Lucinda: Before and After Multi-Spot

[geisman]

Here are the before and after shots you wanted. I don't have an exact before, but this is the closest, using ESP metering:



And here is the basically the same shot using multi-spot, with four readings: rocks to the near bottom left, rocks to the near bottom right, tree near center, and the sky. (I give more details in the orignal thread at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=9112782 )



Marc
8080
http://www.pbase.com/geisler/first_8080_shots

 

[Indyong]

Very nice,

I am still confused by the multi-metering. Would shooting with bracket of +-0.3EV X 5 or +-0.7EV X 5 or even +-1EVX5 give you a better chance to get a good expoure in harsh high contrast condition, since mulitmetering actually caculates average from multply spots. My question is: will multimetering gives you more procision than +-0.3 ev compensation in a row? In your case, if you dial EV down, you should be able to get same result (??)

I use iESP all the time, normally, I meter on mid tone then take three 0.3 ev bracket, and to backup i meter the area close to highlights (if I want to preserve details in highlights) to take another three 0.3 bracket.

Thanks

Indyong
http://www.pbase.com/indyong

Here are the before and after shots you wanted. I don't have an
exact before, but this is the closest, using ESP metering:



And here is the basically the same shot using multi-spot, with four
readings: rocks to the near bottom left, rocks to the near bottom
right, tree near center, and the sky. (I give more details in the
orignal thread at
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=9112782 )



Marc
8080
http://www.pbase.com/geisler/first_8080_shots

--
Sincerely,

Indyong
http://www.pbase.com/indyong
Olympus C5060WZ

 

[Lucy]

.....excellent show and tell demonstration, Marc!
--
Lucy
UZI owner!
Olympus C3020Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
FCAS Member #98
'Photography is the art of seeing what others do not.'

 

[Lucinda]

That helps. I have tried it a few times in our backyard but always end up with either the dark object looking good or the sky looking good. Do you remember how many spots you used in this picture? It sure turned out great.

Thanks for taking the time to post it.

--
Lucinda
8080 & Metz 54
http://lucinda.smugmug.com

 

[geisman]

Thank you for the question and your own technique. I'm probably not the best person to answer, because I'm so new to this. Do you know of a good online tutorial for bracketing that would help me understand what you are doing? Because I've never tried bracketing, I don't know how it would compare to what I did with multi-metering.

What happened in this case was that while using the direct histogram as my guide I tried lowering Exposure Compesation (no brackets), but it didn't really help because when the rocks didn't blow out, the rest of the picture was too dark. So, I decided it was a good time to use multi-metering, following the tutorial by Steve given on this forum. It helped me a lot, because I wanted to rocks to have more detail and still have a rich sky.

But it seems from what you are saying that I should learn how to bracket as well. Any pointers or a tutorial would be great and very much appreciated!

geisman
8080

I am still confused by the multi-metering. Would shooting with
bracket of +-0.3EV X 5 or +-0.7EV X 5 or even +-1EVX5 give you a
better chance to get a good expoure in harsh high contrast
condition, since mulitmetering actually caculates average from
multply spots. My question is: will multimetering gives you more
procision than +-0.3 ev compensation in a row? In your case, if you
dial EV down, you should be able to get same result (??)

I use iESP all the time, normally, I meter on mid tone then take
three 0.3 ev bracket, and to backup i meter the area close to
highlights (if I want to preserve details in highlights) to take
another three 0.3 bracket.

Thanks

Indyong
http://www.pbase.com/indyong

Here are the before and after shots you wanted. I don't have an
exact before, but this is the closest, using ESP metering:



And here is the basically the same shot using multi-spot, with four
readings: rocks to the near bottom left, rocks to the near bottom
right, tree near center, and the sky. (I give more details in the
orignal thread at
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=9112782 )



Marc
8080
http://www.pbase.com/geisler/first_8080_shots

--
Sincerely,

Indyong
http://www.pbase.com/indyong
Olympus C5060WZ

 

[geisman]

1) very light rocks to the near bottom left; 2) darker rocks to the near bottom right; 3) tree near center; and 4) the sky. (I give more details in the orignal thread at http://forums.dpreview.com/ ... ... read.asp?forum=1008&message=9112782).

Hope this helps. I'm going to try and learn about brackets next!

That helps. I have tried it a few times in our backyard but always
end up with either the dark object looking good or the sky looking
good. Do you remember how many spots you used in this picture? It
sure turned out great.

Thanks for taking the time to post it.

--
Lucinda
8080 & Metz 54
http://lucinda.smugmug.com

 

[Henry Falkner]

Thank you for the question and your own technique. I'm probably
not the best person to answer, because I'm so new to this. Do you
know of a good online tutorial for bracketing that would help me
understand what you are doing? Because I've never tried
bracketing, I don't know how it would compare to what I did with
multi-metering.

Can I come in on that one? 'Bracketing' means, you shoot at a deliberately high exposure, then at a deliberately low exposure, look at the results and estimate the 'correct' exposure between the two.

An alternative technique is 'stepping' - you take a series of exposures with small incrases (or decreases) in exposure between them.

These techniques work well under 'controlled' conditions - daylight without a cloud in sight, studio and other indoor situations.

The metering methods offered in current digital cameras are intended to help in situations where the light varies from one shot to another.

'Spot' metering looks at the light in the center of an image - my C-750 lets you set the area that is used for that. It works for some. It presumes that the 'spot' the camera looks at has medium brightness - the 'spot' is not jet black or glaringly white.

iESP looks at several 'spots' in the image area, then calculates what the medium brightness is, and may also take into consideration that the center is more important than the corners.

In the case of your tree and rocks, the tree has medium brightness and dark areas, so it is possible to get overexposure with regards to the rocks. But moving slightly off that tree, you have generally medium brightness. Aiming at that may cause slightly less exposure, therefore brings out the detail in the rock, without you having touched a button.

I trained between 1964 and 1967 with sheet film and 35mm film cameras, and exposure meters. This makes it easier for me to grasp what today's camera's are doing. What they now do for you, I had to do for myself in those days. - Then you could not blame the camera for focussing and metering too slowly. In studio situations, you were expected to get exposure and focussing 'right'. With candid situations you relied on the film having enough 'latitude' (generally +- 2 f stops) to let you do a satisfactory print.

I prefer today's digital cameras and processing on the computer. Then I lived like a mole in a dark room, which I don't have to do now.

Henry

--
H. Falkner

 

[geisman]

Thank you Henry for your very informative response. I starting to understand all the options better. I've gone back to the manual and found BKT (Auto Bracketing), which is accessed in the sequential shooting modes part of the menu system. Now, I understand a little better all the + and - signs in the previous post!

Still, in this shot it didn't work for me to turn down the exposure compensation, or to meter from a different spot in ESP (I did try moving it around), but perhaps I just didn't find the right spot! From reading the manual again, I guess I could have found a medium brightness spot, as you suggest, then used AEL to lock, then recomposed to include more of the sky, as it suggests in the manual when explaining AEL. I'll try this method in similar cirumstances next time and compare it to using multispot.

geisman
8080

Thank you for the question and your own technique. I'm probably
not the best person to answer, because I'm so new to this. Do you
know of a good online tutorial for bracketing that would help me
understand what you are doing? Because I've never tried
bracketing, I don't know how it would compare to what I did with
multi-metering.

Can I come in on that one? 'Bracketing' means, you shoot at a
deliberately high exposure, then at a deliberately low exposure,
look at the results and estimate the 'correct' exposure between the
two.

An alternative technique is 'stepping' - you take a series of
exposures with small incrases (or decreases) in exposure between
them.

These techniques work well under 'controlled' conditions - daylight
without a cloud in sight, studio and other indoor situations.

The metering methods offered in current digital cameras are
intended to help in situations where the light varies from one shot
to another.

'Spot' metering looks at the light in the center of an image - my
C-750 lets you set the area that is used for that. It works for
some. It presumes that the 'spot' the camera looks at has medium
brightness - the 'spot' is not jet black or glaringly white.

iESP looks at several 'spots' in the image area, then calculates
what the medium brightness is, and may also take into consideration
that the center is more important than the corners.

In the case of your tree and rocks, the tree has medium brightness
and dark areas, so it is possible to get overexposure with regards
to the rocks. But moving slightly off that tree, you have generally
medium brightness. Aiming at that may cause slightly less exposure,
therefore brings out the detail in the rock, without you having
touched a button.

I trained between 1964 and 1967 with sheet film and 35mm film
cameras, and exposure meters. This makes it easier for me to grasp
what today's camera's are doing. What they now do for you, I had to
do for myself in those days. - Then you could not blame the camera
for focussing and metering too slowly. In studio situations, you
were expected to get exposure and focussing 'right'. With candid
situations you relied on the film having enough 'latitude'
(generally +- 2 f stops) to let you do a satisfactory print.

I prefer today's digital cameras and processing on the computer.
Then I lived like a mole in a dark room, which I don't have to do
now.

Henry

--
H. Falkner

 

[geisman]

Very nice,

I am still confused by the multi-metering. Would shooting with
bracket of +-0.3EV X 5 or +-0.7EV X 5 or even +-1EVX5 give you a
better chance to get a good expoure in harsh high contrast
condition, since mulitmetering actually caculates average from
multply spots.

As I've just reread the manual on this, it's interesting to note that it suggests that muti-metering is "useful" for high contrast conditions: p. 81:

Multi-metering (5MULTI)
Meters the brightness of the subject at up to 8 different
points to set the optimal exposure based on the
average brightness. This method is useful with a high
contrast subject.

 

[Wayne N.]

Thanks for your info. Some silly questions for ya!

Using Geisman's photo as an example, if you got an exposure lock using either spot metering or iESP metering, and then took a sucession of photos, either increasing or decreasing the exposure as required, would you at some point get pretty much exactly the same exposure as in Geisman's multi-spot exposure image?

I guess what I'm asking is, exposure is exposure, and you can get to the "right" one via different methods, right?

Or another way of putting it, multi-spot exposure doesn't offer up some magical exposure that can't be attained via spot/iESP and bracketing, right?

I hope you have as much fun answering as I had asking Lol!

Regards,
Wayne
http://www.pbase.com/wayne_n
(critiques always welcome!)

 

[Jim Eakin]

It seems to me that bracketing is a trial and error solution, while the multi-metering offers the ability to get it right the first time (that's the plan, anyway). The results of the two shots shows that multi-metering was the correct way to go in that situation.

 

[Indyong]

Thanks, Henry,

It is a very informative post. I understand better now when to use ESP and multimetering. I also found you can even do bracketing along with multimetering, which probably gives you better chance to get better exposure.

I am still confused about the precision of exposure (please forgive me, I am new to both digicam and photography). Can multimetering give you preciser exposure by averaging multi spots, let's say between shutter speed 1/30 and 1/40 with fixed aperture. Even though you have very precise average value, the camera still has to chose either, let's say, 1/30s or 1/40s. I guess what I am trying to say is multimetering give you better chance to guess middle gray in the first place, but still the precision could not be lower than 1 EV, right? I guess combination of bracketing and multimetering will give you precise exposure???

I guess AEL is more like spot metering, once you press AEL, it lock the exposure of the center of view finder, which defeat the whole purpose of the intelligence in ESP, multimetering...unless you are pretty sure where is middle gray, in that case you probably want to use spot metering anyway.

I used to use AEL a lot. I found it maybe better to guess middle gray and when aim to the area a little bit brighter then do bracketing. After reading you guys shooting experience, seems to me there do have conditions like in studio, multimetering is prefered. Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

Thank you for the question and your own technique. I'm probably
not the best person to answer, because I'm so new to this. Do you
know of a good online tutorial for bracketing that would help me
understand what you are doing? Because I've never tried
bracketing, I don't know how it would compare to what I did with
multi-metering.

Can I come in on that one? 'Bracketing' means, you shoot at a
deliberately high exposure, then at a deliberately low exposure,
look at the results and estimate the 'correct' exposure between the
two.

An alternative technique is 'stepping' - you take a series of
exposures with small incrases (or decreases) in exposure between
them.

These techniques work well under 'controlled' conditions - daylight
without a cloud in sight, studio and other indoor situations.

The metering methods offered in current digital cameras are
intended to help in situations where the light varies from one shot
to another.

'Spot' metering looks at the light in the center of an image - my
C-750 lets you set the area that is used for that. It works for
some. It presumes that the 'spot' the camera looks at has medium
brightness - the 'spot' is not jet black or glaringly white.

iESP looks at several 'spots' in the image area, then calculates
what the medium brightness is, and may also take into consideration
that the center is more important than the corners.

In the case of your tree and rocks, the tree has medium brightness
and dark areas, so it is possible to get overexposure with regards
to the rocks. But moving slightly off that tree, you have generally
medium brightness. Aiming at that may cause slightly less exposure,
therefore brings out the detail in the rock, without you having
touched a button.

I trained between 1964 and 1967 with sheet film and 35mm film
cameras, and exposure meters. This makes it easier for me to grasp
what today's camera's are doing. What they now do for you, I had to
do for myself in those days. - Then you could not blame the camera
for focussing and metering too slowly. In studio situations, you
were expected to get exposure and focussing 'right'. With candid
situations you relied on the film having enough 'latitude'
(generally +- 2 f stops) to let you do a satisfactory print.

I prefer today's digital cameras and processing on the computer.
Then I lived like a mole in a dark room, which I don't have to do
now.

Henry

--
H. Falkner

--
Sincerely,

Indyong
http://www.pbase.com/indyong
Olympus C5060WZ

 

[Claes]

I think that it would have been enough to spot meter once
on those rocks. They are grey, and that is what the exposure
meter is referencing against. So, the rocks are in the sun, and
so are the trees, measure the rocks and the rest comes out fine
if the contrast is not too high. If you have lots of bright spots in the
pic, you might want to underexpose and compensate afterwards.
I use that technique, to spot meter at a "grey" area a lot with
my old film camera, and that works really well.

I think that as an addition, your ESP tries to interpret the pic.
So, it will recognise something bright at the top of the frame as sky
and so on. So in some situations it is really hard to know what the
exposure will be. When I have time, I always spot meter, that
is how I know what comes out of the camera in the end.
As someone said before though, this requires you to understand
how the camera meters the light in the frame.

Here are the before and after shots you wanted. I don't have an
exact before, but this is the closest, using ESP metering:



And here is the basically the same shot using multi-spot, with four
readings: rocks to the near bottom left, rocks to the near bottom
right, tree near center, and the sky. (I give more details in the
orignal thread at
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=9112782 )



Marc
8080
http://www.pbase.com/geisler/first_8080_shots

 

[Snowman9000]

Thanks for your info. Some silly questions for ya!

Not silly, very good questions....

Using Geisman's photo as an example, if you got an exposure lock
using either spot metering or iESP metering, and then took a
sucession of photos, either increasing or decreasing the exposure
as required, would you at some point get pretty much exactly the
same exposure as in Geisman's multi-spot exposure image?

Yes.

I guess what I'm asking is, exposure is exposure, and you can get
to the "right" one via different methods, right?

Yes.

Or another way of putting it, multi-spot exposure doesn't offer up
some magical exposure that can't be attained via spot/iESP and
bracketing, right?

Right.

Further in this thread, people have concluded that the m-s used some kind of better metering logic. In fact it is very much a manual process. All it did was average the readings of spots that were selected by Marc. It is another arrow in the quiver. And I think it would take some learning to know when to use it and which spots to select. Auto-bracketing would be the simplest way to be sure to get the best possible exposure.

And, there are scenes too high in contrast where you simply cannot get the highlights and shadow details all in one exposure. Then you have to use post processing to bring out the shadows or merge multiple images.

Good thread.

-Don

 

[Snowman9000]

Further in this thread, people have concluded that the m-s used
some kind of better metering logic. In fact it is very much a
manual process. All it did was average the readings of spots that
were selected by Marc.

Upon reflection, it could be more sophisticated than a simple averaging. They could use the readings to set metering so that the sample with the highest EV value doesn't blow out highlights, for example. But I wouldn't bet on it.

-Don

 

[Snowman9000]

This would be a good time for those so inclined to learn how to interpret the histogram. I admit I'm not up to speed on it myself, I've barely started using it. But I see the potential. I think if you auto-bracketed 5 exposures in 1 EV increments, and compared them to their histograms, you'd be getting a good start on seeing what it can tell you. I think the histogram is a better exposure tool than multi-spot metering.

OK, I think I'm done for a while.


-Don

 

[Wayne N.]

You answered my questions, and even answered them the way I wanted them answered! Thanks!

My method is basically to use iESP metering and lock on somewhere not too bright or dark, then take a test shot and review the histogram. If it's way off I'll redo the lock somewhere else. If it's close, I'll then do an exposure compensation and re-do the shot, again reviewing the histogram and repeat until I like the look of the histogram (ps my camera does not have "direct histogram" like the 8080, which would be a great tool).

I've been pretty happy with the results of this method, but if anyone has a better one, feel free to chip in!

Regards,
Wayne
http://www.pbase.com/wayne_n
(critiques always welcome!)