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Anonymous
hey /p/ can you tell me what dslr metering is for? apparently it's to measure light coming in and tell you what's needed for good exposure, but in manual mode you can just try out different settings for the correct exposure so they're practically useless.

Is it okay for a newbie to ignore this whole metering thing then?
>> Anonymous
0/10
>> Anonymous
>>241394
no, this is a serious question. anyone?
>> NatureGuy !se3A3TwzdY
>>241372
To be exact your camera is telling you what will give you middle gray, a kind of constant that allows photographers to adjust the exposure from there for a desired a effect. It calculates middle gray from the entirety of the image, or part of the image depending what you have your camera set to.

So in manual mode you ask the camera what settings will give you middle gray and move from there so you don't sit there like a retard pushing buttons for awhile trying to figure it out yourself.
>> Anonymous
ok. thanks.
>> ­
The meter is there to save you time. If you've got the time to be messing with the settings to get the right exposure then cool, you can shoot full manual all the time. I usually shoot program auto mode because I can trust my D300's light meter to give me accurate, consistent results. Saves me time when I'm on assignment, I don't have the time to be fixing shit in photoshop when I'm on deadline, it's gotta be right straight out of the camera.

But that's me, if you just want to learn the ins and outs of the technics of photography then go ahead and do that, you'll learn fast.
>> else !L6xabslN96
>>241787
hijacking thread.

i have a d40, kit lens, shitty flash. what sort of metering is best at night? i usually set it to 1600 ISO and shoot in Shutter Priority(so there's no motion blur).

I found that matrix metering can be quite unpredictable in these conditions.
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
>>241794

manual exposure, for reals. the lighting conditions are much more predictable at night, so once you figure out your exposure by guesstimating (start at 1/4 @, say, f/4), you can just leave it there for the rest of the night and adjust only if you really need to.
>> Anonymous
>>241796
>1/4 @, say f/4
wouldn't that have loads of motion blur?
>> ­
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>>241796
Is correct, shoot full-manual. The D40 and D80 expose for the shadows, so the meter is always going to try to expose for the shadows which always results in blurry, messed up pictures.

I'm hardly ever shooting in bright light (outdoors). On the D40, I would try to avoid going above ISO 800, but remember that sharp, grainy pics are always more useable than soft, blurry pics! Jack up the ISO as necessary.

I try not to let my shutter speed go below 1/60, preferably 1/125 or faster. Open up the aperture as wide as it'll go (f/3.5 on the kit lens).

The flash on the D40 is actually really good, but the SB-400 is an awesome upgrade for about a hundred bucks. Lets you bounce the flash which results in awesome indoor pics! Try it out!

If you insist on shooting in low-light without a flash, check out the 50mm f/1.8 prime lens... much more important than the camera's noise is the lens' ability to gather light... you lose depth-of-field but you get much-needed light to expose the sensor.

The included picture was taken in incredibly shitty ambient light, there's some noise but otherwise totally useable. I'm using the 50mm f/1.4 but there isn't much difference between that and the 50mm f/1.8, so get the cheaper f/1.8 for only about $100!

Camera-Specific Properties:Equipment MakeNIKON CORPORATIONCamera ModelNIKON D80Camera SoftwareAdobe Photoshop CS3 WindowsMaximum Lens Aperturef/1.4Sensing MethodOne-Chip Color AreaColor Filter Array Pattern834Focal Length (35mm Equiv)75 mmImage-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution300 dpiVertical Resolution300 dpiImage Created2008:08:24 04:40:12Exposure Time1/40 secF-Numberf/1.4Exposure ProgramAperture PriorityISO Speed Rating1600Exposure Bias0 EVMetering ModePatternLight SourceUnknownFlashNo FlashFocal Length50.00 mmCommentKord MartinColor Space InformationsRGBImage Width640Image Height428RenderingNormalExposure ModeAutoWhite BalanceAutoScene Capture TypeStandardGain ControlHigh Gain UpContrastNormalSaturationNormalSharpnessNormalSubject Distance RangeUnknown
>> ­
>>24180150mm f/1.8

Oh shit I forgot... the 50mm primes don't autofocus on the D40! D'oh! Ah well, you can still use them no problem, you just won't have the convenience of autofocus. I'd avoid getting this lens though unless you were to upgrade your camera later on.
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
>>241799

shooting at night usually involves either a) a tripod b) a very fast lens (not the d40 kit lens) or c) loads of motion blur.
>> else !L6xabslN96
>>241801
i have my eye set on the 50mm 1.8, its supposed to be dirt cheap, but everything costs twice as much where i live. I'm just worried that I will not be able to manual focus easily with my viewfinder.
>> Anonymous
NatureGuy summed it up pretty well, but a few things:

1. Wikipedia "zone system." You don't have to actually shoot with it, I don't, but learning it is a pretty good way to get a good, intuitive, deeper understanding about what's going with exposure and tones.

2. There are three main metering modes: Centerweighted average, spot, and then a third one everyone likes to make up their own name for: Canon calls it evaluative, Nikon calls it matrix, Pentax calls it multi, Olympus calls it multi-pattern, and I don't know what Sony or anyone else calls theirs.

Spot metering is exactly what it says: you point your camera somewhere, it reports back what exposure would make that exact spot medium gray. There's some variants of this you'll run into, like partial, which is just a gimped version of spot with a slightly larger area measured, not useful unless your camera doesn't have spot, and then there's multi-spot, which will average a few spot meterings together, usually something you can handle yourself. (E.g. if one spot says 1/250th and another says 1/500th, you probably want to set your camera to 1/320th or 1/400th.) Spot metering is the most accurate if you have time to do it and understand what it's telling you.

Centerweighted average (CWA) is exactly what it says. It meters the entire frame and averages all the exposures, with algorithm weighted to the center. It's useful when you don't have time to spotmeter. It gives you one nice, quick result, but you still know what it's doing and if, say, there's a big black shirt right in the middle of the frame, know to use a faster shutter speed so the black shirt doesn't end up gray.
>> Anonymous
>>241817

Matrix metering is, IMO, not something to use when shooting manual, but the thing you should use if you're shooting any of the automatic modes. What it does is it measures different parts of the whole frame, runs them through some voodoo algorithim where you don't know what it's doing, and spits out a number that you don't know exactly what it means or what it will do. It's usually pretty good, but it can mess up. In manual mode, it's no slower than CWA, but with CWA you know what it's doing and if it messes up you know it's going to mess up and you know how to make it right.

On the other hand, in the automatic modes (aperture and shutter priority, program, any others your camera has) your camera is already setting the exposure for you. Let it get the information it wants, and correct it afterwards with the EV comp setting if it's flubbing up.

But shoot manual unless you have some real, overriding reason not to.


3. All that said, you're actually closer to doing it perfectly than you think you are you sound.

With digital, the more exposure something gets without the highlights burning out, the higher the image quality will be in the end. So the best way to shoot is to shoot raw and use some test shots and their histograms to set it to the highest exposure you can without blowing anything out. Then in your raw converter bring it back to the right exposure.

That is, assuming you don't have to boost the ISO/introduce motion blur you don't want to do so.

These articles explain this better than I have:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml
>> else !L6xabslN96
>>241818
cool, thanx for the useful info. i hardly ever shoot in manual to, cuz i usually photograph stuff on the move, out in the field. altho if i master the zone system, ill ought to be quick enough to use manual amirite?

however, i normally use the matrix metering unless a scene has high contrast between highlights and shadows, in which case i shoot with center-weighted so that the subject im pointing at will be correctly exposed.

PS: according to one of the articles, underexposing in RAW is preferable to overexposing. is this correct?
>> Anonymous
>>241830
>altho if i master the zone system, ill ought to be quick enough to use manual amirite?

Zone system isn't really for speed, it's

>PS: according to one of the articles, underexposing in RAW is preferable to overexposing. is this correct?

Overexposing is better if you can do it without blowing highlights. If you are going to blow highlights, it's a subjective call/balance: do you want less noise, better tones, and more DR in the places not blown, or nothing blown, or somewhere inbetween?
>> Anonymous
>>241835
Shoot, didn't elaborate up top.

The zone system isn't for speed, it's just a way of conceptualizing and understanding how exposure and tones in the image relate.
>> ­
>>241835
You can fix an underexposed image later, you can't fix an overexposed image.

Cheaper DSLR's tend to expose for the shadows, which in higher contrast situations always means blown-out highlights. Higher end cameras assume the bad lighting is intentional and preserve the highlights, cheaper cameras will make damn sure you can see the subject.

I tend to lean towards underexposing anyways, since I shoot sports. I set my exposure then turn the shutter speed up a third stop to stop the action a little better. I'll fix it later on in photoshop if it needs it.