Posted by Mike Sellers on April 30, 2009 at 9:59 AM
I recently acquired this camera and have afew questions. I took a picture of a sunrise that included the sun. The sun itself came out washed out. I thought that with a 21 zone metering pattern the camera should have averaged the scene and provided a properly exposed shot. What should I have done to get the proper exposure? Should I switch over to spot meter mode and take a reading from the area near the sun?
Mike
Posted by Dan Borzynski on April 30, 2009 at 10:30 AM
From your description and without seeing the image, my best guess is that having the sun in the picture caused a lot of flare and greatly reduced the contrast. The metering pattern used would not have changed this, although it might have changed the exposure.
Could you post the image, without having worked the image up?
As a more generic comment, which is not directed at you (Mike) in particular, is that the metering of the camera is only as good as the user. Spot metering is, in general, a good idea as you can very accurately evaluate a scene. But, and this is a big but, you have to be able to recognize a midtone region of the scene, or a part of the scene that you want to be midtoned, or be able to accurately compensate for the spot metered at. This takes practice and effort to learn.
Since most of the EOS cameras I've owned don't have a spot meter, I've always used the evaluative metering pattern which is probably the coarsest metering option of the Canon cameras. I know - a lot of you are probably cringing at that mere thought. But through a lot of work, I've learned how the metering will react to most situations and how to compensate for that. That knowledge is probably more important that the metering pattern used.
Posted by Mike Sellers on April 30, 2009 at 3:09 PM
Let me just say that when I took this picture I had just gotten this camera a few days before. The user controls can be a bit overwhelming. Another shot I took the other day had the foreground out of focus. I thought the autofocus feature would give me perfect focus every time. I am thinking about manual focus lenses so I can use the hyperfocus scale! Leica lenses with the adapter look good.
Posted by Mike Sellers on April 30, 2009 at 8:44 PM
only as good as the user? Meaning what? I`m looking for advice not sarcasm.
Another shot I took the other day had the foreground out of focus.
Mike - Autofocus on any camera will give you very good focus (maybe not perfect) every time, but it can't guess your intent. If you had a large aperture, the autofocus is going to geuss at what you want in focus, and odds are that whatever is under the focus points in the viewfinder will be it. This typically won't give you a hyperfocal distance, so you won't necessarily get your largest DOF. The camera doesn't know that you don't mean to focus directly on that tree or rock and instead want to use hyperfocal focusing.
Mike, the Canon metering patterns are all very good. But like any meter, they don't know if you are pointing the camera towards a black cat, white snow, or a bright light. It also doesn't know if the scene should be exposed a stop under, or a stop over, or if you are exposing for the highlights using your histogram. They are kind of dumb in this way and don't think you are trying to use your camera like a point and shoot.
Also, spot metering, if you are not careful, can be quite easily fooled into a wrong exposure. For example, suppose that you are used to using the evaluative metering pattern. Assume that the scene is overall an average scene, but with white highlights and black areas. If you are not careful about the spot metering and just point the camera like you would with the evaluative metering, the spot meter could give an exposure varying up to 6-7 stops, depending what it metered off of. I've screwed up film like that on many occasions when I wasn't thinking!
Anyway, the point I was trying to make (and it wasn't intended to be a slight on you) was that the metering works well under average scenes and average conditions. To really get the most out of the metering through whatever method you select - camera evaluative, spot metering, handheld meters - you need to understand exposure, what the meter will do and how it will react to a specific situation, and how to overide the meter. It is part of the usual package of photographic skills that if you weren't interested in you wouldn't be here in the first place.
(edit: I think you have been around here long enough that you understand exposure so a lot of this really doesn't apply anymore. When possible, I tend to try to answer questions to a larger audience that just the original asker - too many years spent teaching.)
used to be high tech to me was a 1 degree spot meter! I spend alot of time fiddling around with the 1dS Mark II controls when I would rather be concentrating on the subject.II`m not convinced autofocus for landscape photography is a good thing. When you can use the hyperfocal scale on a manual lens and be positive that it wil be in focus from near to far then that seems superior to autofocus to me.The fact that some people turn off autofocus and use a chart or palm pilot for focus makes my case against autofocus. As for the metering system once I figured out how to navigate to the histogram then bracket if necessary then I guess thats ok.. Thanks for the tips.
Discussion
6 repliesMike
Could you post the image, without having worked the image up?
As a more generic comment, which is not directed at you (Mike) in particular, is that the metering of the camera is only as good as the user. Spot metering is, in general, a good idea as you can very accurately evaluate a scene. But, and this is a big but, you have to be able to recognize a midtone region of the scene, or a part of the scene that you want to be midtoned, or be able to accurately compensate for the spot metered at. This takes practice and effort to learn.
Since most of the EOS cameras I've owned don't have a spot meter, I've always used the evaluative metering pattern which is probably the coarsest metering option of the Canon cameras. I know - a lot of you are probably cringing at that mere thought. But through a lot of work, I've learned how the metering will react to most situations and how to compensate for that. That knowledge is probably more important that the metering pattern used.
Mike - Autofocus on any camera will give you very good focus (maybe not perfect) every time, but it can't guess your intent. If you had a large aperture, the autofocus is going to geuss at what you want in focus, and odds are that whatever is under the focus points in the viewfinder will be it. This typically won't give you a hyperfocal distance, so you won't necessarily get your largest DOF. The camera doesn't know that you don't mean to focus directly on that tree or rock and instead want to use hyperfocal focusing.
Also, spot metering, if you are not careful, can be quite easily fooled into a wrong exposure. For example, suppose that you are used to using the evaluative metering pattern. Assume that the scene is overall an average scene, but with white highlights and black areas. If you are not careful about the spot metering and just point the camera like you would with the evaluative metering, the spot meter could give an exposure varying up to 6-7 stops, depending what it metered off of. I've screwed up film like that on many occasions when I wasn't thinking!
Anyway, the point I was trying to make (and it wasn't intended to be a slight on you) was that the metering works well under average scenes and average conditions. To really get the most out of the metering through whatever method you select - camera evaluative, spot metering, handheld meters - you need to understand exposure, what the meter will do and how it will react to a specific situation, and how to overide the meter. It is part of the usual package of photographic skills that if you weren't interested in you wouldn't be here in the first place.
(edit: I think you have been around here long enough that you understand exposure so a lot of this really doesn't apply anymore. When possible, I tend to try to answer questions to a larger audience that just the original asker - too many years spent teaching.)