Metering and WB Advice

[unclened]

ok, so I have done a fair bit of reading on this and wanted some points clarified on metering techniques.

1) Photographers often say when metering a bright subject (lets take a bride as an example), you meter the brightest part of the dress and then dial in extra exposure 1-2 stops(?). My understanding is that the camera will see the brightest area and will underexpose to produce mid tone grey, so you need to overexpose this to compensate? If we get the brightest bit correctly exposed the rest will also be fine?

2) in practise, does this involve spot metering the bright area under manual, and then changing the aperture, shutter or ISO to get the exposure up a few notches? If this is correct, can this work under AV and TV, where you can meter, and then dial in exposure compensation to increase the exposure a few notches?

3) Is this what a grey card is used for? Could I put the grey card at the bright spot and meter that and those settings will be optimum too? Or is that solely for WB. In which case I would take a picture under program mode and auto wb, then select that image under custom WB in Canon cameras.

Any help would ofcourse be greatly appreciated. A slaying would not!

 

[donut]

thats pretty much it ,,,,and what a grey card is for .or take an incident light reading ,,,

 

[HoppyUK]

I think your post shows a good understanding. Here is some clarification.

ok, so I have done a fair bit of reading on this and wanted some points clarified on metering techniques.

1) Photographers often say when metering a bright subject (lets take a bride as an example), you meter the brightest part of the dress and then dial in extra exposure 1-2 stops(?). My understanding is that the camera will see the brightest area and will underexpose to produce mid tone grey, so you need to overexpose this to compensate? If we get the brightest bit correctly exposed the rest will also be fine?

Yes. It's not the brightest bit, it's the brightest important bit you should meter for. For example, the sky might well be the brightest part of many pictures, but if you expose for that, the important parts of the image will probably be underexposed. You might have to sacrifice the sky and let it blow, or use a polarising filter, or a grad, to pull it down within the dynamic range. Or HDR, maybe.

2) in practise, does this involve spot metering the bright area under manual, and then changing the aperture, shutter or ISO to get the exposure up a few notches? If this is correct, can this work under AV and TV, where you can meter, and then dial in exposure compensation to increase the exposure a few notches?

Yes, you could use spot metering, or any other form of metering if you move close so that only the dress is seen by the meter. But then you should lock the reading in manual because when you reframe to take the picture, and subsequent images, the spot meter is quite likely to stray off the white dress and on to other areas. On any setting apart from manual, that will mess things up again.

3) Is this what a grey card is used for? Could I put the grey card at the bright spot and meter that and those settings will be optimum too? Or is that solely for WB. In which case I would take a picture under program mode and auto wb, then select that image under custom WB in Canon cameras.

An 18% grey card is working like the white dress, but it is obviously a known tone (not all dresses are white) and requires no compensation. A grey card is used primarily for exposure, but you can also use it for white balance. Any neutral subject will do for white balance, including a white card (in theory, that is better for extreme situations). You could also use a white card for exposure instead of the dress, if you then dial in the correct amount of compensation. They are interchangeable in this respect. You can use any exposure mode to set custom white balance - pretty much any old image will do, so long as the target is neutral in tone.

IMHO there is too much fuss made about exposure metering and setting, much of it relating back to film when it was a much more difficult, and different settings were required for different types of film. Auto, manual, spot, evaluative, incident, grey card etc - there is no right or wrong method, and whichever one gets you to the correct result is the right one to use.

With digital, you can see the result instantly on the LCD, and, this is the killer feature, there is a histogram to tell you exactly what is going on. If you also enable the over exposure alert (blinkies) then you cannot really go wrong.

If you work to the histogram (some cameras even have colour histograms for fetishists) you will always be very close to optimum and while some people will say the histogram is drawn from a JPEG off the Raw file and that the JPEG can change, well, in 99 times out of 100 it will be an exact mirror of the Raw and for the rare and extreme ocasion when it might shift a fraction, you have the Raw file to fall back on which deliberately has a little headroom to work with.

So, I would say use whichever method gets you to the optimum histogram most quickly/easily (I find evaluative amazingly smart). The more important decision in my view is when to lock the exposure in manual, and when to let it ride with Av,Tv or P. In general, when the subject is changing and moving but the light is constant, use manual. When the light is changing but the subject stays the same, use an auto mode (with compensation if necessary) to track it.

I will just say 'expose to the right' is a technique that might interest you. I'll find a link in a minute. Edit: here you go http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

 

[unclened]

thanks Richard, I know you'll always give sound advice. I read that its better to get the WB right in camera than to change it PP. So if I read of my grey card and shot of that for most of the day (given the conditions dont change too much), the PP side would be easier to manage.

 

[Naboo32]

What a wonderfully worded question and a great, detailed response.

I just wanted to say, from the sidelines, that I think I've learnt a thing or two from this and that I'm grateful to you both . I've always had a rather slap/dash approach, to WB in particular and was just wondering; how does one go about using an 18% grey card to fix the correct WB :shrug:? Is it simply a case of taking test shots and looking at them on the back of the screen and deciding what colour cast needs to be reduced, or is there some more scientific way of going about things ?

(Hope this isn't seen as a thread de-rail, as it is pretty much on topic ).

 

[Chaz Photos]

What a wonderfully worded question and a great, detailed response.

I just wanted to say, from the sidelines, that I think I've learnt a thing or two from this and that I'm grateful to you both . I've always had a rather slap/dash approach, to WB in particular and was just wondering; how does one go about using an 18% grey card to fix the correct WB :shrug:? Is it simply a case of taking test shots and looking at them on the back of the screen and deciding what colour cast needs to be reduced, or is there some more scientific way of going about things ?

(Hope this isn't seen as a thread de-rail, as it is pretty much on topic ).

White balance is set with a grey card by talking a photo with it in shot and then if in RAW use the WLB eye dropper on the grey Or in PS or what ever you use open curves and use the mid eye dropper and click on the grey card.
If in RAW open all shorts taken with same light and apply same setting to all photos

 

[unclened]

What a wonderfully worded question and a great, detailed response.

I just wanted to say, from the sidelines, that I think I've learnt a thing or two from this and that I'm grateful to you both . I've always had a rather slap/dash approach, to WB in particular and was just wondering; how does one go about using an 18% grey card to fix the correct WB :shrug:? Is it simply a case of taking test shots and looking at them on the back of the screen and deciding what colour cast needs to be reduced, or is there some more scientific way of going about things ?

(Hope this isn't seen as a thread de-rail, as it is pretty much on topic ).

your welcome. What I understand about using grey cards is that, you take a shot of it in program mode with your current WB set to Auto. Then you select custom WB and in Canons this setting asks you to select a picture to get the reading from and you select the shot of the grey card. However in my research I found that its not always about getting the exact WB, its getting a creative and pleasing WB and Exposure. Also if you shoot in RAW, WB is not much of an issue if it is close, as you can adjust it accordingly in your PP.

 

[Naboo32]

White balance is set with a grey card by talking a photo with it in shot and then if in RAW use the WLB eye dropper on the grey Or in PS or what ever you use open curves and use the mid eye dropper and click on the grey card.
If in RAW open all shorts taken with same light and apply same setting to all photos

Ahh, of course - the penny drops!

So it's a good way of ensuring accurate WB in PPing and as you rightly say, you can also apply a batch adjustment to everything taken under the same ligthing condtions and it should all come out OK.

I was thinking purely in terms of 'in camera' applications .

Thanks .

 

[Naboo32]

your welcome. What I understand about using grey cards is that, you take a shot of it in program mode with your current WB set to Auto. Then you select custom WB and in Canons this setting asks you to select a picture to get the reading from and you select the shot of the grey card. However in my research I found that its not always about getting the exact WB, its getting a creative and pleasing WB and Exposure. Also if you shoot in RAW, WB is not much of an issue if it is close, as you can adjust it accordingly in your PP.

Right , my D700 has the same function, which I use for exactly the "creative and (sometimes ) pleasing" WB settings that you referred to (I've set up; extreme purple, red, blue and yellow etc. ).

As I said before though, what do you actually do with the sample picture :shrug:? Just look at it on the back of the screen, compare it visually to your grey card and decide if it's grey-grey, blue-grey or green-grey etc. ? It doesn't really seem any more beneficial than just taking a snap of whatever's in front of you and adjusting the WB from that, which is pretty much what I've done if the auto WB is playing up (as it does with snow, for instance)!?

As I do shoot exclusively in RAW (apart from when I'm shooting in 'raw', to avoid upsetting the purists ), I think that fine-tuning the grey card shot in PP using the dropper, may be the answer to my prayers .

Thanks again for your input though and for the loan of your thread .

 

[HoppyUK]

Hope this helps.

With Custom White Balance, you are telling the camera that the target is a neutral colour, ie equal proportions of red, blue and green. If this is rendered correctly in the final image, then all other colours will also be correct in relation to it. It doesn't matter if the target is white or grey, so long as it is neutral, reasonably exposed and the camera has a decent amount of data to work with. Some wedding photographers just wander into the function room, snap the back of a white menu or the table cloth, and set that as target in custom white balance. That is perfectly good.

White Balance only affects the JPEG file, not the Raw (or is it ROAR ). However, in post processing, a JPEG is tagged to the Raw, and most Raw processors will pick up those settings and transfer them to the Raw file. In other words, when you open up in something like Canon's DPP with a Raw Canon file, it will look identical to the JPEG (if you have shot both) because all the in-camera settings (sharpening etc as well) have been applied as default. But those settings are only tagged, they are not imbedded, and you can change them or delete them as you wish. The big advantage here is that if you have got your in-camera settings right in the first place, you can just click on the Raw to confirm them without further fiddling. Or at least it will mean that you have to do very little extra work on the Raw to get exactly the result you want.

You can do much the same thing in post processing with Raw, regardless of what white balance settings have been used, by selecting an image of a known neutral grey target (perhaps a grey card that you have deliberately included in a test frame) then manually turning it to actual neutral with equal levels of red, green and blue, and applying that setting to the image (or the whole batch).

I think the former method is better, as it gives you a very accurate JPEG and LCD image to chimp as you go along in the shoot, but the end result is the same. Whatever gets your through the night.

 

[Naboo32]

Hope this helps..

Just about everything that you post helps me in some way, Hoppy. This one is no exception .

I suppose what really confuses me the most is understanding how 'grey' can be seen as a neutral colour (by the human eye, I mean) . There are so many different hues in the grey things I see around me now, whereas 'pure white' is easier for my brain to visualise (I normally just refer to my landscapes and use the massively burned out skies as a reference ).

Anyway, I've got a better understanding of the different ways in which to achieve consistent WB than I had a few hours ago, so thanks for that .

 

[HoppyUK]

Just about everything that you post helps me in some way, Hoppy. This one is no exception .

I suppose what really confuses me the most is understanding how 'grey' can be seen as a neutral colour (by the human eye, I mean) . There are so many different hues in the grey things I see around me now, whereas 'pure white' is easier for my brain to visualise (I normally just refer to my landscapes and use the massively burned out skies as a reference ).

Anyway, I've got a better understanding of the different ways in which to achieve consistent WB than I had a few hours ago, so thanks for that .

My pleasure Naboo

Grey is, in photographic parlance, just a neural colour with equal quanties of all hues. Red, blue, and green (plus yellow, magenta and cyan inbetween). All colours of the rainbow - visible spectrum - in equal measure. This isn't a Dulux catalogue

Grey, white and black are all technically different tones of the same colour. White is just bright grey, with lots of light but equal quantities of colours. Black is very dark grey, ultimately with no light, and therefore no colour at all.

The human eye is a complex thing and very hard to relate directly to photography because what we ultimately see is processed through the brain and that can do pretty much anything it wants with the basic image information.

The brain is something of a JPEG processor and auto white balancer when applied to colour, and it adapts very quickly to what it knows is right, or what it thinks is right. If you open your car door during the day and look at the light, it appears yellow, but at night when it becomes the main light source, it appears white.

The camera cannot do this, so you have to help it along. The old saying that the camera never lies might be techically true, but it is neither helpful nor even relevant. The truth almost always looks odd in photographs, and often not half as good as we see it and remember it. A photograph is a very poor imitation of what we see - it is a very small, two-dimensional image, frozen in a moment. How can that really compare with a 180 degree view, created by two lenses to form a three-dimensional, moving image, that is being constantly scanned, rescanned and updated several times a second. Even as you read a simple thing like this text, your eyes are constantly darting back and forth, gobbling up a colossal amount of live image data, then processing it and interpreting it.

The great skill in photography is to manipulate the camera controls and functions to mimic our visual impression, or very often to distort it deliberately for creative effect. I suppose what we are doing is trying to trick the brain into seeing things differently, the way we want them to look. But either way it is not reality.

Oops! That's all a bit deep.

 

[artona]

Great questions, great answers. A meter is calibrated to give you an accurate average meter reading from an 18% grey card. If you have not got one use something that you know would be similar in the photograph such as a light grey tarmac road.

If you set your exposure for 18% grey then you are going to get the widest range of shades from white to black record detail on the image.

Check out Ansel Adams and the zone system for great info on this. Once you understand it all you can really control your photographs. If for example you want a high key shot you might not meter for 18% grey but something nearer to white

stew

 

[Naboo32]

My pleasure Naboo

Grey is, in photographic parlance, just a neural colour with equal quanties of all hues. Red, blue, and green (plus yellow, magenta and cyan inbetween). All colours of the rainbow - visible spectrum - in equal measure. This isn't a Dulux catalogue

Grey, white and black are all technically different tones of the same colour. White is just bright grey, with lots of light but equal quantities of colours. Black is very dark grey, ultimately with no light, and therefore no colour at all.

The human eye is a complex thing and very hard to relate directly to photography because what we ultimately see is processed through the brain and that can do pretty much anything it wants with the basic image information.

The brain is something of a JPEG processor and auto white balancer when applied to colour, and it adapts very quickly to what it knows is right, or what it thinks is right. If you open your car door during the day and look at the light, it appears yellow, but at night when it becomes the main light source, it appears white.

The camera cannot do this, so you have to help it along. The old saying that the camera never lies might be techically true, but it is neither helpful nor even relevant. The truth almost always looks odd in photographs, and often not half as good as we see it and remember it. A photograph is a very poor imitation of what we see - it is a very small, two-dimensional image, frozen in a moment. How can that really compare with a 180 degree view, created by two lenses to form a three-dimensional, moving image, that is being constantly scanned, rescanned and updated several times a second. Even as you read a simple thing like this text, your eyes are constantly darting back and forth, gobbling up a colossal amount of live image data, then processing it and interpreting it.

The great skill in photography is to manipulate the camera controls and functions to mimic our visual impression, or very often to distort it deliberately for creative effect. I suppose what we are doing is trying to trick the brain into seeing things differently, the way we want them to look. But either way it is not reality.

Oops! That's all a bit deep.

Hoppy, have you ever you thought of writing a book on this subject; you've got a great way of explaining things !?

I suppose this explains why professional photographers are happy to spend 50 quid on a grey card, instead of just metering off a paving slab, a grey suit, the English summer sky D) etc., because those things probably contain uneven amounts of red, blue etc. :shrug:!? Well, apart from the English summer sky, which is of course just a (slightly) lighter shade of black .

Thanks again for the free photography lesson .

 

[HoppyUK]

Thanks Naboo. Kind of you mate. The book is kind of work in progress...

Blue sky is a bit of a misnomer. The sky is black; it's the earth's atmosphere which is blue

 

[unclened]

Almost a year on since I asked the above questions, and I can honestly say that i have learnt a hell of a lot from the forum.

I remember asking this question and had another similar question surrounding it so I thought I would rekindle the thread.

Recently i've been playing outside in the sun with my lightmeter and white items, to hone my metering technique. What I find is that when I take an incident lightmeter reading around the object, and then dial in the settings and shoot, almost always the whites are blown. Now i've scratched my head over this and think to myself something is not right. When I spot meter the object and place it 2+ EV I get a solid result with a very minimal amount of clipping.

Is it because the lightmeter cannot account for the reflectivity of the object and the camera meter can, because its the reflectivity is what is causing problems?

 

[CT]

Almost a year on since I asked the above questions, and I can honestly say that i have learnt a hell of a lot from the forum.

I remember asking this question and had another similar question surrounding it so I thought I would rekindle the thread.

Recently i've been playing outside in the sun with my lightmeter and white items, to hone my metering technique. What I find is that when I take an incident lightmeter reading around the object, and then dial in the settings and shoot, almost always the whites are blown. Now i've scratched my head over this and think to myself something is not right. When I spot meter the object and place it 2+ EV I get a solid result with a very minimal amount of clipping.

That's because you're taking an INCIDENT light reading. Incident means 'falling upon' All that's happening with that diffused white dome on your meter is that it lets through just 18% of the light falling upon it (and your subject) so you're getting an identical result to what you'd have got taking a REFLECTED reading off an 18% grey card, which is obviously going to blow your whites, particularly in bright sunlight.and the last thing you need with a white wedding dress.

Take a reflective reading off the white dress every time and increase exposure by about +2 stops

Is it because the lightmeter cannot account for the reflectivity of the object and the camera meter can, because its the reflectivity is what is causing problems?

By George -he's got it!

 

[unclened]

That's because you're taking an INCIDENT light reading. Incident means 'falling upon' All that's happening with that diffused white dome on your meter is that it lets through just 18% of the light falling upon it (and your subject) so you're getting an identical result to what you'd have got taking a REFLECTED reading off an 18% grey card, which is obviously going to blow your whites, particularly in bright sunlight.and the last thing you need with a white wedding dress.

Take a reflective reading off the white dress every time and increase exposure by about +2 stops




By George -he's got it!

cheers for that, getting there slowly but surely!

 

[CT]

cheers for that, getting there slowly but surely!

I'd say you've got a pretty good handle on it all. It's not that complicated when you get to grips with it.

When taking subjects with an average range of tones and with no extremes at the white and black ends of the scene, you could often just use the incident light reading directly and get a good result. If you have a white object (wedding dress) or a black object ( a car perhaps) forming an important part of your scene then you have to modify that reading to take account of that using your own judgement, which is why your're getting that blown result.

 

[TG.]

Now this is going to sound bad, and i guess i should know this but their is something that's always bothered me with this metering lark and that is how it relates to focus points, for example, your photographing a bride and groom, so you meter from the dress to stop blown highlights, but your focus point is on the face, so am i right in thinking you meter from the dress then, you recompose dial in the meter reading taken from the dress using manual mode, and focus on the face (or whatever your focus point is) and take your shot, anyway this is how i've always done it, so someone please tell me i've been doing it right :bang:

 

[unclened]

Now this is going to sound bad, and i guess i should know this but their is something that's always bothered me with this metering lark and that is how it relates to focus points, for example, your photographing a bride and groom, so you meter from the dress to stop blown highlights, but your focus point is on the face, so am i right in thinking you meter from the dress then, you recompose dial in the meter reading taken from the dress, and focus on the face (or whatever your focus point is) and take your shot, anyway this is how i've always done it, so someone please tell me i've been doing it right :bang:

if your working in M, then you would only have to meter once, set exposure and then you can recompose many times over. if you are in AV/TV I believe you would dial in desired exposure compensation, meter off dress/suit and then use exposure lock, so you can recompose and shoot as many times as you wish. I personally find its a lot less hassle shooting in M.

 

[unclened]

I'd say you've got a pretty good handle on it all. It's not that complicated when you get to grips with it.

When taking subjects with an average range of tones and with no extremes at the white and black ends of the scene, you could often just use the incident light reading directly and get a good result. If you have a white object (wedding dress) or a black object ( a car perhaps) forming an important part of your scene then you have to modify that reading to take account of that using your own judgement, which is why your're getting that blown result.

I think the zone metering system really helps put it all into perspective. I try and place my whites 2+ EV and let the rest fall behind or infront. Now if only the dynamic range didnt let me down on the blacks!

 

[DiddyDave]

Thanks Naboo. Kind of you mate. The book is kind of work in progress...

Blue sky is a bit of a misnomer. The sky is black; it's the earth's atmosphere which is blue

Is it?

As I remember it... the blue colour of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through (aside from Sunrise/Sunset).

Much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

So strictly speaking Hoppy - you're wrong

The Sky is made-up of gas molecules (plus lots of 'muck' too) mostly nitrogen (78%), and oxygen (21%) and water vapour - so shall we argue as to whether this means it's black - as you suggest - or simply has no colour as the atoms themselves are invisible to us :shrug:

Oh - and loving the rest of the answers here

One last point - IF Wedding togs nip into a room to snap something to help set a WB later it HAS to be exactly where the couple will be as you'd be amazed how much difference there can be in a half-decent sized room I used to use the Expodisc for this, but I find now I just batch process them all to a WB I like - which is usually a bit warmer in tone than a Grey card, Expo etc. would give as people just like it more that way - a bit like why Kodacolour Gold was so popular with the public (if not the purist) in the film days of olden times

DD

 

[CT]

Now this is going to sound bad, and i guess i should know this but their is something that's always bothered me with this metering lark and that is how it relates to focus points, for example, your photographing a bride and groom, so you meter from the dress to stop blown highlights, but your focus point is on the face, so am i right in thinking you meter from the dress then, you recompose dial in the meter reading taken from the dress using manual mode, and focus on the face (or whatever your focus point is) and take your shot, anyway this is how i've always done it, so someone please tell me i've been doing it right :bang:

You'be been doing it right.

 

[CT]

Is it?

So strictly speaking Hoppy - you're wrong

DD

Hoppy wont be wrong - he 's just not exactly right sometimes.

 

[DiddyDave]

Hoppy wont be wrong - he 's just not exactly right sometimes.

Ah - so he's a woman then

I have one of those at home, I don't need one online too :shake:



DD

 

[unclened]

Is it?

As I remember it... the blue colour of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through (aside from Sunrise/Sunset).

Much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

So strictly speaking Hoppy - you're wrong

The Sky is made-up of gas molecules (plus lots of 'muck' too) mostly nitrogen (78%), and oxygen (21%) and water vapour - so shall we argue as to whether this means it's black - as you suggest - or simply has no colour as the atoms themselves are invisible to us :shrug:
Oh - and loving the rest of the answers here

One last point - IF Wedding togs nip into a room to snap something to help set a WB later it HAS to be exactly where the couple will be as you'd be amazed how much difference there can be in a half-decent sized room I used to use the Expodisc for this, but I find now I just batch process them all to a WB I like - which is usually a bit warmer in tone than a Grey card, Expo etc. would give as people just like it more that way - a bit like why Kodacolour Gold was so popular with the public (if not the purist) in the film days of olden times

DD

so where is all that darn carbon the climate camp keep banging on about? lol

do you find that if you leave the WB to Auto and shoot away, there can be some scenes where the camera will muck it up completely and give you a photo that has more orange in it than Jordan's spray on tan? I find those ones the hardest to correct in PP, as my starting point is just so way off the mark.

 

[DiddyDave]

s
do you find that if you leave the WB to Auto and shoot away, there can be some scenes where the camera will muck it up completely and give you a photo that has more orange in it than Jordan's spray on tan? I find those ones the hardest to correct in PP, as my starting point is just so way off the mark.

You must be a Canon user - my Nikons don't play that trick

DD

 

[TG.]

if your working in M, then you would only have to meter once, set exposure and then you can recompose many times over. if you are in AV/TV I believe you would dial in desired exposure compensation, meter off dress/suit and then use exposure lock, so you can recompose and shoot as many times as you wish. I personally find its a lot less hassle shooting in M.

Thanks mate, thats something i haven't tried, and it sounds like it makes a lot of sense.

You've been doing it right.

Thanks CT, nice to know i haven't been flogging a dead horse for the last 4 years

 

[HoppyUK]

Almost a year on since I asked the above questions, and I can honestly say that i have learnt a hell of a lot from the forum.

I remember asking this question and had another similar question surrounding it so I thought I would rekindle the thread.

Recently i've been playing outside in the sun with my lightmeter and white items, to hone my metering technique. What I find is that when I take an incident lightmeter reading around the object, and then dial in the settings and shoot, almost always the whites are blown. Now i've scratched my head over this and think to myself something is not right. When I spot meter the object and place it 2+ EV I get a solid result with a very minimal amount of clipping.

Is it because the lightmeter cannot account for the reflectivity of the object and the camera meter can, because its the reflectivity is what is causing problems?

It sounds like the basic mistake is an assumption that an incident reading with a hand meter will deliver best exposure. It might do, sometimes (usually), if you're shooting slide film, but digital plays the game differently.

The best way to achieve optimum exposure is to read the histogram, with the aid of blinkies, and careful setting of the JPEG pre-sets which have a big impact on everything.

That way, at least you're looking at actual exposure, instead of just guesstimated exposure by the meter, and it takes into account all the variables that the meter doesn't know about, and that camera makers don't tell us about

<snip>

So strictly speaking Hoppy - you're wrong

<snip>

Thanks Dave That's a good explanation of why I'm right. Strictly speaking, or otherwise

 

[crashtestmac]

Now this is going to sound bad, and i guess i should know this but their is something that's always bothered me with this metering lark and that is how it relates to focus points, for example, your photographing a bride and groom, so you meter from the dress to stop blown highlights, but your focus point is on the face, so am i right in thinking you meter from the dress then, you recompose dial in the meter reading taken from the dress using manual mode, and focus on the face (or whatever your focus point is) and take your shot, anyway this is how i've always done it, so someone please tell me i've been doing it right :bang:

I am glad you asked that question.... I was starting to worry....!