Dealing With Bright Midday Sun

[Mike Buckley]

While we're discussing spot metering in both film and digital photography, it might be helpful to keep in mind that the size of the spot varies among handheld meters and meters built into the camera. In theory, the smaller the size of the spot, the more precise the user can be when determining which part of the scene to meter.

[William W]

. . . The solution was not to trust the metering, but rather to understand its strengths and weaknesses and use it accordingly. I can't speak for him, but I think that is part of what WW was suggesting.

I confirm.

That is part of what I was suggesting to the OP and also contributing to the conversation.

Another part of what I was suggesting and also contributing to the conversation, goes beyond metering: that's why I suggested that for the scene that the OP has provided as the sample for discussion - - - metering is simply not necessarily required – and I believe that I also explained why.

WW

[Mike Buckley]

metering is simply not necessarily required – and I believe that I also explained why.

Indeed. A friend now long-deceased had an incredible ability to obtain a great exposure without ever using a meter. He always used a 35mm camera and the same 50mm lens shooting color slide film. His camera had no built-in meter and he never used a handheld meter.

For those not aware of the implications of shooting color slides, a difference of 1/2 stop renders a major difference in the appearance of the image. It is impossible to change the appearance of the slide, which is a positive image (unlike negative film), once the film has been developed. Yet my friend would display 100 slides to me and I would typically find no more than one or two images that were not ideally exposed. For those who are understandably thinking that he bracketed his exposures and then chose the ideal slide, he only made one exposure of each scene.

[AB26]

That is nonsense.

Spot Metering was used long before Digital Cameras & Histograms were invented.

WW

Might be, but I would like you to explain how you INTERPRET a meter?

You know how wrong you are: You avoid my question as to give any reason why my 9 year old Nikon’s Spot Metering system cannot be trusted.
I gave you proof of the pudding as to why I do trust it.

Step away from film and start living in the digital era. There is so much digital can do that was impossible to do with film.

Be careful of the digital age there is a thing called IBM mistakes. The only mistake made by modern cameras is the Idiot Behind Machine mistakes. If you do not trust your knowledge of how it works it will not work for you.

[Mike Buckley]

Rather harsh words, Andre. Perhaps dial it down a bit?

[MrB]

Philip,

I half agree with you. I think many of the 'you must do this' posts are nonsense. People should do what works for them. However, I think you are inadvertently verging on that yourself, insisting that people should explore all the options their cameras offer. For some people, that is good advice. For others, not. My newer body, a Canon 5D3, has a manual that is over 400 pages long. It can do all manner of things that I have no interest in learning how to do. The fact that Canon engineers found ways to load this stuff into my camera doesn't mean that it is good use of my time to learn how to use it. I'd much rather put my time into mastering the aspects of the system that will help me in shooting the way I want to shoot, e.g., mastering its extremely powerful but complicated AF system. While others may find it useful to shoot jpegs (more power to them!), I don't, and I don't want to spend my time learning how to shoot jpegs better.

Dan

You are quite right, of course, Dan. If my rant came across that way, I apologise, but from your second sentence I think you know what I really meant. I would not intentionally tell anyone 'you must do this', as I'm nowhere near the sort of level of knowledge, skills or artistic talent that would even slightly excuse such arrogance!

Thank you for helping restore the balance.

Cheers.
Philip

[William W]

Might be, but I would like you to explain how you INTERPRET a meter?

You know how wrong you are: You avoid my question as to give any reason why my 9 year old Nikon’s Spot Metering system cannot be trusted.
I gave you proof of the pudding as to why I do trust it.

Step away from film and start living in the digital era. There is so much digital can do that was impossible to do with film.

Be careful of the digital age there is a thing called IBM mistakes. The only mistake made by modern cameras is the Idiot Behind Machine mistakes. If you do not trust your knowledge of how it works it will not work for you.

Andre,

Reading those words makes one think that you really need to get an handle on your anger management - lest you POP!

***

Anyway . . .

I wrote (my bold for emphasis):

“One has to interpret the SPOT METER reading (or readings) and then modify the exposure as and when necessary. This is just a standard procedure that most knowledgeable and experienced photographers follow when using a Spot Meter, be it either a TTL Spot Meter or an Hand Held Spot Meter.”


What that means is one has to understand WHAT the spot meter is pointed at and interpret those meter READINGS.

For example - and taking your animal photo:

If you made a spot meter reading on the shadow side of that animal's face and the darker part of the fur, and then make a spot meter reading on the sun side of the animal's face on the lighter part of the fur the spot meter would give you two very different READINGS . . . for EVALUATION.

Even if you took only ONE Spot Meter reading for a shot you would have to interpret the reading - for example take a spot meter reading of a person's face - that face might be light skinned or dark skinned - that has to be "INTERPRETED".

*

Now just let’s see if you are man enough to simply say “thank you” for the explanation that has been provided.

And let’s also see if you can simply stop sending out nasty barbs, ridicule and ESPECIALLY personal attacks - which are NOT appreciated and also, note well, contravene site policy.


I take the "Idiot Behind Machine" as a personal attack and an insult and note that such is totally unacceptable behaviour.

WW

[AB26]

Andre,

Reading those words makes one think that you really need to get an handle on your anger management - lest you POP!

***
I take the "Idiot Behind Machine" as a personal attack and an insult and note that such is totally unacceptable behaviour.

WW

William, do you not understand terminology used in the digital age?
Have you never heard the term IBM mistake or Garbage In Garbage Out?

These are terms used when someone blames a computer for making “mistakes”. The modern Digital camera is an image capturing computer. If you feed garbage into the camera you will get garbage coming out of the camera. It is no good blaming the camera, the operator makes mistakes due to lack of knowledge, not the dumb, blind instrument.
Personal? OOPS?

Anger management? Me popping? Auch? See William when a photographer does not trust the technology built into modern cameras it reminds me of a pilot flying into cloud not trusting the instruments in the plane. It takes about 30 seconds for the plane to hit mother earth. Booom- gone!

Don’t “fly” your camera not trusting the instruments built into it.

If you cannot trust the technology built into any modern electronic device, simply don’t use the product!
Try trusting the technology and learn how to use it!

The OP asked a simple question that has a simple answer. The image posted by the OP is not bad at all. The OP is on target and on the right track. The OP is not shooting film, why mention film? Film is history, like an eight track tape and a Model T Ford. The “sunny 16 rule” is as outdated as film and anybody not knowing what it is, is nether stupid nor ignorant!

Would you like the OP to into a flat spin?

[William W]

Andre,

And did you actually understand the explanation to the question that you so passionately and vigorously wanted answered?

WW

[ajohnw]

Andrew ( the OP ) may be in need of some simple post processing steps to handle situations like this or maybe he already knows how to do things like this as his original isn't bad for the way it was taken.

I did this quickly so it could be better with variations of the same adjustments



Slight exposure increase watching the histogram. This may lighten the sky a little spoiling the tone.

Fill light to bring up the people as much as possible adjusting it's range so that it only covers the people and in this case that will have to include the grassy stuff.

Saturation and contrast increase. Also used a small radius setting on local contrast. The saturation increase will also tend to bring back the sky colour and that aspect will relate to how much the exposure was increased.

I then found I could brighten a little more by moving a black level slider in a negative direction. That worked out because some of the remaining dark areas are so dark they can't show any detail and can be brightened a little further.

Last but not least some sharpening. The best way to do that is set a radius of 2 and a very low amount. Increase the amount until things just crisp up. Always needed on shots that have been reduced in size but best not over done. Some packages will do this automatically when a shot is reduced.

All of the above adjustments will inter react - adds to the fun but at this level of adjustment the learning progress can be rapid. I used Coral After Shot Pro for this. It's a fairly basic and odd in places piece of software but is relatively simple to use. It also has a few pretty advanced adjustments. There are other packages.

These types of packages will also handle raw files. A word of caution about comments from many on that score. Certain things can relate to the camera used. Take my Olympus mirrorless for instance. It will show washed out high light clipping in the viewfinder before the shot is even taken. Olympus as a consequence don't bother leaving much in the line of extra high light room in the raw file. If your NEX has a similar facility I would advise you to use it because that way you can choose what happens to the highlights in a scene. If it does have it then clipped low lights will also be shown. There is a need to learn what that means in practice There will be plenty that can be recovered at that end. Doesn't have this - cameras vary in terms of what can be recovered at either end. The important aspect is that highlights that are clipped can not be recovered. The low end often can be recovered to a certain extent so it's usually best to make sure highlights are captured well.

Metering is a difficult area. I favour learning what the more complex camera metering does in various situations and applying compensation based on experience but Olympus have knocked that on the head. Spot metering can be used but it needs to be pointed at the right part of a scene and some judgement is needed to relate this to how well other brightness levels in the scene will be captured. I'd guess but don't know that a NEX is pretty good at exposing for cloudy skies and things like that into camera jpg's with certain ammounts of it in the shot. Once some one finds out how much is needed exposure can be locked on most scenes and the shot reframed and taken.

HDR does suffer from movement in a scene but can cope with some degree of camera movement between shots. Looking at the choppy water in this shot I feel that hdr would have problems in or out of camera let alone any movement of the people. There are ways round this using different exposures and "blending" by hand using a method that only uses well exposed parts of each image. Say for instance 2 layers in a PP package and make the poorly exposed areas in one or more of the images transparent, Often impossible. A more useful HDR technique is 2 exposures from a single raw file. In this case one showing the people well and another showing the scene well. I did this with a free package called enfuse from your jpg. Not a good example as there isn't sufficient contrast in the people to brighten this much. A search for enfuse gui will bring this package up. It can be very useful as it isn't conventional HDR software. Normally some further simple adjustments would be applied to the shot after it has been blended. This is as is. Actually done from raw I suspect this technique would work out well on this shot given the same exposure and it can save a lot of messing about but again a little trial and error is needed.



John
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[AB26]

Andre,

And did you actually understand the explanation to the question that you so passionately and vigorously wanted answered?

WW

William,

Thank you William, much appreciated.

Let the dumb Dutchman try to explain something to you:

A meter is something that indicates something SPECIFIC. It can indicate flow, temperature, pressure, altitude or in the case of your car, the speedo-meter, indicates speed. When the speedometer reads 120K/h you know you will travel from point A to point B in any given time. There in nothing to interpret or evaluate, it is a given, a scientific fact. You can formulate the results.

The exposure meter in your camera is a meter giving you an indication weather the image will be either under exposed, over exposed or correctly exposed. Adjustments can be made according to a scientific formulae to obtain the desired exposure. It is a given – nothing to interpret or to evaluate.

I did indeed do some evaluation BEFORE I even pointed my camera at the tiger. This evaluation I did from understanding dynamic range and the “Zone System”. That comes from experience only. That evaluation had nothing to do with whatever the exposure meter indicated.

Should I trust the Metering System in my camera or not?

Back to what the OP did. He exposed for the people (more specific, a person), using spot metering. He did not “meter” for the sky or the water as his main subjects are the people. (Applaud him for doing that!) He has done the right thing and the outcome wasn’t bad. If he keeps on using Spot Metering in conditions like that he will gain experience to know exactly where to Spot Meter in future.

If for any reason the OP has no confidence in the in camera systems he will start running in circles, going nowhere.

[AB26]

as his original isn't bad for the way it was taken.

-

bravo!

[DanK]

The exposure meter in your camera is a meter giving you an indication weather the image will be either under exposed, over exposed or correctly exposed. Adjustments can be made according to a scientific formulae to obtain the desired exposure. It is a given – nothing to interpret or to evaluate.

No. The meter is evaluating the brightness of a specific area, or a weighted composite of areas, and setting the camera to render that composite as neutral gray in terms of luminance. That is NOT the same as evaluating whether the image will be under- or overexposed. Whether that will produce a properly exposed image depends on (1) the effect you want, and (2) the mix of luminances across the image. That is why good modern cameras provide a variety of metering modes--to make it easier to apply a method in which the blind calculation of the meter will produce a reasonable exposure, or alternatively, an exposure the photographer knows how to adjust.

To strain the already strained analogy, a speedometer tells you how fast the vehicle is traveling, not whether it is traveling at an appropriate speed for the road conditions. This reminds me of a conversation with a new, 16-year-old driver shortly after one of his close friends, also a novice, lost control of his car on a curving road on a rainy night, skidded off the road, and hit a tree. I commented, "clearly, he was going too fast." The 16-year-old replied: "no he wasn't. He was driving under the speed limit." I replied, "if he lost control of the car and left the road, that suggests he was driving too fast for those conditions." He was trusting the speedometer.

[ajohnw]

That isn't entirely correct in the fancy metering mode cameras have usually referred to as evaluation or matrix metering etc. They take colours into account and it seems even the position and size of major items or lack of them in the shot. As they use rgb sensors colour might even have some effect on mid grey level metering settings such as spot and centre weighted.

I don't think RGB metering is unique to Nikon. I have managed to find an interview with one of their engineers on this subject in the past but didn't keep a link. It made an interesting read and reckoned that things couldn't be really improved any further. Not so sure. Mirrorless can in principle meter every pixel on the sensor and in Olympus's case does appear to do that and also show any clipping in the viewfinder. The problem on a dslr in part is that metering isn't at a sensor pixel level. It's basically taking averages over much larger areas in a shot. On the other hand it is now way way better than it used to be.

It seems from the interview that Nikon evaluate their metering performance against a huge image database. I'd assume all do something similar.

John
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[William W]

AB -

If you want to believe that all that you have written in this thread is correct, including there have been no barbs, nor personal attacks - then that’s fine by me that you continue on that path.

WW

[William W]

That isn't entirely correct in the fancy metering mode cameras have usually referred to as evaluation or matrix metering etc. . .

(We are), I was for clarity, discussing Spot Metering Mode. Spot Metering Mode is specific to the OP and has been specific to this thread.

WW

[ajohnw]

(We are), I was for clarity, discussing Spot Metering Mode. Spot Metering Mode is specific to the OP and has been specific to this thread.

WW

My comment was in response to Dan's post Bill. However

I use a raw converter that shows the colour channel multipliers. When people talk about metering they are inclined to stick to shades of black and white, mid grey etc. In the real world of colour photography all colours have their mid aspect. The fact that each colour has it's own multiplier due to different sensitivities of each one strongly suggest that even spot metering makes use of colour otherwise it just wouldn't work. To expose for mid red for instance the camera would have to account for the red channel scaling factor. I can't do that unless the metering can recognise red is there. This is why they use rgb metering sensors. Actually I wonder if bayer type cameras have ever just metered in black and white.

John
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[AB26]

No. The meter is evaluating the brightness of a specific area,

Are you sure Dan?

The meter is that little line running from a 0 to – and +. The meter gives an indication of the analysis, interpretation, evaluation done by the METERING SYSTEM. The system does the evaluation, the Photographer has nothing to evaluate.
The Photographer has to respond to whatever the meter indicates (when shooting in Manual mode).
If for any reason one does not understand that principle you will not be able to obtain correct exposure in different metering modes.

Fact is, I trust those clever Japanese engineers to build a camera making it possible for me to get the best results by using the technology build into the camera I use.

[DanK]

Are you sure Dan?

The meter is that little line running from a 0 to – and +. The meter gives an indication of the analysis, interpretation, evaluation done by the METERING SYSTEM. The system does the evaluation, the Photographer has nothing to evaluate.

This conversation is going in circles. Of course the photographer has something to evaluate. Your camera has no idea what you are aiming it at or what exposure you want. That is why, for example, cameras will almost always underexpose scenes with a lot of snow--the cameras don't know that the large area of snow is supposed to be at least one, often two EV lighter than neutral. Why do you think cameras come with exposure compensation?

John is right that the most complex metering modes, often called evaluative, do more than calculate a weighted average. Still, they are not always right. If they were, you could just put your camera into evaluative mode and leave it there. Try it for a few weeks.

[Polar01]

Andre maybe you could explain to me why some pro photographers would use a hand held light meter like the Sekonic L-758DR to take a light reading instead of as you say, "trust those clever Japanese engineers to build a camera making it possible for me to get the best results by using the technology build into the camera I use." We are talking of spot metering using the camera vs spot metering using a hand held meter, if the in camera is so good why would they waste $650.00 CDN on something that the camera can do it's self.
I suggest watching the video that I linked to, it is 58 minutes in length some very good info, learned 3 or 4 things I did not know before, had an ah ha moment, and say some interesting post processing that I may try to learn. The webinar is put on by Sekonic with Joe Brady and Lee Varis well worth watching still not going to buy a Sekonic but good info.

http://www.sekonic.com/classroom/web...y-weather.aspx

Cheers: Allan