Retired beast

[lastrada]

This was taken on Tuesday afternoon, cold with a steady freezing rain falling most of the day. Shot was taken out the window hand held. Any critique is appreciated.

[Robert_Lay]

Not bad at all as a documentary.

For better composition, having a bit more foreground and less sky would give it a better look. In other words, back up and keep the camera more level.

[greygoose]

ive always wondered how photos like these are metered. i guess now might be a good time to ask for some insight on that. what metering on this particular photo? i can never get mine the way i want

thanks

[lastrada]

Not bad at all as a documentary.

For better composition, having a bit more foreground and less sky would give it a better look. In other words, back up and keep the camera more level.

Thanks for the feedback Robert, I'll try and work on that next time I venture out. I'm fairly new to the photography field so any critique I can get will help me out.


ive always wondered how photos like these are metered. i guess now might be a good time to ask for some insight on that. what metering on this particular photo? i can never get mine the way i want

thanks

Greygoose, if i remember correctly I metered off of the dragline itself. I wish I could provide more detail, but it was a quick shot.

[Robert_Lay]

ive always wondered how photos like these are metered. i guess now might be a good time to ask for some insight on that. what metering on this particular photo? i can never get mine the way i want

thanks
Ahhhhh!

One of my favorite topics - "on what part of the scene should I meter?"

Right below that we have the question, "what meter pattern or weighting profile should be used?"

There is no "correct" answer to either question. Cameras are designed to make it as automatic and as foolproof as possible and yet it would be foolish to depend entirely on the autoexposure system for any critical work.

The reason for this is found in Rule #1: The exposure system in a camera is as dumb as a rock!

Once you acknowledge Rule #1, you have a chance of learning how to meter properly, but there are several equally good procedures for metering, so there is no such thing as the one and only correct way. The objective is to get as much of the scene into the linear portion of the characteristic curve as possible while at the same time exposing to the right insofar as can be done safely.

Here is my favorite when speed is not an issue:
1) Using the metering pattern that is closest to being a spot meter, read the brightest element for which you want detail and record that value. (This excludes specular [mirror-like] reflections which are typically so hot that there is no way to get detail in such objects).
2) Next, meter the deepest shadow in which you want to see detail. Be conservative, because unless it is a low contrast scene, it will not be practical to open up the deepest shadows.
3) Figure out what is the median between these two measurements and use that for the shot using Manual.
4) Look at the in-camera histogram and pay attention to two things - (a) if the Highlight Alert is blinking over a significant region, you are overexposing and will have to reduce by 1/3 f-stop increments until it is no longer blinking. (b) If the distribution of the histogram does not have any significant numbers of pixels in the rightmost segment of the display, you are underexposing and should increase the exposure by one f-stop.

There you have it - what I call the "Averaging of the Scene" method, and I advocate that method as being better than trying to memorize all the Bryan Peterson guidelines. The only other advice I have about metering is to cya by shooting RAW.

If you think this procedure is too cumbersome and time consuming, then when you get to your shooting environment, start shooting a practice frame or two, just to get your exposure set up for the general environment using this method. Once you are set up, it won't matter that much if your real shots are of different objects or different parts of the scene. Believe it or not, the proper exposure is more closely related to the general environment than to any particular object in the environment (that's one of the reasons why Cinematographers prefer an incident lightmeter than a reflective lightmeter).

[greygoose]

thank you robert. i will have to put that into real practice. would i be safe to assume the same applies for proper exposure of sky + subject?

[Robert_Lay]

thank you robert. i will have to put that into real practice. would i be safe to assume the same applies for proper exposure of sky + subject?
That question depends on exactly what you mean by sky + subject. I have to assume that you mean that you are metering in such a way as to include disparate scene elements in a given meter reading. In other words, your meter has a wide enough pattern that you cannot separate the various elements of the scene.

In that case you do the best you can with the meter you have. The result will be very much the same with one exception. Your reading of the darkest scene element and the reading of the brightest scene element will be closer to one another in value. The average will usually be about the same. The final result will be that some small part of the scene will get over or underexposed.

Ultimately, it still requires you to check the in-camera Highlight alert and Histogram display. In my mind those are better judges of exposure because they locate errors graphically and make it clear what you have to do to correct.

My rationale' for taking the two readings at all and averaging them is that it is usually quicker to do that than it is to put the camera into playback mode and check the histogram display. If you can do it faster the other way 'round, then that will work as well. It's whatever works best for you.