Thanks for this subject. It is difficult under these circumstances to avoid white-outs. I learned a trick in one of the tutorials that I use almost constantly now: Put your exposure setting at two or two and a half stop OVER exposed, spot meter on the brightest spot in the scene, lock exposure and then recompose anywhere. Then, because your midpoint of the histogram is always 2 to 2.5 stops away from the right side of the histogram, your brightest spot is as far as possible but not out of the bright side of the histogram and the rest of the scene fills up the rest of the histogram. You might get some underexposed areas but that is better than blown out areas and you always "expose to the right" and catch the maximum of information in your raw file. It is a bit more work but it always works!
Your method moves your spot reading from Zone 5 to Zone 7 or 7 + 1/2 and lets the rest of the tones fall as they may. Sound familiar? It's an ideal way to control highlights.
Excellent explanation of a complex subject, Scott. In my view spot metering yields big returns when used with patience and knowledge of where on the “gray scale” of tonal ranges you want the area under the spot to fall. Your vid reminded me of back when I did the SM “dance” using a Pentax spotmeter (not to be confused with the spotmatic camera) - when carrier pigeons were still around. The meter had a form-factor like a compact hair dryer and ran on batteries that have since gone extinct. (Good for landscape work and zone system.) Including the histogram in the live-view might have added an extra instructive item (or more confusion). I wish Sony would include in the monitor the “exposure ruler scale” that appears at the bottom of the EVF instead of displaying it only via the EVF - that way, we’d see where the spotted area falls on the scale. There must be some way to capture the EVF display in a video.
Later this week on In Post, we'll take a look at the histograms. As for what is/isn't pushed out of the HDMI port on the camera... I am not sure. There are limited controls on the HDMI out from the camera - either clean (no indicators) or not. I used that plus an external HDMI recorder to get the through-the-camera view.
For me, any suggested exposure, regardless of the metering mode, is only a starting point. As with focus modes, I have found myself nearly always going to manual mode or using exposure compensation for the final shot. The cameras do a good job at providing a roughly right image but in my opinion, nothing beats the eye of the photographer and checking a histogram to get what is desired. For us landscape shooters, there is almost always time to compose, test and finalize the shot. Great explanation of the modes Scott. BTW, do you know if any cameras allow moving the spot when spot metering rather than moving the camera? I read one time that some high end cameras spot meter where the focus point is but I can't figure out how a camera can do that.
I don’t know of a camera off the cuff that has a movable spot metering point. To the untrained (i.e. me) it would seem doable. The spot equates to some region in the frame. The camera can discard readings for all other regions. What is in/out of consideration changes when the spot moves. But hey, I’m not an optics engineer :-)
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Appreciate this info...been switching over from center-weighted to spot metering and more pleased with my results! Thanks for this...
Glad to help!
Thanks for this subject. It is difficult under these circumstances to avoid white-outs.
I learned a trick in one of the tutorials that I use almost constantly now:
Put your exposure setting at two or two and a half stop OVER exposed, spot meter on the brightest spot in the scene, lock exposure and then recompose anywhere. Then, because your midpoint of the histogram is always 2 to 2.5 stops away from the right side of the histogram, your brightest spot is as far as possible but not out of the bright side of the histogram and the rest of the scene fills up the rest of the histogram. You might get some underexposed areas but that is better than blown out areas and you always "expose to the right" and catch the maximum of information in your raw file. It is a bit more work but it always works!
Very cool tip, Ger. I'll need to try that out!
Your method moves your spot reading from Zone 5 to Zone 7 or 7 + 1/2 and lets the rest of the tones fall as they may. Sound familiar? It's an ideal way to control highlights.
Excellent explanation of a complex subject, Scott. In my view spot metering yields big returns when used with patience and knowledge of where on the “gray scale” of tonal ranges you want the area under the spot to fall. Your vid reminded me of back when I did the SM “dance” using a Pentax spotmeter (not to be confused with the spotmatic camera) - when carrier pigeons were still around. The meter had a form-factor like a compact hair dryer and ran on batteries that have since gone extinct. (Good for landscape work and zone system.) Including the histogram in the live-view might have added an extra instructive item (or more confusion). I wish Sony would include in the monitor the “exposure ruler scale” that appears at the bottom of the EVF instead of displaying it only via the EVF - that way, we’d see where the spotted area falls on the scale. There must be some way to capture the EVF display in a video.
Later this week on In Post, we'll take a look at the histograms. As for what is/isn't pushed out of the HDMI port on the camera... I am not sure. There are limited controls on the HDMI out from the camera - either clean (no indicators) or not. I used that plus an external HDMI recorder to get the through-the-camera view.
For me, any suggested exposure, regardless of the metering mode, is only a starting point. As with focus modes, I have found myself nearly always going to manual mode or using exposure compensation for the final shot. The cameras do a good job at providing a roughly right image but in my opinion, nothing beats the eye of the photographer and checking a histogram to get what is desired. For us landscape shooters, there is almost always time to compose, test and finalize the shot. Great explanation of the modes Scott. BTW, do you know if any cameras allow moving the spot when spot metering rather than moving the camera? I read one time that some high end cameras spot meter where the focus point is but I can't figure out how a camera can do that.
I don’t know of a camera off the cuff that has a movable spot metering point. To the untrained (i.e. me) it would seem doable. The spot equates to some region in the frame. The camera can discard readings for all other regions. What is in/out of consideration changes when the spot moves. But hey, I’m not an optics engineer :-)
Fuji cameras. However, once you ae lock, you cant move the focus point anymore.
Thanks! Very useful information
You bet, Scott!