How to meter???

[MrKickalot]

I've been taking pictures of birds in the trees and I am having the problem that I can fix, but only with guess and check using bracketing. When I point the camera to the trees now with no leaves on the trees it uses the sky mostly to meter. This leaves the bird VERY dark. I have played with changing the exposure 1/3 or 2/3 up or down and get good pictures sometimes. Are there any general rules for this!!!

Thanks

Jason

[Vegas Poboy]

What are the settings on your camera?
Focus Points
Metering Mode
Just guessing you may need to go to partial metering & center focus point on the camera. It sounds like you're metering the sky not the bird.
Just a quick guess

[Webster]

Even a spot meter will not be able to meter a bird against the sky. The easiest thing to do is to meter on some large object that is lit the same way the bird is lit, then lock that meter setting using the camera's exposure lock or manual mode. You may still have to bracket in order to avoid having the sky too blown out.

[RichardtheSane]

I usually meter of a slightly shaded bit of the ground nearby, or the runk of the tree that the bird is in - works a treat!

[Cordell]

Webster is correct, but guessing the tonality of one item to another can be difficult for some people. But the idea works very good once you have a handle on tones by experimenting.

Another thing you can do is spot meter the bird against the sky even with the 10D (if that is what you are using) even though it does not have spot metering. Any camera can be tricked into spot metering if it does not have a spot meter.

One very simple trick is to use a telephoto lens, or zoom all the way in if you are using a zoom lens, to place the view of the bird in lens eliminating most or all of the sky. Get a reading and remember this reading! Of course birds may not stay put for long, but you now know the reading in this particular lighting. Use whatever lens you want and set the camera to manual using the settings you recorded for the bird. You now have a reasonable idea of what settings to use. Adjust it accordingly to insure things are metered that are important to you for the particular shot.

The above is using knowledge. Not all of the auto settings on todays cameras.

[Malaxos1]

I used to just point my camera, focus and then shoot. This technique made photoshop work a must. Usually I had to add a lot of contrast to the photos to liven them up. I read once that digital cameras cause the photos to come out a little gray right out of the camera. What I found out is that it's simply not true, not unless you understand how to meter. All in camera metering systems are calibrated to 18% gray. In other words what you point your camera at will be rendered gray by the camera's meter. For instance you may have taken a photo of snow and found it be gray, well that's why. What you do in this situation is over expose the photo by 1/2 or 2 full stops. How did I come up with this? Well 1 stop over 18% gray is 36% light gray and 2 stops is 72% very light gray (white, everything is measured in gray). To get blach you go down 2 stops. Anyway find the simple tone in trhe photo, measure from there and compensate exposure for that...Dean

[robertwgross]

Jason, go attend a workshop with George Lepp.

---Bob Gross---

[Ken Fong]

You might also want to try metering off of one of those Kodak Gray cards...a very inexpensive alternative.