stevescriv43
18th of April 2005 (Mon), 15:37
Metering accuracy and bias
I found that the Digital Rebel's exposure system frequently underexposed shots relative to what my personal preferences would have been for a given scene. Looking at the images I captured, it seemed that the camera reacted very strongly to high-key subjects and strong highlights in otherwise well-balanced scenes. This is technically the most correct approach to take, and is the one preferred by most professional photographers, but I think is poorly suited to the needs and desires of most amateur shooters. The idea is that it's most important to preserve detail in the highlights of the images, since once detail is lost to overexposure there, it's gone forever. Dark midtones and shadows can always be fixed on a computer after the fact, albeit at the cost of somewhat elevated image noise levels.
Given that Canon is aiming the Digital Rebel at a more consumer-oriented audience though, and particularly given that they're pitching direct-from-camera printing as a primary feature, I think they should really reconsider the Digital Rebel's exposure system settings. In my experience, the average consumer is much more concerned with how their midtones look, as opposed to detail in the highlights. Even many "enthusiast" shooters prefer images in which the overall level of brightness matches what they saw in the scene, regardless of whether that means losing some detail in the highlights. On the 300D, this problem is exacerbated by Canon's decision to boost the default contrast level relative to that of the 10D. With the resulting steep tone curve, underexposing to save highlight detail results in even darker midtones and shadows than would otherwise be the case.
While you can certainly adjust the exposure compensation setting to correct for this tendency, that's tedious, and I often found it difficult to predict how the camera would respond to a given scene. Also, the amount of underexposure was so drastic with some high-key images that even a full +2EV of compensation was barely enough to produce a properly-exposed image.
At this late date, it's probably too much to hope for that Canon will fix the 300D's exposure system before production models hit the streets, but I hope nonetheless. - This strikes me as a fairly serious product bobble, relative to the needs and desires of its target market.
I found that the Digital Rebel's exposure system frequently underexposed shots relative to what my personal preferences would have been for a given scene. Looking at the images I captured, it seemed that the camera reacted very strongly to high-key subjects and strong highlights in otherwise well-balanced scenes. This is technically the most correct approach to take, and is the one preferred by most professional photographers, but I think is poorly suited to the needs and desires of most amateur shooters. The idea is that it's most important to preserve detail in the highlights of the images, since once detail is lost to overexposure there, it's gone forever. Dark midtones and shadows can always be fixed on a computer after the fact, albeit at the cost of somewhat elevated image noise levels.
Given that Canon is aiming the Digital Rebel at a more consumer-oriented audience though, and particularly given that they're pitching direct-from-camera printing as a primary feature, I think they should really reconsider the Digital Rebel's exposure system settings. In my experience, the average consumer is much more concerned with how their midtones look, as opposed to detail in the highlights. Even many "enthusiast" shooters prefer images in which the overall level of brightness matches what they saw in the scene, regardless of whether that means losing some detail in the highlights. On the 300D, this problem is exacerbated by Canon's decision to boost the default contrast level relative to that of the 10D. With the resulting steep tone curve, underexposing to save highlight detail results in even darker midtones and shadows than would otherwise be the case.
While you can certainly adjust the exposure compensation setting to correct for this tendency, that's tedious, and I often found it difficult to predict how the camera would respond to a given scene. Also, the amount of underexposure was so drastic with some high-key images that even a full +2EV of compensation was barely enough to produce a properly-exposed image.
At this late date, it's probably too much to hope for that Canon will fix the 300D's exposure system before production models hit the streets, but I hope nonetheless. - This strikes me as a fairly serious product bobble, relative to the needs and desires of its target market.