to be a good idea.
 
To the OP: Those pics are pretty good, exposure-wise. Nothing that can't be fixed in post. But the composition could use some work (in my opinion).

All photography stems from the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Start with that and then move on. But not until you have that relationship firmly in your grasp.
 
jon ryan said:
To the OP: Those pics are pretty good, exposure-wise. Nothing that can't be fixed in post. But the composition could use some work (in my opinion).

All photography stems from the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Start with that and then move on. But not until you have that relationship firmly in your grasp.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I was just testing the camera. I do have a lot of learning to do and thank you all for the pointers.
 
sep9001 said:
Thank you. I was just testing the camera. I do have a lot of learning to do and thank you all for the pointers.
Click to expand...

Just keep shooting. I say shoot in manual until you know what twiddling the dials and pushing the buttons will do to your pictures, as every alteration you make will alter the resulting pic without the camera making another, compensating, alteration - this is what I teach my students. Others teach differently.

But you go for what works for you.

(NB: Ever heard of the rule of thirds? ;))
 
jon ryan said:
Just keep shooting. I say shoot in manual until you know what twiddling the dials and pushing the buttons will do to your pictures, as every alteration you make will alter the resulting pic without the camera making another, compensating, alteration - this is what I teach my students. Others teach differently.

But you go for what works for you.

(NB: Ever heard of the rule of thirds? ;))
Click to expand...

Thank you. Yes have read about the rule on the Web and on the forum. Will do as you say keep shooting..

Once again thank you all for the input and help.....
 
From the point of view of not overexposing the clouds, this has done a very good job imho, and is only slightly underexposed. No doubt helped by the bright sky covering most of the image, which it has darkened to be closer to a mid tone, but offset by the dark foreground.

I know on my camera, on days like the OP had, where bright fluffy clouds are a large part of the scene, and for scenes like this, I have to set my Exposure Compensation to -1/3rd to stop the clouds overexposing. I still check the Histogram, but it works more often than not.

I didn't have to do it with my previous camera, but my current camera measures (not guesses btw ;)) that type of scene differently. They all do things slightly differently, not only is it learning how the camera measures a scene, it is also learning how your camera measures certain repeatable scenes.

In this bright scene if, not overexposing the clouds was preferable, then foreground may always look dark. This is the type of scene graduated filters were made for, if you want to do it all in camera. :shrug:
 
TCR4x4 said:
If you point the camera at a white wall, it will expose it as grey, if you point it at a black wall, it will come out as grey. If you shoot a scene with both white and black, and one is more predominant than the other, the camera has no idea what is right. It doesnt know what you want to acheive, all it knows is it wants to have everything at 18% grey, so it makes a best guess at it.
Click to expand...

Where manual exposure can be very useful is when you're going to be shooting various subjects under the same listing conditions. You find something that is grey and get the needle in the middle. Now you use the same settings. When your subject is black then the needle will be to the left of the middle. But that's OK because it means it will expose the shot so that the subject is black. And when you shoot something that's white then the needle will be to the right.

Under unchanging light, using manual in this method can really help avoid common exposure errors.
 
Thanks for the help.
 
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