Help with 10D test shots

[leodgr81]

I just did some test with my 10D with all my lenses 28, 35, 50, 85, 100 Macro, 20-35, 28-105, 100-300 and 400. The tests, all available light, no flash were done outside on a sunny day. My model sat with the sun behind her holding a Macbeth Color Checker. I set the 10D on Program, RAW, Evaulative Reading, ISO 200, AWB and I also metered with a Gossen light meter, Incident reading. Every lens, every shot on Program was underexposed by 1 stop. All the incident reading shots were right on. Also the color on all of the shots as compared to the Macbeth color checker were very blue. The incident shots were all 125 @ 8 and all were dead on. I keep reading how good the Camera works on Program mode but I just don't see it. Is anyone setting the parameters mode to compensate for the camera as far as the underexposure and what light balance do you use to eliminate the blue cast. I viewed all the files as raw. I also shot some JPEG's and they were a little better, I guess the software compensated for the underexposure and blue casts. Any thoughts???

Leo

[Cal Maier]

Well Leo, from what I can see you probably should have set the camera meter to the partial spot mode, this would have allowed the camera to meter the light falling on your subject and not the light coming from behind your subject. The program mode on the camera is really quite good, but you cannot expect it to know that your subject is backlit and therfore compensate for it. This is the job of the photographer. This is also the reason that your incident light readings with your meter were different from those of the camera meter. If you were to measure the light coming from the direction of your model (behind) and falling on your camera position, you would probably have found a difference of at least a stop from the light falling on your model's face.

The blue cast could have been caused by the amount of sunlight entering the lens and also the time of day makes a diffence to the color temp. of the sunlight. Were there a lot of "cool type" reflective surfaces around your shooting location? ie. light concrete, white buildings, glass? Also, when your subject is backlit that puts the side you are photographing in the shade, so to speak. It's hard to answer your color cast question with out more information about the situation at the time of the shoot.

My observations concerning your post.

Cal

[lziering]

It seems to me that Canon has evaluative metering set up on the 10D (and my old D60) so as to not blow out the highlights. My guess is if you look at the histogram of your shots you will see that the image is exposed with an evenly distributed historgram. In my experience, the best way to use a digital camera is first, not to expect the shots to always look preperly exposed, expecially in backlit conditions, second, set the camera up to display a "review with info" of each shot. Quickly look at the histogram that is displayed. If it looks like it is evenly distributed on both side of the mid-point, your shot is well exposed--even if it looks dark. You will just have to fix it in Photoshop