Lighthouses and a case for manual exposure.

[another view]

Last weekend, I took a road trip to western Michigan, along the lake. Besides needing a couple days away, I hoped to catch a couple of the many lighthouses in the area during rough weather that's common this time of year. Well, that plan didn't work too well except for the first day, but there are plenty of wineries in the area too ;) !

One in particular that I wanted to visit is in Grand Haven and shown below. I got there just as the sun was setting, and had to set up quick to get the first shot. This was of course followd by driving through town like it was Le Mans... Thinking about exposure, I knew I would have to underexpose to get a good silhouette out of the lighthouses and not blow out the sky. Also leaving it dark would saturate the colors. I used a spot meter and measured just to the right of the tower on the right and set it at +1, and got what I wanted.

For the second shot, I did the same measurement for a different reason - I wanted the last light in the sky to have saturated color, but an overall fairly dark scene. Having shot like this before, I knew this would give me what I wanted. Here, keeping that light in the sky was most important and I'd let everything else fall where it did. Both are digital, but I would have shot slide film the same way - I did actually, haven't had the film processed yet though.

Obviously the exposure time was much longer with the second shot, because the light level was so much lower - even both images are a little dark. My point is, don't be afraid to experiment with exposure - there isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer to how you meter a scene, and if you always rely on matrix/auto then you won't know the results are determined.

[Lara]

I don' t know which one I like better Steve! All I know is I want one!!! These are so nice.

[Liz]

Awesome! Absolutely beautiful. Perfect Exposure, composition, lighting.

Both are great. However, I like the first one because of the light around the lighthouse - awesome. And the fact that you can see the people gives it more life, IMO> The colors are perfect, too! Can you tell I like it? ;)

[Chunk]

Wow! Nice work. About the next print exchange...

How was the Lake perch?

[another view]

How was the Lake perch?

Reason #3 for going there! Great, BTW.

[Speed]

Last weekend, I took a road trip to western Michigan, along the lake. Besides needing a couple days away, I hoped to catch a couple of the many lighthouses in the area during rough weather that's common this time of year. Well, that plan didn't work too well except for the first day, but there are plenty of wineries in the area too ;) !

One in particular that I wanted to visit is in Grand Haven and shown below. I got there just as the sun was setting, and had to set up quick to get the first shot. This was of course followd by driving through town like it was Le Mans... Thinking about exposure, I knew I would have to underexpose to get a good silhouette out of the lighthouses and not blow out the sky. Also leaving it dark would saturate the colors. I used a spot meter and measured just to the right of the tower on the right and set it at +1, and got what I wanted.

For the second shot, I did the same measurement for a different reason - I wanted the last light in the sky to have saturated color, but an overall fairly dark scene. Having shot like this before, I knew this would give me what I wanted. Here, keeping that light in the sky was most important and I'd let everything else fall where it did. Both are digital, but I would have shot slide film the same way - I did actually, haven't had the film processed yet though.

Obviously the exposure time was much longer with the second shot, because the light level was so much lower - even both images are a little dark. My point is, don't be afraid to experiment with exposure - there isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer to how you meter a scene, and if you always rely on matrix/auto then you won't know the results are determined.

Great shots Another View! I, for one, am not afraid to play with exposure compensation. My general rule of thumb is to shoot sunsets with a -1.0 exposure comp.

I've been dying to get some sunset-sunrise shots of Cape Lookout. Even planned a camping trip there one weekend, only to have the weather keep us from getting there. I'm not giving up though. I will plan another trip in the spring.

Thanks for sharing these with us.

PS: Maybe your title should have been "The case for exposure compensation". ;-)

[another view]

PS: Maybe your title should have been "The case for exposure compensation". ;-)

Thanks, Speed. I got lucky with the weather - didn't get the big waves that I wanted (people actually surf out here with them!) but had a clear and cold evening.

Exposure compensation is actually a whole different technique. With that, you're taking the basic reading from the camera and underexposing it one stop in your example. It takes experience with the camera to know how the camera's meter will react to the scene, and from there what compensation you want. Thing is, you are never really guaranteed how matrix metering will handle it and if you want a specific result you may or may not get it.

With spot metering in manual mode, you pick the most important part of the shot and decide how you want it to look in the image. It's basically a modified zone system. The advantage is that every time I meter this way, I know how it's going to look. It's repeatable and predictable. Did I bracket? Yes - I don't know how soon I'll get back there, but I was more concerned with bracketing digital than Velvia! I've shot enough Velvia to know that this is what I want, but not enough digital to know what the final print will look like. I might be best at +1.5 and then darken it a little, so I've got some room to experiment.

When you try this (notice I didn't say "if" ;) ), a subject that's the tonality of a grey card would be "0" or the same as the meter reads. For digital and slide film, green grass (like a deep green on a golf course, not my yard) works too. +2 and -2 are the ends, not much more either direction and whites blow out or blacks lose all detail. Other tonalities fall somewhere inbetween, like how I did it above. It's your choice how it looks, not the cameras.

[Chunk]

When you try this (notice I didn't say "if" ;) ), a subject that's the tonality of a grey card would be "0" or the same as the meter reads. For digital and slide film, green grass (like a deep green on a golf course, not my yard) works too. +2 and -2 are the ends, not much more either direction and whites blow out or blacks lose all detail. Other tonalities fall somewhere inbetween, like how I did it above. It's your choice how it looks, not the cameras.

Another handy help is to relate it to the exposure of the back of your hand (similar to your use of grass). You usually have one of those around to calculate exposure with if you can put it in the same light as your subject. Doesn't help me that much when shooting the sky though. Skintone varies a bit from person to person so do a little testing with a gray card.

[Speed]

Thanks, Speed. I got lucky with the weather - didn't get the big waves that I wanted (people actually surf out here with them!) but had a clear and cold evening.

Exposure compensation is actually a whole different technique. With that, you're taking the basic reading from the camera and underexposing it one stop in your example. It takes experience with the camera to know how the camera's meter will react to the scene, and from there what compensation you want. Thing is, you are never really guaranteed how matrix metering will handle it and if you want a specific result you may or may not get it.

With spot metering in manual mode, you pick the most important part of the shot and decide how you want it to look in the image. It's basically a modified zone system. The advantage is that every time I meter this way, I know how it's going to look. It's repeatable and predictable. Did I bracket? Yes - I don't know how soon I'll get back there, but I was more concerned with bracketing digital than Velvia! I've shot enough Velvia to know that this is what I want, but not enough digital to know what the final print will look like. I might be best at +1.5 and then darken it a little, so I've got some room to experiment.

When you try this (notice I didn't say "if" ;) ), a subject that's the tonality of a grey card would be "0" or the same as the meter reads. For digital and slide film, green grass (like a deep green on a golf course, not my yard) works too. +2 and -2 are the ends, not much more either direction and whites blow out or blacks lose all detail. Other tonalities fall somewhere inbetween, like how I did it above. It's your choice how it looks, not the cameras.

I caught that you spot metered it - I missed that you used manual mode! DOH!

Like you, I am a believer in bracketting. Expecially when you've got a great subject in great light. Absolutely when you don't know if or when you'll get back there.

I must say, my N80 has spoiled me. The meter is right on, and while it has been fooled from time to time, those were instances in which I should have picked up on the lighting and made adjustments. (Shooting aircraft during an airshow with overcast skies being a great example - Been There, Done That!)

I agree with you that the photographer should be in total control of the photographic process. And one of the things I like about photography is that there isn't just "One Way" to do things. Egads, think of how boring THAT would be!

Do share those Velvia slides with us when you get them back! And congrats on passing the 1200 mark.

[Speed]

Another handy help is to relate it to the exposure of the back of your hand (similar to your use of grass). You usually have one of those around to calculate exposure with if you can put it in the same light as your subject. Doesn't help me that much when shooting the sky though. Skintone varies a bit from person to person so do a little testing with a gray card.

Curious. I've never heard of that one. I have heard that the palm of your hand is about +1.0 over middletone. And that is suppose to be fairly accurate for everyone. But I would definitely test it first! With my luck, my palm would be "off" by half a stop! :-O

[walterick]

to say that I meter incident light almost exclusively off the palm of my hand. My Nikon 8008s has a very sensitive meter and I know from grey card metering that the palm of my hand (I use the palm rather than the back of my hand as the back gets tanner in the summer) is exactly 1 2/3 stops over 18% grey. So when out shooting under changing light I'm always "taking pictures of my hand" as my family calls it to determine proper exposure. Of course, that has nothing to do with sunsets But it does help you to get perfect results over and over again with variable aperatures or changing light.

I can't figure this out with my FM2n because the viewfinder doesn't give me 1/3 stop increments just + and - diodes so I need to figure it out there. But with the 8008s I'm aces

Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

Rick

[Speed]

to say that I meter incident light almost exclusively off the palm of my hand. My Nikon 8008s has a very sensitive meter and I know from grey card metering that the palm of my hand (I use the palm rather than the back of my hand as the back gets tanner in the summer) is exactly 1 2/3 stops over 18% grey. So when out shooting under changing light I'm always "taking pictures of my hand" as my family calls it to determine proper exposure. Of course, that has nothing to do with sunsets But it does help you to get perfect results over and over again with variable aperatures or changing light.

I can't figure this out with my FM2n because the viewfinder doesn't give me 1/3 stop increments just + and - diodes so I need to figure it out there. But with the 8008s I'm aces

Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

Rick

That what I read was right...or at least in the ballpark!

(Pats himself on the back for being well read)

;-)

[Old Timer]

Wonderful images. Thanks for sharing along with your great explanation of procedure. I wish more new age photographers would learn to use their equipment the way you have. So many today rely on auto and program modes that they just don't know what their equipment is capable of.

[another view]

Thanks, OT. For me, I started working this way with slide film and putting trust into my own hands versus the camera's brain was a big leap of faith. But it was worth it - takes practice, but once you get used to it you can handle any situation (not to say that I'm perfect by any means! ;) ).

Rick, I'm a little confused - an incident meter is a separate hand-held meter that measures the amount of light falling on a subject. The meter in a camera (or separate spot meter) is a reflected light meter which measures the amount of light that is reflected off of a subject. If you're measuring your palm with the meter in your camera, you're actually measuring reflected light and for that reason need to compensate your reading (1-2/3 stop).

With an incident meter, you're measuring the amount of light that falls onto a subject. It doesn't matter if the subject is black, white, pink or green - the amount of light that falls on it doesn't change (assuming for the example...). With reflected light, the same amount of light falling on a subject reflects a very different amount of light if the subject is black or white or somewhere inbetween. Your compensation is based on how different the subject is from 18% grey. BTW, 8008s has a spot meter...!

[walterick]

You're right! Thanks for calling me out.

I was using the term "incident" to describe the kind of light falling on a scene from above during normal daylight hours - in contrast to the sunset light we were talking about in the post. I used the term "incident" to describe the light itself - perhaps I did so improperly. And you are exactly correct, the internal meter of a camera measures reflected light (in case any newbies are reading this and getting a little confused )

And I also should have thrown in that I use the spotmeter on the 8008s to meter my palm. The meter is not functional in low light, so at times I switch to center-weighted to get any reading out of her at all..
Hope I cleared that all up

I'll also say now that I am a huge fan of manual exposure in general and - well - manual everything in general whether it's manual winding, manual exposure or manual focus. I use my digi p&s in auto-everything because with it I am usually shooting "five-second situations" where the subject sits still for only a second or two (pets, kids, etc) And at that, the digi takes a good 3 seconds to get out, turn on and fire up. But beyond that, my portraiture, landscapes, and macro work gets the old palm metering trick In your situation, I would have done something very similar. Instead of metering close to the sun and adding +1 ev I probably would have metered off the "bluest" part of the sky I could and bracketed around that. But I appreciate your technique and given your time frame, I say kudos!

That's all just the long-winded way of saying that I appreciate the work you did on these shots.

Good work. You got what you wanted, that's what matters!

Rick

[Chunk]

Curious. I've never heard of that one. I have heard that the palm of your hand is about +1.0 over middletone. And that is suppose to be fairly accurate for everyone. But I would definitely test it first! With my luck, my palm would be "off" by half a stop! :-O

Your palm might be more likely to have jellydoughnut on it and screw up the exposure. Of course you could test for that exposure as well, just don't change brand of doughnut.

[CaSousa]

Wow, you guys got my head spinning with all of the metering talk (I still have to think through the process and make sure adjusting the exposure according). When I think back on the days when I didn't know how to spot meter and ended up with under and over exposed sunsets and silhouettes, i'm lucky I ended up with any good shots at all!

I absolutely love both of those shots, however, the second one definitely makes me stare longer. I think it's the continuity of the pier lights reflecting all the way down to the lighthouse that does it for me (makes me think of night sailing). I can't wait to see how the velvia came out!

Great job!

-Chris

[walterick]

Forgot to add that in bright sun I shoot at f8 1/125 on Velva 50 all day and love the reults - no metering -

[photo101]

I like both, but the colors in # 2 draw me to it more i think. GJ

[natatbeach]

These are nothing short of amazing....wow.

As they say watch out for the quiet ones... ;)

[another view]

As they say watch out for the quiet ones... ;)

1200+ posts and I'm the quiet one?! Thanks, Natalie.