Metering question for Nikon users

vt1122 · May 23, 2011

Curious what metering mode others use when shooting sports (soccer)? I was shooting a game this weekend where one team was in white and the other red. Used center weighted average for metering. It was overcast so the light was fairly even but shutter speeds ranged from 1/500 to 1/1250. Three shots taken over a 3 second span ranged from 1/640 t0 1/1250.

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Zerodog · May 23, 2011

Your best option for this might have been full manual metering. But it is not your best option all the time. With overcast skys and even light as you said it is easy to find an exposure and go with it. Watch your light and you should be good to go. What you saw in your very different exposures can be very typical with spot or center weighted average. Matrix metering will be more even. But it will often balance the exposure too much and your subject will be dark.

xchangx · May 23, 2011

If the lighting will be consistent (overcast or no clouds) I'll go in manual and meter off the grass. Depending on how bad it is I may over expose the grass just a tad to get more of the faces.

vt1122 · May 23, 2011

xchangx wrote: »

If the lighting will be consistent (overcast or no clouds) I'll go in manual and meter off the grass. Depending on how bad it is I may over expose the grass just a tad to get more of the faces.

I have always shot soccer in aperture priority shooting wide open. Using center weighted in this case it seems like the shutter speed was dependent on whether the meter was weighing towards the white or red jerseys or the dark green background. I have 3 to 5 games to shoot this weekend so if the conditions are right I'll give manual a try. Is it better to meter off of the grass or to try and meter off of the faces?

zoomer · May 23, 2011

I normally shoot A mode.
But shooting sports where the light will be the same and where the jersey color changes I would shoot manual.

Zerodog · May 23, 2011

Remember you are shooting the players, not the grass or the background. The colors of jerseys will fake out your metering too. Meter for skin. Try manual, lots of people are afraid to try it. If your light is constant there is not reason to go any other way.

xchangx · May 23, 2011

Zerodog wrote: »

Remember you are shooting the players, not the grass or the background. The colors of jerseys will fake out your metering too. Meter for skin. Try manual, lots of people are afraid to try it. If your light is constant there is not reason to go any other way.

Correct, I use the grass as a starting point and then increase the exposure slightly to meter for the faces. Sometimes you just can't get the faces exposed correctly (football @ midday). It's because the jerseys can fake out your metering system that I shoot manual.

LRussoPhoto · May 23, 2011

Zerodog wrote: »

Your best option for this might have been full manual metering. But it is not your best option all the time. With overcast skys and even light as you said it is easy to find an exposure and go with it. Watch your light and you should be good to go. What you saw in your very different exposures can be very typical with spot or center weighted average. Matrix metering will be more even. But it will often balance the exposure too much and your subject will be dark.

So when your in manual mode, it doesnt matter what metering mode you are?

Zerodog · May 23, 2011

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

So when your in manual mode, it doesnt matter what metering mode you are?

Sort of. Try it, you will see it change. If on spot you are metering the focus point. Center weighted it is the center portion of the viewfinder regardless of where your focus point is. Matrix balances the enitre scene.
In the end, you need to pick one and then check your main subject to make sure it is correct for your need. I end up using spot a lot. Move the spot right onto your subjects face then fine tune from there. Or if you use matrix you can go plus or minus with your EV to get what you need too.

MileHighAko · May 23, 2011

xchangx wrote: »

Correct, I use the grass as a starting point and then increase the exposure slightly to meter for the faces. Sometimes you just can't get the faces exposed correctly (football @ midday). It's because the jerseys can fake out your metering system that I shoot manual.

This is also how I do it, and have found it works quite well. Metering the grass, then adjusting as needed, but locking the exposure keeps the camera from freaking out on the high contrast difference between white and dark jerseys.

Jacobovs · May 28, 2011

I'm not sure I follow this. If the lighting is even why not use metrix metering? If you are shooting manual, why does it matter? Wouldn't you check your histogram on a few test shots to meter?

donek · May 30, 2011

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

So when your in manual mode, it doesnt matter what metering mode you are?

Unless you are in auto iso, metering will not affect a manual exposure. That is the whole point. You take the control away from the camera and take the photo you want instead of the camera taking the shot it wants.

I've never metered off the grass. My setup procedure is to put the camera in aperture priority, spot meter and check my shutter speed against an average skin tone. I then switch to manual, set my shutter speed (aperture will stay the same it was in A) and take a test shot. I will examine the shot in highlight mode to see what highlights are blown. I don't mind blowing some highlights on white uniforms if the skin tones look good. Adjust as necessary and leave it unless the light changes dramatically.

LRussoPhoto · May 30, 2011

donek wrote: »

Unless you are in auto iso, metering will not affect a manual exposure. That is the whole point. You take the control away from the camera and take the photo you want instead of the camera taking the shot it wants.

I've never metered off the grass. My setup procedure is to put the camera in aperture priority, spot meter and check my shutter speed against an average skin tone. I then switch to manual, set my shutter speed (aperture will stay the same it was in A) and take a test shot. I will examine the shot in highlight mode to see what highlights are blown. I don't mind blowing some highlights on white uniforms if the skin tones look good. Adjust as necessary and leave it unless the light changes dramatically.

But even if your shooting in manual mode doesnt have the metering mode still matter? Say your in manual mode and you are set at spot metering, wouldnt the camera meter reading be different if you switched to matrix metering while still in manual. Doesnt the camera take a meter reading based on where your asking it to meter from, matrix, center weighted or spot?

donek · May 30, 2011

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

But even if your shooting in manual mode doesnt have the metering mode still matter? Say your in manual mode and you are set at spot metering, wouldnt the camera meter reading be different if you switched to matrix metering while still in manual. Doesnt the camera take a meter reading based on where your asking it to meter from, matrix, center weighted or spot?

Perhaps it does take a reading. The questions is weather it does anything with that reading. If you set up in manual, you are telling the camera to ignore the meter reading and do nothing with it (unless you are set to auto iso).

Zone99 · June 1, 2011

donek wrote: »

Perhaps it does take a reading. The questions is weather it does anything with that reading. If you set up in manual, you are telling the camera to ignore the meter reading and do nothing with it (unless you are set to auto iso).

The camera is being told to ignore the meter reading but that doesn't mean you should!

Like others have mentioned, I meter off either grass or a player. I usually do this in Matrix-Meter mode and Aperture priority with my Aperture set to the widest possible for the lens I'm using.

I note the readings, switch to Manual mode, set the shutter and aperture and take a test shot and then check the histogram. Depending on the day, I may go up a tiny bit in EV to make sure I'm not losing any details in the faces. This usually results in blowing out some highlights but I'd rather have the ability to blow them out and pull them back later than risk losing too much with shadows on the face.

I find that a lot of times I'm losing black levels but I can pull those back in post.

Once I'm 'locked-in', my eyes are floating back and forth between:

subject
meter in the viewfinder
histogram

Keeping an eye on the meter in the viewfinder tells me if I have to worry about a changing environment item like clouds. If a cloud comes by and the meter reading changes significantly, I can hit a click or two and stay within the range I want to be in.

The idea is (and I'm still honing in on this) minimal adjustment in post. I've been working towards only have to make a couple of adjustments (cropping, a 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop, a little bit of black or contrast) rather than a bunch of changes.

I think, for the most part, it's working for me.

A couple of samples that I meant to post for C&C and will do so in another thread.

And one particularly tough one:

Not only am I dealing with the grass, the red, white and blue but also the very fair skin and hair!

Conditions on this day were overcast to start, with sun poking through occasionally. Taking the initial reading in Aperture mode/Matrix metering and then setting manually gave me the most control.

torags · June 2, 2011

Seems to me, you have to see what the camera sees. I use P mode before manual at an aperture I think is appropriate (f4= subject group;f2.8=single subject if DR isn't too wide for the ideal)

Check the histogram to find my limits. If I'm at midfield, where I'm swinging into & out of the sun, I use SS priority (matrix metering) or manual for early light

I find mid day the most challenging. The DR on the shiney uniforms/faces can blow small segments of subject.I reluctantly use a CP, but it's a pain when swinging around.

I hope this helps

chris.vultaggio · June 14, 2011

metering
When dealing with non-specular highlights (uniforms) under static light conditions, I'd go with the following steps:

1 - get a good manual reading off either a grey card or closeup of your skin. The meter mode won't matter as long as you fill the frame with either skin or grey.

2 - Take that meter reading, with the proper shutter speed to stop action and prevent camera shake and start shooting your subjects. Get a good tight shot of the uniform and then check out the histogram - see if there is any falloff on the whites and if so drop back a stop or two.

This should give you solid exposure without losing your highlights.

Of course this goes out the window on a sunny day where you get a much greater dynamic range - in that case I shoot center-weight and shutter priority.

LRussoPhoto · June 14, 2011

Get a good tight shot of the uniform and then check out the histogram - see if there is any falloff on the whites and if so drop back a stop or two.

Can you explain this in a little more detail? Thanks.

chris.vultaggio · June 14, 2011

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Get a good tight shot of the uniform and then check out the histogram - see if there is any falloff on the whites and if so drop back a stop or two.

Can you explain this in a little more detail? Thanks.

Sure - shoot tight, using your manual exposure determined by grey card/skin reflected light reading. Think just the player with a little background. With the flat light you've established the brightest object is the uniform.

Once shot, view the file info along with the histogram:

The right side of the histogram shows your highlights. See that spike in the graph towards the right? That's data in the highlight exposure range. If that spike were pushed all the way to the edge of the graph, it would mean that some data that should have registration was being lost - ie your white uniforms going outside of the detail range (240+ in photoshop RGB values).

If your histogram shows the either shadows or highlights pushed to the extreme edge you'll want to adjust the exposure accordingly.

LRussoPhoto · July 21, 2011

Coming back to this because I want to try some new things this weekend. Is the goal to get things are far over to the right of the gragh without losing detail or having it in the middle?

Metering question for Nikon users

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