Beginner Exposure Tutorial
Discussion
Hello,
I started writing this tutorial this evening halfway through a bottle of Rioja. Now they are both finished and I hope it makes some sense. If it doesn't I can add/correct/remove stuff as necessary but only if you tell me. Let's socially network our way to a better exposed future!
http://www.mattwatkinson.com/tutorial/exposure_beg...
wuv yoo.
Matt
ps. The new Apple Pages is great, I used it for this. It makes Word look very retarded
pps. Please don't be too harsh with the criticism, I'm a very sensitive soul
ppps. If you are an expert and not a beginner don't use this as an opportunity to show how clever you are unless you are genuinely clever in which case go right ahead but only if it's in the interests of improving the tutorial
I started writing this tutorial this evening halfway through a bottle of Rioja. Now they are both finished and I hope it makes some sense. If it doesn't I can add/correct/remove stuff as necessary but only if you tell me. Let's socially network our way to a better exposed future!
http://www.mattwatkinson.com/tutorial/exposure_beg...
wuv yoo.
Matt
ps. The new Apple Pages is great, I used it for this. It makes Word look very retarded
pps. Please don't be too harsh with the criticism, I'm a very sensitive soul
ppps. If you are an expert and not a beginner don't use this as an opportunity to show how clever you are unless you are genuinely clever in which case go right ahead but only if it's in the interests of improving the tutorial
Well we all have our own ways of doing things but we know you can't judge exposure from the monitor, which is a common newbie mistake. When I'm shooting weddings and constantly moving from light to shade, the histogram is the only thing that shows me the exposure. You probably use a light meter but I think that's a bit too advanced for most people. I'd suggest photographing the actual monitor so readers can see the photo first, then the matching histogram display underneath. (That's how they'd see it at the time of shooting, as opposed to PS).
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
Edited by Simpo Two on Saturday 31st January 22:59
Under the Lambo shot:
"I took this photo with a digital camera that has a 5 stop dynamic range".
Somewhat useless, but somewhat useful site: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality...
"I took this photo with a digital camera that has a 5 stop dynamic range".
Somewhat useless, but somewhat useful site: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality...
Andy M said:
Under the Lambo shot:
"I took this photo with a digital camera that has a 5 stop dynamic range".
Somewhat useless, but somewhat useful site: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality...
Did I shoot it with a 1Ds II? I've no idea!"I took this photo with a digital camera that has a 5 stop dynamic range".
Somewhat useless, but somewhat useful site: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality...
Matt,
I liked the simplicity of this a lot until I got to
"In order to deal with this I set reading for the dark wall of the church to -2 stops so that it would be dark not black and used a ND graduated filter over the lens to make the light coming into the top of the frame darker, so I could record the full range of light within the scene."
I still like the simplicity but suspect that this could be a tad confusing for the uninitiated target reader making a literal reading. Specifically you have previously advised that the camera can only deal with 5 stops and one can accept that as broadly representative in most cases. However your prior sentence indicated that the scene required 7 stops for a good exposure - beyond the capability of the camera or film. So how did you record the 'full range of light'?
The answer is that you didn't, you, in effect, compressed it from 7 to 5 using the ND filter. (More realistically from 4.5 to 2.5 or thereabouts I guess.) Perfectly acceptable of course but could be a source of confusion about what an ND filter can do for those who don't know.
I often wonder if the same sort of confusion can come about in HDR discussions. There is, after all, a limit to the DR that monitors and printers can provide. Extreme HDR cannot extend this, though it may extend the limits of some cameras somewhat. So what one is really doing, I would suggest, is re-positioning and representing the zonal boundaries within the displayable gamut - another form of controlled compression just like an ND filter and particularly a graduated ND filter, though of course the contribution of time in long exposures adds an extra angle to it for night shots, at least by perception, even though ion reality the usable DR will be severely compromised in terms of smoothness of output.
Please don't take this as a criticism. I recall reading various manuals and guides many years ago and understanding most of the theory until someone wrote something that appeared to work purely by magic unconnected with the logic that had preceded it. Usually there were several occurrences in each document/article/book. So far as I can tell here you only have the one area of minor ambiguity!
Grant
I liked the simplicity of this a lot until I got to
"In order to deal with this I set reading for the dark wall of the church to -2 stops so that it would be dark not black and used a ND graduated filter over the lens to make the light coming into the top of the frame darker, so I could record the full range of light within the scene."
I still like the simplicity but suspect that this could be a tad confusing for the uninitiated target reader making a literal reading. Specifically you have previously advised that the camera can only deal with 5 stops and one can accept that as broadly representative in most cases. However your prior sentence indicated that the scene required 7 stops for a good exposure - beyond the capability of the camera or film. So how did you record the 'full range of light'?
The answer is that you didn't, you, in effect, compressed it from 7 to 5 using the ND filter. (More realistically from 4.5 to 2.5 or thereabouts I guess.) Perfectly acceptable of course but could be a source of confusion about what an ND filter can do for those who don't know.
I often wonder if the same sort of confusion can come about in HDR discussions. There is, after all, a limit to the DR that monitors and printers can provide. Extreme HDR cannot extend this, though it may extend the limits of some cameras somewhat. So what one is really doing, I would suggest, is re-positioning and representing the zonal boundaries within the displayable gamut - another form of controlled compression just like an ND filter and particularly a graduated ND filter, though of course the contribution of time in long exposures adds an extra angle to it for night shots, at least by perception, even though ion reality the usable DR will be severely compromised in terms of smoothness of output.
Please don't take this as a criticism. I recall reading various manuals and guides many years ago and understanding most of the theory until someone wrote something that appeared to work purely by magic unconnected with the logic that had preceded it. Usually there were several occurrences in each document/article/book. So far as I can tell here you only have the one area of minor ambiguity!
Grant
LongQ said:
Matt,
I liked the simplicity of this a lot until I got to
"In order to deal with this I set reading for the dark wall of the church to -2 stops so that it would be dark not black and used a ND graduated filter over the lens to make the light coming into the top of the frame darker, so I could record the full range of light within the scene."
I still like the simplicity but suspect that this could be a tad confusing for the uninitiated target reader making a literal reading. Specifically you have previously advised that the camera can only deal with 5 stops and one can accept that as broadly representative in most cases. However your prior sentence indicated that the scene required 7 stops for a good exposure - beyond the capability of the camera or film. So how did you record the 'full range of light'?
The answer is that you didn't, you, in effect, compressed it from 7 to 5 using the ND filter. (More realistically from 4.5 to 2.5 or thereabouts I guess.) Perfectly acceptable of course but could be a source of confusion about what an ND filter can do for those who don't know.
I often wonder if the same sort of confusion can come about in HDR discussions. There is, after all, a limit to the DR that monitors and printers can provide. Extreme HDR cannot extend this, though it may extend the limits of some cameras somewhat. So what one is really doing, I would suggest, is re-positioning and representing the zonal boundaries within the displayable gamut - another form of controlled compression just like an ND filter and particularly a graduated ND filter, though of course the contribution of time in long exposures adds an extra angle to it for night shots, at least by perception, even though ion reality the usable DR will be severely compromised in terms of smoothness of output.
Please don't take this as a criticism. I recall reading various manuals and guides many years ago and understanding most of the theory until someone wrote something that appeared to work purely by magic unconnected with the logic that had preceded it. Usually there were several occurrences in each document/article/book. So far as I can tell here you only have the one area of minor ambiguity!
Grant
Hi Grant,I liked the simplicity of this a lot until I got to
"In order to deal with this I set reading for the dark wall of the church to -2 stops so that it would be dark not black and used a ND graduated filter over the lens to make the light coming into the top of the frame darker, so I could record the full range of light within the scene."
I still like the simplicity but suspect that this could be a tad confusing for the uninitiated target reader making a literal reading. Specifically you have previously advised that the camera can only deal with 5 stops and one can accept that as broadly representative in most cases. However your prior sentence indicated that the scene required 7 stops for a good exposure - beyond the capability of the camera or film. So how did you record the 'full range of light'?
The answer is that you didn't, you, in effect, compressed it from 7 to 5 using the ND filter. (More realistically from 4.5 to 2.5 or thereabouts I guess.) Perfectly acceptable of course but could be a source of confusion about what an ND filter can do for those who don't know.
I often wonder if the same sort of confusion can come about in HDR discussions. There is, after all, a limit to the DR that monitors and printers can provide. Extreme HDR cannot extend this, though it may extend the limits of some cameras somewhat. So what one is really doing, I would suggest, is re-positioning and representing the zonal boundaries within the displayable gamut - another form of controlled compression just like an ND filter and particularly a graduated ND filter, though of course the contribution of time in long exposures adds an extra angle to it for night shots, at least by perception, even though ion reality the usable DR will be severely compromised in terms of smoothness of output.
Please don't take this as a criticism. I recall reading various manuals and guides many years ago and understanding most of the theory until someone wrote something that appeared to work purely by magic unconnected with the logic that had preceded it. Usually there were several occurrences in each document/article/book. So far as I can tell here you only have the one area of minor ambiguity!
Grant
thanks for the feedback. I'll re-write that part and also add some stuff about histograms, although I think this histogram is a tool to see if you got it right after you shot it, rather than getting it right before hand. Just need to get a spare minute to do it now. Anymore for anymore?
Matt
As a beginner myself with a beginners camera (350D) I don't have spot metering available to me, mine is still stuck on Evaluative but I'm guessing I should probably set this to the Partial mode which takes a reading of 9% around the centre, rather than the whole frame average which Evaluative will do.
Sadly Canon don't provide much in the way of explanation about this in the manual it's only upon reading up on the spot metering talk that it's crossed my mind to actually think about how I've got mine set.
Sadly Canon don't provide much in the way of explanation about this in the manual it's only upon reading up on the spot metering talk that it's crossed my mind to actually think about how I've got mine set.
Steve Evil said:
As a beginner myself with a beginners camera (350D) I don't have spot metering available to me, mine is still stuck on Evaluative but I'm guessing I should probably set this to the Partial mode which takes a reading of 9% around the centre, rather than the whole frame average which Evaluative will do.
Sadly Canon don't provide much in the way of explanation about this in the manual it's only upon reading up on the spot metering talk that it's crossed my mind to actually think about how I've got mine set.
That could work...has the guide helped understand how your metering works? Sadly Canon don't provide much in the way of explanation about this in the manual it's only upon reading up on the spot metering talk that it's crossed my mind to actually think about how I've got mine set.
It has yes, I've also read the understanding exposure book and it improved my shots a lot, but as with most things, only some of it went in. It got me to move onto full manual mode and I'm wholly comfortable with the exposure triangle, but I think now I need to invest a bit more thought into metering.
Quick comment from a (very) novice -
Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
FunkyNige said:
Quick comment from a (very) novice -
Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
+1Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
My only other comment (as the writer of a simple 'idiot's guide') is that you tend to explain things from the position of an expert. My angle was to put myself in the beginner's shoes and work up. For example, I explained the effect of aperture on exposure and depth of field but only mentioned 'stop' once. Perhaps we need to join forces and bolt them together!
FunkyNige said:
Quick comment from a (very) novice -
Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
Ok cool. I'm sure I can dig out some poorly exposed photos. I've got the odd couple of thousand lying around Examples of photos not exposed well and how to fix/prevent them would be nice. For example, you start with a couple of common problems (sunset portrait and view from a room), it would be good (for me) to see images of exactly what you mean and then come back to them at the end with how to expose them properly.
Overall I found it very helpful, I'd never actually realised that's what spot metering was for
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