A friend of mine shoots only on manual. Not A or S or P, just M. His reasoning is that he has greater control over his shots by deciding what he is photographing, spot metering on that and adjusting the exposure accordingly depending on how the subject relates to mid grey. I’m reading a book by Tom Ang and he has a similar approach. Do any of you have a similar approach, or is the camera set to S or A or even P depending on the subject (like mine is, or was ‘cos I’ve got to give this a go)?

 

Cheers

 

Guy

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My DCM Gallery

I mainly shoot in manual..but have been playing with TV for speed...for portrait I use spot and landscape I usually use evaluative meter or center weight....Jerry

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My DCM Gallery

Depending what I'm shooting, I tend to use Av or Tv priority - Av for portraits, landscapes and things that generally don't move and Tv for things that do.

I tend to use manual when shooting with a flash gun - although the flash is effectively automatically sorting the exposure out!

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Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

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How I meter depends on what I'm shooting. Sport I don't want to be worrying about metering as I'm still focussing manually.
 I still use a Gossen Lunasix f occasionally, which allows for either incident or reflected light readings. You need an 18% grey card and to use the reflected light reading method to make zone system calculations (alterations involve rotating a dial) with it.
I'm usually to panicked about capturing what I am seeing to make that sort of calculation, it's easier to pick a combination off the dial for depth of field, or freezing the action.
Ever wondered about being a concert pianist? Ansel Adams ( founder member of the f 64 group) is the person you need to consult about the zone system, he produced a book on each aspect of photography, and 'The Camera' is the one in which exposure is covered. The other volumes are 'The Negative' and 'The Print'.
see link below
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/zone_system.shtml
Mr Adams was a monochromatic (negative) film photograher and the zone system was designed to deal with tone, not with colour positive (slide) film.
It will be of help when your subjects are the proverbial white cat in a snow storm and black cat in a coal cellar as the aim is to diferentiate the greatest possible number of visible tones between black and white within any picture.
Use Raw not Jpeg as many subleties will be processed out by the camera's processor.

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Dave V

Earlier this year I spent a couple of months with the camera set to Manual for every shot, and I think it improved my photography.

I find that, when shooting portraits of caucasian subjects, I use the spot meter. Place the metering area over the lightest part of the skin and overexpose by 2/3 of a stop. Gets really good skin tones, much better than I can manage mon Auto, and the eyes are clearer.

When you use high ISO, you can get far better results if you keep the exposure to the right of the histogram (keep your main subject as light as possible without overexposing it). Noise is far less of a problem. Don't know how you'd do this on Auto without a lot of faffing about.

You can also 'chimp', using the histogram. Check the shot, the colours, the histogram and the blinkies (blown highlights). If it's not right, then adjust the exposure. Don't know how you'd do this on Auto, either.

I use Auto as well, though. But for subjects that are not moving about very much, I figure why not get the exposure bang on?

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Chris Seary

My gallery

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I use either evaluative or centre weighted average, spot metering is just too much of a hassle, as Chris says he sets the exposure with the meter & then dials in +2/3 stop compensation, it should be a full stop to be correct, but to do all this properly you need to know the zone system (developed by Ansel Adams) set up the shot and then dial in the appropriate compensation according to the listing, it's a night mare and best avoided if you can.  I don't know a single pro photographer who uses it now, it's just too complicated, and you have so much latitude with exposure in post processing.

' I figure why not get the exposure bang on?'

Well there are good reasons why you should always under expose your shots, this goes back to the days of transparencies, but it also holds good for digital.  Once you drive the camera into clipping, the information in the highlights is lost, even in Raw there's no way to get it back, under exposure by 2/3 stop will preserve those highlights in camera and you can decide what to do about the scene in Post process.  There are other advantages, shutter speed is increased by a 2/3 stop so you can either close the aperture, or drop the Iso, or maybe hand hold a shot, or just use the increased speed for a sharper image.

You can read about the zone system here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system

Flake

Actually, I tend to use evaluative with my MkIII and centre weighted with my 5D - but I use what ever gives me the result I'm after.

As for underexposing generally - I only do that if the shot is overexposed - as a rule I keep the MkIII at 0EC and the 5D at +1/3EC. This generally holds the highlights within range and keep noise to a minimum.

The trick is to know how your camera behaves and under what circumstances. One huge advantage of digital - you can try various settings and you don't waste film!

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Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

Ne nuntium necare

flake:

Well there are good reasons why you should always under expose your shots, this goes back to the days of transparencies, but it also holds good for digital.  Once you drive the camera into clipping, the information in the highlights is lost, even in Raw there's no way to get it back, under exposure by 2/3 stop will preserve those highlights in camera and you can decide what to do about the scene in Post process. 

Well Thomas Knoll of Adobe would tend to disagree with you on this point flake and presents a very good argument as to why one should shoot to the right.  Like Mark (and having read the article some while back now) I more often than not have a bit extra dialled in. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

flake:

.....it should be a full stop to be correct, but to do all this properly you need to know the zone system (developed by Ansel Adams) set up the shot and then dial in the appropriate compensation according to the listing, it's a night mare and best avoided if you can.  I don't know a single pro photographer who uses it now, it's just too complicated, and you have so much latitude with exposure in post processing.

Are you saying that pros use auto and don't use manual? Are you suggesting that you need to know the zone system to use manual or spot metering?

This ain't the zone system, it's just a matter of using experience to tweak the exposure a little. Most of the pros I've spoken to do this when they need to.

It's a lot more fiddly if you want to do this with Auto and exposure comp, exposure lock. For me, at least, it's easier using manual..

flake:

' I figure why not get the exposure bang on?'

Well there are good reasons why you should always under expose your shots, this goes back to the days of transparencies, but it also holds good for digital.  Once you drive the camera into clipping, the information in the highlights is lost, even in Raw there's no way to get it back, under exposure by 2/3 stop will preserve those highlights in camera and you can decide what to do about the scene in Post process.  There are other advantages, shutter speed is increased by a 2/3 stop so you can either close the aperture, or drop the Iso, or maybe hand hold a shot, or just use the increased speed for a sharper image.

You can read about the zone system here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system

Flake

Depends on your interpretation of bang on. If you want to retain highlights, then what you say is 'correct' for your needs. The way I've suggested will guarantee you getting closer to this, using exposure readout, histogram, LCD feedback.

Or any way that you feel comfortable using your camera, as long as it works.

In the same way, my wishing to get the skin tones and eyes right by sacrificing the highlights is equally valid, because I wish to match the shot to how I previsualised it. Same as you.

By taking your time, I think it's fair to say that you can get the exposure more closely to what you wish to achieve than you can with Auto. And if you have the time to do so, then why not?

Experience is always going to come into this, otherwise using manual becomes nothing more than a time consuming way to set the camera the same way it would set itself on auto.

If you don't have the time (moving subject, rapidly changing weatehr conditions) then Auto is the way to go.

anglefire:

The trick is to know how your camera behaves and under what circumstances. One huge advantage of digital - you can try various settings and you don't waste film!

Couldn't have said it better myself. We all work in different ways, and I find my way works best for me.

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Chris Seary

My gallery

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I admit to being old enough to remember the Viet-Nam war (as a child) and being captivated later by the work of various photographers, Don McCullin in particular. Those guys had little time for metering and the SLRs they used were manual only cameras, settings were understood through experience and set from memory without constant recourse to a meter.
Assesing the light for oneself might prove an interesting experiment for people to try.

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Dave V

Sunny 16 rule springs to mind!

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Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

Ne nuntium necare

Dave Venables:

I admit to being old enough to remember the Viet-Nam war (as a child) and being captivated later by the work of various photographers, Don McCullin in particular. Those guys had little time for metering and the SLRs they used were manual only cameras, settings were understood through experience and set from memory without constant recourse to a meter.
Assesing the light for oneself might prove an interesting experiment for people to try.

Yes, and the fantastic photos that were printed in Life magazine. It was the first war that was live on television.

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SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
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Forseti:

flake:

Well there are good reasons why you should always under expose your shots, this goes back to the days of transparencies, but it also holds good for digital.  Once you drive the camera into clipping, the information in the highlights is lost, even in Raw there's no way to get it back, under exposure by 2/3 stop will preserve those highlights in camera and you can decide what to do about the scene in Post process. 

Well Thomas Knoll of Adobe would tend to disagree with you on this point flake and presents a very good argument as to why one should shoot to the right.  Like Mark (and having read the article some while back now) I more often than not have a bit extra dialled in. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

Well I read all that & my opinion is that most of the passage is about utilising the sensor to the maximum dynamic range to minimise the noise element.  There's nothing new here, it's basic stuff, but I think you'll find if you read it through that he actually does agree with my position, he even goes so far as to say:

This technique isn't necessarily something that you'll use every day. It requires extra work when shooting and extra work and time when post-processing in the RAW converter. But, if you are interested in ensuring the utmost S/N ratio for a particular shot it can be worthwhile. If though you find this approach to be counterintuitive or somewhat dubious, here's a novel idea — try it yourself

But at the end of the article Bruce Lindbloom says:

For film based photography, the highlight end of the scale is compressed by the shoulder portion of the D/log E curve. So as brighter and brighter objects are photographed, the highlight detail gets gradually compressed more and more until eventually the film saturates. But up until that point, the highlight compression progresses in a gradual fashion.

Solid state sensors in digital cameras behave very differently. As light falls on a sensor, a charge either accumulates or dissipates (depending on the sensor technology). Its response is well behaved right up until the point of saturation, at which time it abruptly stops. There is no forgiveness by gradually backing off, as was the case with film.

If you have time to set up then it's fine to adjust the exposure in manual, but 2/3 of a stop down isn't much in terms of exposure, it is enough however to rescue highlights that might be blown.  Yes you might lose a little of the dymanic range, but it's a trade off I'm willing to accept given the advantages, and many many times using this technique I've acheived a full dynamic range, where a great deal of information might have been lost.

I've done quite a lot of street candids lately, kids doing things they shouldn't, smoking wearing school uniform for one you just don't get the chance to do a test shot, check the histogram and adjust & shoot again, life doesn't work that way.

It works for me anyway

Flake

anglefire:

Sunny 16 rule springs to mind!

This came up on a previous thread.

Sunny 22 if you live somewhere like Brisbane (I did).

Sunny 8 or 11 if you live in Birmingham (I lived there also).

When I went to Galstonbury (about 20 years ago), my Olympus OM1 batteries ran out. I guessed every exposure, and they all came out.

When you buy older Nikon lenses, there's no metering for a lot of the current cameras. However, many people seem to do fine:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/365610@N21/

This bloke in particular:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/365610@N21/discuss/72157600227492008/?search=absurdman

Makes you wonder what all the fuss is about '3D Colour Matrix Metering III' etc.  

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Chris Seary

My gallery

My Blog

flake:

SNIP...........

I've done quite a lot of street candids lately, kids doing things they shouldn't, smoking wearing school uniform for one you just don't get the chance to do a test shot, check the histogram and adjust & shoot again, life doesn't work that way.

It works for me anyway

Flake

At the end of the day, thats all that matters.

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Mark

Digital Photo Group
My Website

Ne nuntium necare