Manual Exposure with 300D??

Is there a good explanation somewhere on how to successfully manually expose with the 300D? Just came from a seminar where this was mentioned, but I'm still not sure I understand it all. Is there a good web site that treats this issue somewhere?
Thanks
BobT

BobT said:

Is there a good explanation somewhere on how to successfully
manually expose with the 300D?

Click to expand...

No, because there is no single technique that works reliably. If there was, Canon would have programmed it into the camera and you wouldn't need M mode.

M mode is all about personal judgment. It's about understanding the light and the scene and the equipment, and judging how things need to be set to get the results that you desire.

There are many different paths to that goal. You can use personal experience. You can use guidelines like Sunny-16. You can measure incident light with an incident light meter. You can measure full-scene reflected light with a reflected light meter or with center-weighted average metering in your camera. You can measure light reflected from selected parts of the scene with a spot meter or with partial metering in your camera. You can use a gray card to provide a known reference for partial-scene metering. If you go the partial/spot route, you can choose to measure only a single spot or multiple spots.

Whatever you measure, you then have to apply personal judgment to determine what compensations need to be applied. You might choose to use some variation of the Zone System to help with this. Or you might use a different approach.

And all of the above is not even considering flash exposures. Flash adds a whole new dimension of complexity.

There is no one route to success with M mode. Heck, unless you're in a studio where you are in complete control of the lighting, there is no path to guaranteed success at all.

Manual exposure is "the final frontier" of photographic skills. It opens up many possibilities... many of which are possibilities for screwing up and some of which are possibilities for achieving pictures that no mere machine could have computed.

Manual exposure is the human mind and judgment at work; it's not a mechanical process.

there's no exact way of doing it... but what I do is I use the P, Aperture Priority, or Shutter Priority first. If I dont like what I see on the LCD, I adjust it using the M mode.

That said, if you want to pursue manual exposure then you need to start at the beginning. Many of the forum members highly recommend Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Exposure." I haven't read it myself, so I can't say.

But understand that you won't "learn it all" from that book. Nobody knows it all, no matter how many years they've been shooting with manual exposure and how much they've learned. It's something that you'll keep learning (often the hard way) until the day you quit taking pictures with manual exposure.

I usually use aperture or shutter priority and use exposure compensation to adjust for unusual situations. Aperture control is most useful for landscapes where I want to control depth of field and will be using a tripod. Shutter priority is most useful for action or for handheld photography where I need to know what the shutter speed is. I use manual mainly for studio flash, where I want complete control.

Jim
http://www.pbase.com/jcassatt

Turn the top dial to M. Then (as it says here http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos300d/page6.asp ) "Turn the main dial to change shutter speed, hold the exposure compensation button while turning the main dial to change aperture. Half-press the shutter release and the meter on the viewfinder status bar and LCD panel will reflect the exposure level compared to the calculated ideal exposure, if it's outside of + - 2EV the indicator bar will blink either + or -. AF mode is locked to AI Focus, Metering is Center Weighted Average unless you press AE Lock when it switches to Partial."

Of course you can ignore the internal meter and either estimate the exposure (e.g. Sunny f/16 rule) or handheld meter.

What else do you want to know?

--
Erik

... I find it a very simple way of getting the shots you want.

On the 300D, I always have at least some idea of what settings I'm going to need to get the shot ... as in, if the subject is moving I'm gonna need a faster shutter, or if I know I want a narrow DOF then I know I'm gonna need a wider aperture and this will mean a faster shutter also depending on the lighting.

I just dial in the shutter and aperture I want and the meter still gives me an indication of the exposure. Its no more or less accurate than in any of the other modes.

I find manual shooting gives me a high rate of keepers because I KNOW what settings are going to be used and the camera won't be fooled into using some innapropriate settings because some silly light in the corner of the room confused it, or the white shirt on a dark afternoon tricks the camera into thinking its midday ... or something similar.

For me, I always know what sort of shot I'm after so I know what settings I'm gonna need.

Mred32
--

For most PC troubleshooting, a .22 will do the job.

Manual shooting is not a limiting factor. I believe it relieves you of the camera's programing limitations.













Mred32
--

For most PC troubleshooting, a .22 will do the job.

Great range of shots, Mred! These should be in a textbook somewhere on how to do 'manual' exposure!

Cheers,
S.
--

• How deep does the Rabbit Hole go? *

Free the Images

as mentioned, you have to use your eye and your mind to know what you want from an image -- you also have to have an understanding of ISO, aperture/DOF and shutter speed

I use M quite a bit if I am shooting when the lighting doesnt change and/or the model doesn't move --- theatre with fixed lighting is one example



also, in tricky situations when the camera just can't get it right, I use M or I use Av/Tv/P with the * button for selective/partial exposure

if things need to be quick and lighting might change, M is only really an option for the very quick, otherwise things can go awfully wrong, as I have learnt ... but the more you use M the more it becomes 2nd nature to compensate for changing conditions, neverthess, you can never be as quick as the camera!

one thing M does offer is consistancy. when shooting in other modes it is easy for the camera to change the exposure if you point at a slighty lighter/darker area -- with M is stays fixed, so all your shots have exactly the same exposure, which can be useful if you have the exposure right!

another thing I use M for is flash photography: I tend to expose for the highlights (bright sky for example, ie. make sure it is "correctly" exposed) and then use the flash to fill the shadows

one more thing, is night photography and long exposures: here M is a must

I still havent answered you question, and so really you need to try it out.

go to M and fill some CF cards with experiments, learn to use the trio of variables: ISO, aperture and shutterspeed, as well as working out metering (the * is a great help)

if you want to get into technicalities, ansel adams is a great place to start, as his ZONE system is useful in understanding how to see light and place it on film (obviously we have to appy this to digital, and there are differences, but a sound grounding nevertheless)
--
AJ

http://www.pbase.com/manjade

The possibility of a higher rate of "keepers" is very appealing to me. Even though digital, where you can take a ton of shots at no real charge to your wallet, it's the principle of the thing. So I think I'll take the advice of reading Peterson's book, and go out and get my feet wet in shooting in this way.

Thanks for all comments. You won me over. Now it's time to see if I can learn it.
Thanks all.
BobT

BobT said:

Is there a good explanation somewhere on how to successfully
manually expose with the 300D?

Click to expand...

Exposure is always a guess. Manual simply means you are making the guess instead of the camera. One advantage of digital is the histogram. Where with film you couldn't determine if your guess worked out to your liking until the film as developed (therefore you bracketed and guaranteed you'd waste 2/3 of the shots). With digital you can review the histogram a second or two after your shot and see if the histogram matches your expectations.

There are two ways to see the histogram:

You can turn it on during review. Adjust the "Review" setting in the review/playback menu (right arrow icon), and maybe adjust the review time when you are there too.

You can view it during playback. Get into playback mode (right arrow button), then press the info button.

--
Seen in a fortune cookie:
Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed

For those of us here old enough to have learned serious photography in the 70s and 80s (I began shooting in the mid'80s), there was no other way but to do it the all-manual way. The first SLR I used was a fully mechanical, all manual Yashica. Later I got to used the Nikon FM2. Unless you understand how to manually tweak aperture and shutter speed, you really won't get correctly exposed shots.

And I still think that for one to really get a good grasp of how to maximize use of the aperture and shutter speed, and to get correctly exposed shots most of the time, learning to shoot in manual mode would be best. When it becomes second nature, then maybe it's time to use aperture or shutter priority. I still almost don't use program mode to this day, coz it means totally surrending yourself to the camera. I use aperture prio most of the time now. But when the shooting gets tough, or when the camera's meter is fooled, I shift to manual.

BobT said:

Is there a good explanation somewhere on how to successfully
manually expose with the 300D? Just came from a seminar where this
was mentioned, but I'm still not sure I understand it all. Is
there a good web site that treats this issue somewhere?
Thanks
BobT

Click to expand...

--
BOBBY TIMONERA, Iligan City, Philippines
http://www.pbase.com/timonera / http://www.photos.ph/timonera

nickleback said:

Exposure is always a guess. Manual simply means you are making the
guess instead of the camera. One advantage of digital is the
histogram. Where with film you couldn't determine if your guess
worked out to your liking until the film as developed (therefore
you bracketed and guaranteed you'd waste 2/3 of the shots). With
digital you can review the histogram a second or two after your
shot and see if the histogram matches your expectations.

Click to expand...

The problem is that histograms in current cameras (at least ones that have "Rebel" in their names) are inaccurate for two reasons:

1. They are based on the JPEG and not on the RAW. If you shoot RAW, there is a very good chance that the histogram you see does not reflect the actual levels that are in the RAW file.

2. They aren't RGB. The histogram in our cameras is either based on a single channel, or based on the average luminance of all three channels (I forget which.) Which means that is is possible for a single channel to be blown while the histogram looks all nice and happy.

For these reasons, I still bracket everything I can and waste 2/3 of my shots. Good thing that the price of flash memory and hard drives keeps dropping. (Speaking of which, Staples is selling 300 gig IDE drives this week for (USD) $99.94, after rebate.)

Wayne

but they do give you a good idea of what is going on, even when shooting raw, esp. if you keep your contrast setting at its lowest value

I have mine on all the time (ie. on preview) as it helps me see if the shot is OK or not (esp. the flashing highlights, which if minimal are not a problem with raw, but means death-255 in JPEG), and lets me see/guess how much more/less I can push the exposure

for example just yesterday I could see with a shot that the hist. was bunching to the left too much for the scene, so I knew I could either have to increase the exp. comp. or meter off something darker

when I am shooting M in the theatre, I often ignore the exposure meter completely, and rely on common sense and the histogram (probably more of the latter than the former!)
--
AJ

http://www.pbase.com/manjade