What is the best method for learning how to expose photos correctly?

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Just a little "undocumented aside" to that ... .....varied during AEB is also changed.

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I can not find it (or something similar) for eos 400D.
Also i will not use the function if it was available.

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This is confusing. So it's basically the same as Tv mode in manual mode? How silly!

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Yes, indeed.
Shutter and aperture isn't that fixed as i thougth for two years.
I don't know if AEB in M-mode is an intentional function or a co-incidental side-effect (? :confused:) ( i like to provide you with some selfmade English)

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Originally Posted by d3debian

I don't know if AEB in M-mode is an intentional function or a co-incidental side-effect

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I'm curious as to why you'd think it's possibly co-incidental? (I find it an invaluable function for bracketing exposures).

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You're probably thinking more of an Expodisc imitation; if it's what I think it is

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It is. Thanks for the heads up :)... There's $7.50 going towards an L series lens or WhiBal card :p

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even out the range of the light hitting the sensor

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Dynamic range - that's what I meant... Sorry, still getting used to this jargon!

PDFing this thread now! :D

Thanks for all the info guys.. I think I've asked all the questions I can think of and everyone has answered them in the way I can understand...

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

I'm curious as to why you'd think it's possibly co-incidental? (I find it an invaluable function for bracketing exposures).

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When AEB in M-mode behaves the same as AEB in Tv-mode (wich is the case for 400D) there is no need for AEB in Tv-mode or no need for AEB in M-mode. It's double.

If youre car reverse when you put the gearstick to forward left, then there is no need for a second position, backwards right, wich also reverse the car. It doesn't hurt either, i know.

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Originally Posted by d3debian

When AEB in M-mode behaves the same as AEB in Tv-mode (wich is the case for 400D) there is no need for AEB in Tv-mode or no need for AEB in M-mode. It's double.

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I would have thought that in manual-exposure mode the camera would have shot the bracket of exposures centered on the aperture or shutterspeed you (manually) selected, whereas with AEB in Tv mode I would have expected it to bracket the shots centered on an aperture that IT selected.

Are you saying that on a 400D an AEB bracket in manual-exposure mode the camera over-rides the parameters you've set manually and just does it based on it's own metering?

Oke, now i see the difference.
You are correct in your first paragraph and for the second paragraph: no, the eos 400D does not override the settings i made.

However, the next thing what confuses me is already born.
I just grabbed my camera to check some and noticed that AEB in M-mode now kept aperture constant and chanced shutterspeed.

Sometimes i go nuts.
Does there exist a book "photography without both left and right brain"?

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Originally Posted by d3debian

Oke, now i see the difference.
You are correct in your first paragraph and for the second paragraph: no, the eos 400D does not override the settings i made.

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Thought this might be the case ;)

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However, the next thing what confuses me is already born.
I just grabbed my camera to check some and noticed that AEB in M-mode now kept aperture constant and chanced shutterspeed.

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I had the same thing happen to me with my 1D series camera - if was driving me nuts. I knew that it used to do it one way, and now it was doing it the other. In the end I worked through the custom functions literally 1 by 1 and eventually discovered the (apparantly undocumented feature) that if you set the custom function that swaps the function of the QCD and index wheels in manual-exposure mode then it also swaps what gets changed when doing AEB groups. I suspect that it would also apply to xxD series cameras, but am doubtful of xxxD series cameras, as the don't have a QCD (Quick Control Dial), although I wouldn't at all be surprised if such a feature wasn't available by some other (possibly undocumented) means. If anyone's desperate to know I could probably get a definitive answer from Chuck Westfall for them.

I'm gonna tell you something a bit different from anyone else (whose recomendations are actually very useful)

My first SLR wa a Nikon FM10. Do you know it? EVERYTHING is manual. The battery is only used for the TTL metering system. And I used to make slides (very little exposure latitude). It was tough. At the beggining, I had to throw away at least 2/3 of a film because of wrong exposure and/or focus. But I learnt. I made my own artisanal bracketings when the lightning range was very high. I remember making 30! different takes of a landscape with a little waterstream on the center which reflected too brightly the morning sun. And a had 1 good photo. (Oh, I miss those old days when going to the photo lab to get your film was an adventure of surprise and deception).

So when I had then a N80 with P/A/S modes and bracketing, it was a piece of cake! And then I moved to digital, so I could make 1000 takes from the same scene, for free, and seing the results inmediatly, with histograms even... anyone can do it!. And then you have digital post processing to fix flaws!

But I learnt the hard way.

And second, and most important: the important thing is not the metering system. It's the lightning. A properly illuminated scene will make better pictures than a dully one adequately metered. Learn to look for the best spot to make the shoot. You have to look for in your imagination, in 360º, from the ground to the highest point you can reach. Try to work on B/W: you have to learn to see again, only in terms of less or more light. Learn how to use the fill-in flash (God, that's tough with a FM10 and a Vivitar analog flash!). Learn to have patience and wait for the sun to go a little down. Photography, unlike many techies believe, is nothing else than catching the light.

Felipe,

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~ the important thing is not the metering system. It's the lighting. ~

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I can't argue with the sentiment there!

I corrected a couple of unfortunate typos, but your english is much better than my spanish (with my apologies if I mis-guessed your language)

Yup, I've been there, done the transparency thing, with a manual camera and analog flash, just maybe not quite to the lengths you did Felipe.

It probably still helps me now, all these years later.

Thanks for the alternate way of looking at it,

Would it be helpful to purchase an old SLR camera then and learn on that? I've taken alot away from this thread. I don't know many of the old school cameras (as I'm only 21!) but from what I've heard they're all manual.

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Originally Posted by dan88

Would it be helpful to purchase an old SLR camera then and learn on that? I've taken alot away from this thread. I don't know many of the old school cameras (as I'm only 21!) but from what I've heard they're all manual.

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If you're talking film cameras then in my opinion it's more difficult as the feedback loop is stretched out so much. If you're talking digital cameras then as far as I'm aware they nearly all have manual mode anyway.

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

If you're talking film cameras then in my opinion it's more difficult as the feedback loop is stretched out so much. If you're talking digital cameras then as far as I'm aware they nearly all have manual mode anyway.

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Thanks for the advice! I'll stick to my digital then :D

Hi Dan,

Yeah, just because I've served the apprenticeship the old fashioned way doesn't mean it still needs to be done that way; the world has moved on. So someone young learning that way now would be past their peak employable prime, and have been overtaken in some ways by their peers.

I'd certainly stick with digital, and as you suggest, maybe at certain times, use it manual only and review the results, factor in the lesson learnt and go shoot again. Perhaps use it that way in your own locality, so its easy to re-shoot, rather than on a once in a lifetime foriegn trip. just an idea, I'm no expert.

Cheers,

I shot film too. Wasted half of it because I never fired enough frames off - true!

Nowadays with digital I fire off frames at different settings in manual, auto, flash, no flash, bracketed exposure, bracketed white balance, trying everything just because I can.

It's not entirely free as I'll wear the camera out sooner or later and it takes time but it's an investment in my learning. Having shot weddings since I was 18yrs old and I'm now 50, I quickly found out botching somebody's special day wasn't an option. I did serve an apprentice mind, so there was little risk when I was let out 'on my own' :)

It gives me confidence to shoot 100% jpegs too. Not much, if any PP but, again it takes a lot of learning and I find I have to learn hands-on for it to sink in. What I have learnt from many years ago is to remember the settings printed inside the film box. Can anyone remember them? I have an old Konica VX400 box opened out inside my kitbag so on a cloudy day here in the UK, cos that's all we get it seems, ISO400 F8 and fine tune with the histogram from there. It seems so simple when you say it like that but it's saved me an awful lot of grief and time in high contrast situations.

Last night for instance I was shooting a road race in the late evening. As I was shooting into the sky from a low vantage point I metered off the road surface(evaluative), locked that reading into manual and waited in the grass verg for the riders. Worked perfectly because I metered from the road in the shade. I learnt that from experience. Same with weddings, a quick meter off the grass or grey card and you're in the ballpark.

Digital is wonderful learning tool. Shame I came to it so late on in the game :o