Matrix metering vs spot for night photography?

[ecphoto]

I like to take shots of architecture at night. I can't quite figure out if its best to spot meter the brightest area or using matrix / evaluative?

 

[Garbz]

In my experience night time photography is the one area where cameras really haven't been able to meter right. The incredible contrast + number of light sources really starts screwing up once dusk is over. Modern cameras may be better but I typically go the all manual route for this one.

 

[ecphoto]

In my experience night time photography is the one area where cameras really haven't been able to meter right. The incredible contrast + number of light sources really starts screwing up once dusk is over. Modern cameras may be better but I typically go the all manual route for this one.

Well I do it in manual mode, and then adjust shutter/iso/f-stop till the in camera meter reads 1/2 a stop over exposed.

In that mode does it make any difference if I set it to spot or matrix?

Unfortunately I don't have a external meter to work with.

 

[analog.universe]

For something like architecture, where you have time to set up the shot and are probably on a tripod, I'll start in matrix mode. Ultimately though, I'll adjust my exposure based on the histogram I'm seeing and take several shots until I get a distribution that I like. Night time shots always end up with a bunch of curves work for me, so when I'm exposing I'm just trying to get as much data as I can. Push the histogram way to the right and don't clip anything important...

 

[ecphoto]

For something like architecture, where you have time to set up the shot and are probably on a tripod, I'll start in matrix mode. Ultimately though, I'll adjust my exposure based on the histogram I'm seeing and take several shots until I get a distribution that I like. Night time shots always end up with a bunch of curves work for me, so when I'm exposing I'm just trying to get as much data as I can. Push the histogram way to the right and don't clip anything important...

So your saying that as long as nothing falls off or gets clipped I can fix it. So its more important to get data than trying to get it perfect in the field?

 

[Mike_E]

Spot meter the brightest light and then add 2, 3, or 4 stops exposure comp depending on how bright you want your photo. 2 will be pretty dark and 5 will give you almost daylight.

What ever you meter incamera will give you medium gray so you're adjusting the highlights with the spotmeter.

If you use the matrix meter then you'll need to use negative exposure comp.

 

[Derrel]

I used to do a fair bit of nighttime photography back in the slide film days. I used a Nikon FE-2 at f/8 with Kodachrome 64 slidefilm, which was a good ASA (now ISO) for night work--good as in not too fast, and not too slow. Many urban scenes have a pretty high amount of artifical lighting at night...floodlights, window light, city light pollution,etc. My standard MO was to shoot virtually EVERYTHING at f/8, as a way of maintaining consistency, and also keeping the exposures mostly between 15 seconds and two and a half minutes. The old FE-2 was a fantastic camera as far as being able to "time out" the right exposure, and its light metering system went far,far beyond the stated metering range Nikon listed in its specs. Exposures made in Aperture priority auto were usually pretty good. On many scenes, dialing in Minus 1 stop of E.C. made the scene turn out looking more appropriately like a nocturne than the default, baseline metered exposure. I liked f/8 because it gave plenty of time to add flash pops and to do light painting. It's nice when the average urban night scene takes 45 seconds to one minute to expose.

 

[analog.universe]

For something like architecture, where you have time to set up the shot and are probably on a tripod, I'll start in matrix mode. Ultimately though, I'll adjust my exposure based on the histogram I'm seeing and take several shots until I get a distribution that I like. Night time shots always end up with a bunch of curves work for me, so when I'm exposing I'm just trying to get as much data as I can. Push the histogram way to the right and don't clip anything important...

So your saying that as long as nothing falls off or gets clipped I can fix it. So its more important to get data than trying to get it perfect in the field?

Not that it needs to be "fixed" exactly, but night time images tend to be extremely high contrast with a different gamma curve. So, in post I end up tweaking the curves to make the image more natural looking. Anytime you want to make significant contrast/gamma edits, you need a lot of data in your RAW to pull it off, so I expose to the right to get the most data possible. Because of the high contrast however, highlights from light sources in the frame, or even bright speculars can be a few stops past the edge of the histogram... the important thing is to make sure you've got the data you need for your subject.

Getting everything perfect in the field, so that you won't need to do any curves work only happens under the right conditions. Either you stalked the light all day and waited for just the right moment with just the right contrast, or you took control of the light with reflectors/strobes/whatever. If you're going to be shooting natural light, especially at night, most of your images will need some attention after you click the shutter.

 

[MReid]

Set up your blinkies to go off if something is blown.
Stay right on the edge of blowing out the bright parts.
Adjust exposure compensation or as necessary, less adjustments will be necessary using Matrix.

 

[bratkinson]

For me, night photography is just like it was 35-40 years ago...bracket, bracket, bracket. Pick the winner.

 

[Skaperen]

For me, night photography is just like it was 35-40 years ago...bracket, bracket, bracket. Pick the winner.

Instead of very long shots, one option that exists today with digital is to take many shorter shots and combine them in post processing. Combine fewer or more to suit the desired results. And there's more ways to combine than just averaging together.

 

[ecphoto]

For me, night photography is just like it was 35-40 years ago...bracket, bracket, bracket. Pick the winner.

Instead of very long shots, one option that exists today with digital is to take many shorter shots and combine them in post processing. Combine fewer or more to suit the desired results. And there's more ways to combine than just averaging together.

I like taking pictures of Cityscapes with tons of lights. Especially the Las Vegas strip, would this work well there?

 

[unpopular]

I meter off the brightest area reflected off teh building, usually about 2 feet from the light source, stop up four to five stops and adjust/bracket from there depending on bloom...

 

[Skaperen]

For me, night photography is just like it was 35-40 years ago...bracket, bracket, bracket. Pick the winner.

Instead of very long shots, one option that exists today with digital is to take many shorter shots and combine them in post processing. Combine fewer or more to suit the desired results. And there's more ways to combine than just averaging together.

I like taking pictures of Cityscapes with tons of lights. Especially the Las Vegas strip, would this work well there?

If you have so much light that you can short normal, which some scenes can have, then it's not much different than daytime photography. But when things are darker, you have to make some adjustments, and longer exposures is common. What I'm suggesting is to break that exposure time up into parts. But you still need the same amount. For example, instead of a 30 second exposure, do 15 exposures of 2 seconds each. Or do a lot more than 15 (have larger memory cards) and pick the best set. Add the pictures together and it will be roughly the same as the longer exposure.

But then you can have more fun by changing some aspect of the combining. For example, if you are shooting a scene in a lightning storm, some of the shots will capture a lightning flash. Different scenes can have different lightning flashes at different angles. You could combine these flashes using something that picks out the brightest of the shots at each pixel to brightly illuminate the scene. Or give various shots a different color bias and combine, so you have a scene that looks like lightning struck at different angles at the same time, but in different colors.

But, back to topic ... I don't even bother with metering in dark night shots. I just test shoot and see what comes out best. But the idea of multi-shot just lets me make that decision of how long to expose during post processing.