Photomatrix test

GeorgieGirl · Jan 10, 2011

ann said:
Nothing wrong with a spot meter, i use one from time to time with HDR, but mainly for LF work. However, you can also use the histogram and be sure your exposures are going from shoulder to shoulder.

Agree, but with a wide angle shot, like my 10-20...use the camera left right/up down and then fasten it to a tripod? Its going ont he tripod for the compostion framing, then I am metering and recording and setting. Call me lazy. :blushing:

ann · Jan 10, 2011

sorry, i got lost there. unless you mean you don't want to check the histogram as it creates more work. what ever helps you is the most important factor. For instance
I always use a tripod, mirror lock up and remote shutter release for the sharpest images, and either use AEB or manual change . My camera body will allow up to 9 images with AEB, which is a big help.

GeorgieGirl · Jan 10, 2011

Mine only three, yet I have sensibilities and now a spot meter to be able to set a range of expoure. I come with all the other tricks in the bag too. So I'd say its pretty even. :mrgreen:

GeorgieGirl · Jan 11, 2011

Syco said:
My camera (Nikon 5000) will easily autobracket 3 exposures, so that's what I normally do. Even with a conservative estimate of a 6EV range for the main exposure, -2 and +2 bracketing gives me a 10EV range, which covers most scenes. The exceptions are those that actually contain the image of a light source (eg. street lights in night scenes). In those cases I monitor the histogram and shoot an extra exposure just to get the whole range. I'm using a tripod for those shots, anyway, so adding an additional exposure isn't a big deal. I learned pretty quickly to use a remote release with a 2 second delay on all tripod exposures. I haven't yet directly compared the effect of doing 5 exposures over the same range (-2,-1,0,+1,+2), though I see it done a lot. My main goal is to just capture the entire dynamic range of the scene. Once captured, I can shift it around pretty much any way I want in PP.

But How do you know what the correct range is if you are not using your cameras meter to tell you what the range needs to be?

Ann...did not respond to your exact question: Yes to Histogram, but that will not give me my correct exposure range at the outset, perhaps just that I found it through a trial and error. To me the histogram should be used to confirm that what I have taken is what I need to cover inside of a range, but I don't think its a shortcut for obtaining the range values.

myshkin · Jan 11, 2011

People don't rely on their eye enough. I see too many HDRs that look bad because people paid too much attention to meters and histograms.
Train your eye don't rely on meters

GeorgieGirl · Jan 11, 2011

myshkin said:
People don't rely on their eye enough. I see too many HDRs that look bad because people paid too much attention to meters and histograms.
Train your eye don't rely on meters

Interesting.

myshkin · Jan 12, 2011

Syco you should read more about the human eye I think. It kills any camera sensor out there.
My goal with HDR is to match what I see with my eye, not to make the photo flat colored like the shot you put in this thread. Your shot is a good example of what happens when people pay too much attention to histograms etc. Its flat and looks fake. Sure it might be even but it looks nothing like it would to the human eye.

Syco · Jan 12, 2011

Post removed

GeorgieGirl · Jan 12, 2011

Syco said:
GeorgieGirl said:

myshkin said:

People don't rely on their eye enough. I see too many HDRs that look bad because people paid too much attention to meters and histograms.
Train your eye don't rely on meters

Click to expand...

Interesting.

Click to expand...

The eye is a poor judge of dynamic range and luminance and white balance and a whole lot of other things required to capture a photograph. You can learn some rules of thumb, but considering the relatively limited dynamic range of digital sensors, you're really limiting yourself.

GeorgieGirl - I'm not quite sure why you keep poking me with a stick over metering. Yes, I use the camera's meter to get the 0EV shot. Often times, that needs to be adjusted one way or the other in order to get it in the middle of the available dynamic range. I do that by monitoring the histogram. I'm not arguing against the use of a spot meter, I'm just saying that I haven't found the need for one. Believe me, as a former lab scientist, if I found the need for a measurement device, I'd own it. I'm pretty much a professionally certified nutcase in that area.