NICHOLAS CHEAH'S
PHOTOGRAPHY PAGE
Hello! Welcome to my homepage dedicated to photography. Tag along my journey in photography and learn more about photography from an amateur's point of view. Do E-mail me if you have any comments.
Hello! Welcome to my homepage dedicated to photography. Tag along my journey in photography and learn more about photography from an amateur's point of view. Do E-mail me if you have any comments.
Getting the right exposure is my worst nightmare. This is because for film photography you won't know whether the shot was properly exposed until you get the prints back. So do you bracket like mad? Or is there a safer way out? Let's explore from a Canon EOS 300V point of view.
The Canon EOS 300V has the following metering systems:
Evaluative Metering is the most reliable system to use in most situations. However, the system can be fooled by an overly bright background eg. white sand beach, indoors with bright windows. You will get a silhouette effect.
Here's what I would do. Obtain the exposure reading from Aperture Priority (choose an aperture for the desired depth of field), go to Manual Exposure and dial in the Aperture and Shutter Speed. Press the Partial Metering button to check the subject, as well as the brightest and darkest areas. Adjust the Shutter Speed to render your subject correctly (when you press the Partial Meter button over a black horse, the exposure meter should read -1.5). Everything else then falls in place. Double check that the darkest area doesn't go below -2 and the brightest doesn't exceed +2. If you have a background which exceeds +2, eg. the sky, shift the horizon higher to avoid a large portion of the scene being white-washed. If the scene has too much contrast, and the shadow detail is below -2, use the built-in flash.
If pressed for time, I use Aperture Priority to partial meter off the subject or anything in the subject's vicinity to render a medium tone.
For candid moments, the point-and-shoot mode will do the job.
For flash photography, use the minimum shutter speed to avoid camera shake (the rule of thumb is take the reciprocal of focal length). Set a suitable aperture. You may use a smaller aperture provided you are within the flash range. E-TTL will take care of the foreground exposure. In Aperture Priority, the camera will meter for the background. So, in low light, I avoid Aperture Priority as shutter speeds may be too slow for hand-held shots. In P, Av or Tv, Flash Exposure Compensation need to be adjusted to balance any exposure compensation dialed in.
Metering Tips
