What metering mode and when?
I always use spot metering. I don't know why. It just sort of happened. A lot of my recent photography has been street type photography and, because unlike most shutterbugs, I'm not a morning person, I tend to take my photos in the late afternoon and very early evening. I find it challenging.
My usual approach is to spot meter of a highlight (not always the right highlight in my case - I have my share of blown white shirts/cars and so on) underexpose as per whatever quirk the camera and worry about the dark stuff in post processing.
So, I have two two questions:
1. Am I using the right metering method (is there one)?
2. What are the right situations for each of the standard metering methods (thinking spot, center waited and pattern/matrix).
An example where I didn't meter quite right using spot (should have metered off the white clouds or the white building (or even the taxi), not the blue sky....
How would using a different metering method have changed this exposure?
My usual approach is to spot meter of a highlight (not always the right highlight in my case - I have my share of blown white shirts/cars and so on) underexpose as per whatever quirk the camera and worry about the dark stuff in post processing.
So, I have two two questions:
1. Am I using the right metering method (is there one)?
2. What are the right situations for each of the standard metering methods (thinking spot, center waited and pattern/matrix).
An example where I didn't meter quite right using spot (should have metered off the white clouds or the white building (or even the taxi), not the blue sky....
How would using a different metering method have changed this exposure?
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Comments
I normally shoot in manual mode and use the meter as a guide. Spot metering on something white and pushing the exposure around 2 stops is not a bad strategy at all if you have the time.
On a sunny day with clouds, I don't bother with the meter because the light level is fixed. I just pick a variant of the "sunny 16" rule. However, unless you have done something exotic in post, the shadows in your shot don't look dark enough for direct sun so I am guessing that the sun was filtered through some clouds when you took the picture. My first guess for that scene would be ISO 200, 1/320s, f/8.
As for what would be different, your example looks slightly overexposed to me. In particular, the front of the cable car looks slightly blown. In camera meters have a tendency to blow out small white details like that because protecting them tends to render the overall scene a bit dark. When shooting at low ISOs, I prefer to protect those highlights and push the brightness up a touch in post.
There isn't a simple answer for how to meter. I use a number of different strategies depending on my subject and the light. However setting a mode and letting the camera choose is, for me, a method of last resort.
To answer how I did the shot:
Exposure mode: manual
Metering mode: spot
ISO: 100
Aperture: f3.5 (was shooting in lower light the night before and forgot to lower that a bit - f5.6 - 8 is the sweet spot for the lens in question for bright daylight shots)
Shutter speed: 1/1600 (it was bright)
I think I under exposed by 2/3 (possibly 1/3 - I forget), bought everything out in post processing with a combination of exposure compensation, colour correction to emphasize the blueness of the sky (note that of the jeans people are wearing are perhaps a little too dark?) and a fairly light tone curve to bring out a little extra shadow detail (zero noise management in either camera or PP which may explain the ISO 200 assumption).
Metering off the blue sky was definitely a mistake, but short of getting on a plane and going there on a day with the exact same lighting conditions.....
So, I got curious about the other metering modes.
Now, I have the RAW exposure, so I can probably still improve things a little
First of all, there is no right answer to this question because there are many different techniques and many that can work. I can tell you just a few of my basic thoughts when picking a metering mode. I don't use manual very often so I'm usually using one of the metering modes with an appropriate EV setting. Here's some of my logic for picking a mode.
- If I have a full range of tones and there's no particular tone in the image that I'm trying to nail (like a landscape shot, for example), then I will often use matrix metering. I takes in the whole scene and will generally try to balance the exposure across shadows and highlights. I probably would have used matrix for this shot because it meets these conditions. I generally start with an EV of -0.3 because I like to protect highlights, but this is camera specific and scene-specific. Anytime I'm in a new setting, I always glance at the histogram from a few shots and I'll adjust the EV based on what I see in the histogram.
- If I have a specific target that I'm trying to get the exposure right on, but I can't afford the time to accurately meter off the right part of that target, I will often use center weighted. Spot metering would probably be ideal, but when I've got targets like soccer players that are moving about a lot and I'm shooting both directions of light, then I can't rely on the spot meter always getting on the face, so I go with a bigger meter surface and use center weighted. Here's I've also got to be aware of the tone of the subject. If the team is wearing white uniforms in the sun, then I need some +EV. If they're wearing blue uniforms, I may need some -EV.
- If I have time to compose the shot and I have a specific tone I want right, then I use spot metering. The quintessential example here is a portrait (spot metering off the face).
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