. . . I don't even need to run these through photoshop histograms to tell that the Canon metered a darker exposure. It is visible. Look at the area under the tees up from, look at the tree in the top right, look athtesigns on the building in the shade. It is darker.
But look at the histogram also if you want proof . . there is a lot more data in the middle and high regions in the Olympus shot, while most of the data is scrunched in the lows in the Canon shot.
Better yet, look at the exif. This is the clear proof.
G7-
1/800
f/4
ISO 80
E510
1/125
f/7.1
ISO 100
The Canon G7 is metering about a one and a quarter to one and a half darker exposure. That is the difference between a blown out sky and a sky that is faintly blue like the Canon sky.
The shutter speed is 2 3/4 stops darker, the aperture is about 1 2/3 stops brighter, but the base ISO is about a half stop slower. This is just a case of need to learn how to use the cameras.
If we adjust the G7 to the same aperture and ISO we can see the difference in shutter speed.
adjsuted
G7 --
ISO 100 (1/3 stop, really about 40% a stop but we can fudge)
aperture f/7.1 (-1 2/3 stops . . .2/3 accounts for the bump in ISO and 1 1/3 to bring it to where the E510 was at)
To maitain the exposure value selected by the g7
Shutter speed should now be 1/320 sec now
SO
ISO 100
f/7.1
1/320
The E510 shot at 1/125!!! That is about 1 1/3 stops more light coming in!!
:-o
I could commend the G7 for protecting the highlights up top .. . but then it is easy because the camera probably defaults to flash mode anytime the lights go down.
The moral is this.
Every now and then photographers need to meter for themselves in some tricky situations. This involves a little knowledge of how metering works.
The first thing you need to know is that (without compensation) a light meter will always tell the camera to expose what you are pointing it at as a middle gray. Hence why photographers use gray cards from time to time, so they know what middle gray should be. But the problem with this is that you might not want something to be middle gray, even if it is. A good example of this would be protecting some really bright clouds in harsh cross lighting . . . you might want to meter a darker exposure than normal and push it up later in the (digital) darkroom.
Take the shot above. The camera has metered the middle area of the buildings to the middle point. This would be an issue if you want the sky, which is probably several stops brighter than what the camera is metering for, to be exposed. There are several ways around this. One you could dial in crazy EV comps when you are using matrix metering .. . knowing how far to go comes from experience and sometimes fine tuning an individual shot. The other way would be to meter the sky . . .maybe point the camera higher than it is to catch more sky, or to switch to spot metering and point directly at the sky, and then adjust exposure down about a half stop (because the clear blue sky should be a "little" brighter than a middle gray) and use the AEL button to make sure the camera doesn't change exposure when you recompose.
Remember the t-shirt shot? Well that was a shot that called for some spot metering and some knowledge of how it works. I would meter off the t-shirt . . .decide where you want it to fall in the "zones" and then adjust from there.
The other piece of advice I can give is to shoot in Manual mode in tricky situations where action isn't happening. It gives you more control over what is happening to shutter speed and aperture.
And as another poster had suggested . . . this isn't just about finding out about the E510 meter . . . but finding out about metering in general .. . which is almost as much intuition as it is science.
Best of luck.
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Comments are always welcome.
Zach Bellino
'Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.”
-- from 'I Remember, I Remember'
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
