Overexposed pictures :/

wud

wud

Senior Member
Not really sure where to post this question, and not sure if it is the lens or the camera setting - let me know if theres a better forum for this.

Was shooting a brown dog in bright sunshine yesterday. At first I had iso on auto and controlled aperture and shutter speed myself, but that didn't work out for me. So I put iso on 200, and let the camera take care of shutter speed.

Got a LOT of overexposed pictures. I even set the +/- to -0,67 and -0,71.

The shutter speed was way to low on the over-exposed pictures, but why is that? I got several just fine pictures too, so the problem must be something with the camera being confused about the light?

What setting could I have done wrong? Is it because Im using Spot metering mode? Should it be Center Weighted instead? Took both pictures with large contrast in colour between dog and background, and pictures not so contrasted.

Could it be because I didnt use the "sunhat" for the lens? (Used the 70-200mm f/2,8). Even though I made sure that I had the sun in my back.


Let me know if you need more info.
 
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gqtuazon

Gear Head
Wud- which camera do you use? It is even much difficult to guess what camera you use while we try our best to help you out. Filling out your profile will help especially if you upload the picture with the exif data. You can get all of the data for example if you use flickr.com. Having the exif data will help evaluate what could have been set wrong.

Use matrix metering for best results especially when shooting outdoors with good light.
 
wud

wud

Senior Member
Eye-level, super. Thanks :)

What about that 3D color matrix, do you ever use that?


gqtuazon, sorry, I thought people looked at that infobox under our username/avatars. Its a D3 I use.

Didnt upload a picture, because I can see that the problem is to slow shutter speed, my question was more a, why the camera went for that. But I have changed the metering mode now, hope that will help next time.

Do you mostly use matrix metering over center weighted?
 
W

WhiteLight

Senior Member
Take some shots in 'AUTO' mode.
See what settings the camera utilized & improve on them.
Easiest way to learn!
For further info, we would need some images, your setup etc
 
G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
wud said:
Eye-level, super. Thanks :)

What about that 3D color matrix, do you ever use that?


gqtuazon, sorry, I thought people looked at that infobox under our username/avatars. Its a D3 I use.

Didnt upload a picture, because I can see that the problem is to slow shutter speed, my question was more a, why the camera went for that. But I have changed the metering mode now, hope that will help next time.

Do you mostly use matrix metering over center weighted?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the additional info. I haven't seen much of an advantage using the spot metering and center weighted. The overall exposure gets adjusted during post processing with my work flow. I hope the matrix metering will provide better results next time.

@ whitelight - the D3 has only P mode and no Auto if that is what you've meant.
 
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Dave_W

The Dude
With spot metering the subject directly at the chosen spot will have perfect exposure (ie - 18%), the rest of the image, however, will not be taken into account when calculating the proper exposure.
 
wud

wud

Senior Member
WhiteLight, I dont agree on the auto/p thing, not if you prefer your background a certain way. And Im not sure if it would have made a big difference, if the metering were wrong?

Dave W, I've used the spot metering because it seems to work good with white dogs, but hope I can try more pictures with that chocolate dog.

Thanks for your answers :)
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Dave_W said:
With spot metering the subject directly at the chosen spot will have perfect exposure (ie - 18%), the rest of the image, however, will not be taken into account when calculating the proper exposure.
Click to expand...
And that's your answer.

wud said:
Dave W, I've used the spot metering because it seems to work good with white dogs, but hope I can try more pictures with that chocolate dog.
Click to expand...
As Dave already said, "Spot Metering" will expose your chosen "spot" perfectly but nothing else in your frame will be considered when calculating the overall exposure for the entire frame. This being the case, the more tonal difference, or contrast, there is in the shot (dog vs. everything else), the more extreme your over/under exposure is going to be. In short, "Spot Metering" on white dogs and black dogs is always going to give you extreme under/over exposure because you are *metering* on an extreme "spot" of contrast to the exclusion of everything else in frame that would normally balance things out. You would be better served by using the Matrix Metering setting.
 
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SteveH

Senior Member
I have a black & white border collie, and depending what part of him I meter, I get mixed results... Centre weighted I find is the best way to go for small-ish dark animals!
 
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STM

Senior Member
Meters try to meter things to middle (18%) gray or Zone V for you Ansel Adams fans. This dog may have metered as low as Zone III or IV, which would have resulted in an overexposure of 1-2 f/stops. In a situation like this, it is better to get more of the scene included in the image to help balance out the EV's so you have a more accurate depiction of what is going on in the whole scene.
 
wud

wud

Senior Member
SteveH0773 said:
I have a black & white border collie, and depending what part of him I meter, I get mixed results... Centre weighted I find is the best way to go for small-ish dark animals!
Click to expand...

I got mine on matrix now, dont know if your camera have that function? I have been shooting white dogs in snow, and for that I used spot or center weigthed. Buuut. That was another time and another camera.

This is taken with spot metering:

nd3_5315_copy.jpg
 
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STM

Senior Member
Eye-level said:
Scott..how would one use the spot meter feature in our cameras? Could one use it for the Zone system and how would that work?
Click to expand...

Honestly? I have no idea, I use one of these:

spotmeter.jpg

I will have to defer to the folks on here you actually use all the buttons on their digital cameras. I have never even used about 75% of them. I don't mean to dodge the question or sound flippant, but I use my D700 as little more than just a digital version of my F2 and all my lenses are AI or AIS manual focus Nikkors
 
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SteveH

Senior Member
wud said:
I got mine on matrix now, dont know if your camera have that function? I have been shooting white dogs in snow, and for that I used spot or center weigthed. Buuut. That was another time and another camera.

This is taken with spot metering:

nd3_5315_copy.jpg
Click to expand...

Great Pic of a nice dog! :)
I switch my 3100 between matrix, spot or centre weighted depending on the background and light - It gets difficult when I'm trying to capture both of our dogs, as one is all white, and the other mostly black! :rolleyes:
 
wud

wud

Senior Member
SteveH0773 said:
Great Pic of a nice dog! :)
I switch my 3100 between matrix, spot or centre weighted depending on the background and light - It gets difficult when I'm trying to capture both of our dogs, as one is all white, and the other mostly black! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yes, that is pretty hard! Been a while since I tried that, but with a little photoshopping afterwards, it can be quite okay. Will look foreward to seing a picture of your dogs :)

And you are right. On Nikon the metering is easy to change, so why settle for only one setting!
 
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