Exposure Help....

[Steve in bris]

HI

I have a canon 300D and and fairly new to photography. I am a bit confused with the metering/exposure topic. I have done a search and am still a bit lost. Anyway my questions are.

1. When you meter a scene (say a landscape for example) should i use the automatic mode on the camera to see what the camera thinks the correct exposure/fstopshould be then switch to Aperature Value and dial in the results and under or over exposure depending on my diesired finish???

2. Will the metering mode in Aperature value make a difference to the finished photo. ie will Centre or evalutive metering give a differnet result.

Apologies if this is a repeat from previous but i have tried to read about this and am sitting here very confused.........!!!!!!!

Any help that explains it a bit easier would be much appreciated.

Regards

[lostdoggy]

In P mode the camera make the decision on shutter and aperature.
In Av you decide what aperature value and camera will decide shutter
In Tv mode you decide the shutter speed and the camera decide the aperature.
In M mode you decide on both but the scale on the lower right side of the viefinder will guide you to accepable exposure. When the needle reaches the middle harsh mark then the camera thinks it is properly expose.
Center metering is just that it takes the metering from the center of view and evaluative takes the value of the whole viewand gives you the average.

As for landscape I would use Av or M mode because I would like the control the DOV since the subject most like will not move very fast. I would use centerweight to find the region I would like to expose properly and then frame it then shoot. If you are shooting fro a tripod you can bracket the exposure and then merge the image together to extend the Dynamic range.

[kram]

Not answering the question, but would highly recommend reading some book covering the basics. I used Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson - some others come highly recommended on this forum as well.

DSLR the first few weeks can be a challenge - a full day reading can cut your learning time by almost 2-3 weeks :)

[Pete]

Also be aware that the automatic modes (portrait for instance) can change the ISO rating according to conditions as well. I noticed this last night when I was trying to figure out why Portrait mode was happy with a 1/60th shot when the same aperture setting in Av mode wanted a 3" exposure. The automatic mode had chosen 400ISO and my Av is set to 100.

It's a little unfortunate that the camera doesn't tell you what ISO has been selected without you having to ask it explicitly...

[Killie]

Agree with Kram on the book, I also am still in the beginner stage. I bought the book from Amazon (not expensive) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817463003/sr=8-1/qid=1153469748/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3359292-0827354?ie=UTF8 and understood a helluva lot more after reading a few pages than it would trawling the 'net for answers.
Understanding Exposure is a excellent book for beginners.

[evandavies]

Steve, you are asking about 2 different things here...

1) Shooting mode just allows you to take control of f/stop and shutter speed.

P - This is good for general shooting when you don't have time or need to set anything specific. Camera makes a judgment on the settings but allows you to make adjustments.

Tv - You set the shutter speed. If you want to freeze the action of something fast you would can set a high shutter speed.

Av - You set f/stop (aperture). This allows you to control the depth of field (DoF- the distance range that is in focus)

M - You control both shutter speed and f/stop. In this mode you can select "bulb" mode to allow very long exposures where you can open and close the shutter with any time in between.


2) Metering mode. This tells the camera how to judge the lightest and darkest parts of a scene.

Evaluative - Looks at whole scene

Partial - Looks at center area only

Center-weighted averaged - A mix of the two above. Looks mainly at the center but also uses a bit of the whole scene.

As Kram said, getting a good book will help you allot.
Lots of recommendations here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=53846

[poind]

Another thing to keep in mind with metering is that in Evaluative Mode, the camera is allowed to "think."

The camera will supposedly try to detect backlit subjects and whatnot and adjust accordingly while observing the whole scene. Every now and then, the camera might do something unexpected metering-wise because of this. It doesn't do this in the other two modes, and sticks to what it's told to do.

Though at least partly geared towards the XT instead of the 300D, I'd rec going through the free lessons at the following for the original poster:

http://images.photoworkshop.com/rebelxtlessons/interface.html