How to properly measure light with Olympus E-510 ?

Hi,

I've bought B.Peterson book "Understanding Exposure" but it seems I don't understand something.He advises all the something like that to get proper exposure :

1.Choose your F and point camera in manual mode to the sky, measure light.
2.Dial exposure time(S) until camera tells exposure is right.= (0.0)

3.Point your camera to the object and shoot the picture even if the camera suggest it's under or overexposed.

When I point my camera to the sky and measure light I get some some overexposure so I dial until it shows 0.0 and then I get something like for F 5.6 1/1000s or 1/640s but when I point and shoot my object it completly underexposed.

However when I measure light directly from object and dial to adjust exposure I get good results - so ... ? I'm confused.

although personally I find that because the sky is the easyiest thing to correct in pp (as long as it's not actually blown) using normal ESP (not with +AF) and letting the camera do it's job works well and, importantly, produces consistent results.

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• enjoy your camera equipment -

Many people suggest metering off the brightest point you want to keep in your picture, then stopping down x number of stops (to taste). I've never found a certain number of stops down I feel I can trust, so I'm not a big fan of this method. What I've found is if I have the time to make decisions on metering like that, I have time to chimp and see my histogram and I'll just push that (with exposure compensation) until nothing is clipping (unless it's a really small clipping, light street lights at night), but the histogram still pushes far right. Don't worry too much if areas look a bit too bright on the LCD, the LCDs on most cameras aren't the most accurate when it comes to curves and gamma, so I tend to use them for composition more than exposure checking.

Anyway, the histogram method has been a boon to me with Olympus cameras, and especially in RAW it leads to very nice files to work with.

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Check out the Grimey Studios at http://grimeystudios.net

Photo_owl

I have the E500, can't find anyway to separate the ESP from the AF. Is it possible to have it either way? Thanks
Bob

+1.0 to +1.5 for caucasian skin
-1.0 for dark skin

Or spot meter for the highlights, and place the skintones at those points during PP.

Seems to work pretty well for me.

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Good shooting.

• Adam

Equipment in plan

That option is only available on the E-4/510 and onward.

The E-500 has matrix metering without regard for the AF point.

--
Good shooting.

• Adam

Equipment in plan

Thanks again,
You have been a great help to me in learning about photography and my camera.
Happy New Year to you and yours.

Bob

You're not doing anything wrong as such but if your subject is massively under exposed and the sky is correctly exposed then this is suggestive of back lit or back/side lit situation. If you've taken the shot in the morning, go back in the afternoon (and opposite is also true). and the sun should be more favourable for you.

Depending on how badly under exposed your subject is, you might try to recover in PP (though in my experience, the E-510 gives little room for maneuver here).

With favourable lighting, I get best results from my 510 by:

1. Switching to pattern/matrix metering.

2. Measuring the light for the composition and then under exposing a little if there are bright/white objects in the scene.
3. Composing and taking the shot.

4. Checking for blown highlights and then under exposing and taking the shot again if necessary.

With this approach, even if the lighting is not favourable, then if I must take the shot, I can often find a compromise.

Bright front lit example in favourable light (straight out of the camera):



Note: There are a couple of blown highlights in this scene but I judged this shot to be the best compromise I could get for the time of day.

Because of the white buildings (yes, it's not always the sky or clouds that are the brightest objects in the scene), I had to under expose by 2/3 to avoid blowing these.

Side lit example processed in RAW in not so favourable light (a fair bit of cloud detail recovered in post processing but again, the best compromise shot I could get for the time of day):



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Regards
J



http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason_hindle

Gear in profile

The E-500 can be set to ESP+AF or ESP.

Just hit Menu-> Camera1-> Metering-> ESP(top icon) then up or down arrow to select ESP or ESP+AF.

U.E. is an excellent book. I have read it a couple of times. It is a book you can still be learning from years after first reading it.

The author includes several rules of thumb for good exposure under certain conditions, but you do have to consider the image you are trying to record before applying them.

I don't think he is saying to meter off the sky, then turn around and take photos of scenery that don't include the sky. If I remember right, he is giving a rule for setting exposure when taking photos that include the sun, blue sky and background scenery. The sun is bright, the scenery is dark, and the blue sky is somewhere in-between. So spot metering on the sky gives a balanced exposure between the two extremes. Then recompose for the final shot.

In such a scene, the dynamic range will likely exceed the camera's capability to capture it, resulting in both blown sun and underexposed scenery. But without resorting to more advanced techniques like HDR or graduated neutral density filters, parts if the image may still be under or overexposed. You may then want to apply some exposure compensation so the background is not too underexposed, while still retaining the blue sky.

It really takes a while to fully understand Bryan's book, but you have an excellent starting point.
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BruceMcK
http://www.pbase.com/brucemck

Thank you for helping with that. Do you recommend ESP with or without the AF?
Bob

you have the settings - so now the choice!

I will explain why I choose not to use ESP with AF on E's

Firstly the weighting to the AF point is very agressive - this can lead to completely blown highlights elsewhere in the image

Secondly, and the corollory of the first, if I am only interested in a particular subject element then I woun't be using ESP at all, I will be using spot on that element.

ESP does a great job for what it's designed for.

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• enjoy your camera equipment -

I saw this subject quite some time ago but was never able to find out how to separate the AF from the ESP. Thanks to both of you (photo_owl & robertj).
Bob

I would recommend Spot metering.

Try this link to "A simplified Zone system for making good exposures
by Norman Koren"

http://www.normankoren.com/zonesystem.html

I find ESP or ESP+AF works well with a well balanced scenic with the Sun behind you. Anything else, I use Spot with EV+- to place the subject at the right zone. If I am going to spot meter dark leaves I set the EV to -0.7. If metering white flowers try EV +1.3.

Give the Zone System a try its a good way to good exposure.

Bob Carstens said:

Thank you for helping with that. Do you recommend ESP with or
without the AF?
Bob

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