In lesson 5 we finally got a chance to put it all together and use our new found super-photo-powers to control our camera and the final image. Here's what we reviewed and covered:
• Shutter speeds, apertures and their relationship to each other.
• The concept of equivalent exposures
• Controlling of depth of field
• In-camera meters vs hand-held incident meters
• How to make a completely manual exposure
• When and why to use aperture or shutter priority or full auto modes
Our in-class activity was all about "Mind over Meter" techniques. We learned about mid-gray tones...and not-so mid-gray tones. And we learned that our meter can be right....and oh, so wrong. BAD METER! BAAD BAD METER!!!
Ok, here’s the deal. Between me, you and the fence post, meters are pretty dumb. Dumb as a fence post actually. They see the whole world as gray. They WANT the world to be gray. And wouldn’t you know it, when you have a normal scene with a bunch of different tones, light, dark, middle of the road all mixed together, the world usually DOES work out to pretty much gray. That is why your meter seems to be a freakin rocket surgeon most of the time . Point it just about anywhere and it “knows” the best exposure!
But…and this is a big one… as soon as you point your camera at a scene dominated by a single tone, the meter does the old deer-in-the-headlights thing and tells the camera to set the exposure to get…..you guessed it: Gray!
So what’s a poor shutter bug to do? How can you get a decent shot of a nearly all-white or all-black scene?
OVER RIDE YOUR METER! Spank that bad boy! Show it who’s the boss.
Here are some great links on the mysterious art of exposure compensation, a fancy word for meter spanking:
Exposure Compensation
Photographing snow (or anything else that is all about white on white)
Why your meter LIES to you!
Exposure tips
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