Meter this!

K

KWJams

Senior Member
Last weekend I took some family pictures at my sons weding and was disappointed in how under exposed a few turned out.
Was able to figure out that I should have changed the metering mode to spot or center weighted instead of matrix.
Here is two shots. The one on the left I think must have metered off my daughter in laws white blouse. I was able to fix it in camera with D-lighting but it would have been nice to have been able to know in advance that if only I paid more attention to the reflective materials in the frame I could have made an adjustment before taking the shot.

Sept_2012_79 (Medium).JPGSept_2012_81 (Medium).JPG

Thanks to Axeman for the link to some useful videos on metering that led me to this example --> Metering Modes - a set on Flickr

Live & learn :)
 
D

DrArnt Htoo Aung

New member
I think the metering reads the data of background which is a bit brighter. If tested with +1.5 or +2.0 Exp Compensation would rather help correct exposure right out of camera either in RAW or JPG.

Arnt
 
K

KWJams

Senior Member
Good advice, that is another way.

I read my manual and did some other reading beforehand about enviromental portraits to be prepared because they told me the wedding would be held out doors. What I learned was that in portrait mode the center weighted metering is used to give depth and good skin tones. But I forgot all that and shot this picture in A with Matrix ---- DOH!
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
It's always good to have a quick peak at the histogram when shooting special occasions. Mistakes can be corrected on the spot before they happen for the whole session.
 
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Dave_W

The Dude
I've found it tends to be better to shoot slightly on the bright side and then tone down, provided you don't blow things out. There's much more information right of center histogram than left. Actually, about 10x more information
 
K

KWJams

Senior Member
But the histogram is not fool proof. I'm a fool so I know from being fooled that even a well balanced histrogram exposure will not show how crisp details are in areas of a photo with little contrast like in the faces of above examples unless using spot focus and a handful of other mistakes I made.

I need to make a correction: The shot was taken in Center Weighted Average, f/5, 1/20sec, ISO 100, and in Shutter Priority instead of Aperture!!!!
 
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