Landscape photography. Light meter advice.

[PaulButler]

As @HoppyUK always says and always says better than me, all you need is...

1 - an understanding of what you're doing & trying to achieve both in shooting & PP

2 - a camera with an internal meter and highlight warning display, and

3 - b****r all else

Of all the times (few that they are) that an external lightmeter may prove useful, a wide landscape on a partially cloudy day is not one of them

Dave

Well that's me buggered at the first step then

 

[Tringa]

Nothing wrong with HDR in my opinion. It is just another pp technique and like any other, if used well it produces good results, if used badly it is appalling.

Saying HDR is awful is a bit like saying Lightroom is awful, lean heavily on the controls in Lightroom (other, equally good and bad, editors are available) and the results are going to awful too.

Dave

 

[HoppyUK]

As @HoppyUK always says and always says better than me, all you need is...

1 - an understanding of what you're doing & trying to achieve both in shooting & PP

2 - a camera with an internal meter and highlight warning display, and

3 - b****r all else

Of all the times (few that they are) that an external lightmeter may prove useful, a wide landscape on a partially cloudy day is not one of them

Dave

Some people just prefer the more deliberate process of using a hand meter. That's cool, I can understand that. But using blinkies is better and much easier/faster.

 

[welly]

Some people just prefer the more deliberate process of using a hand meter. That's cool, I can understand that. But using blinkies is better and much easier/faster.

How is it better/easier/faster? It's not better/easier/faster if that's not part of your workflow. Blinkies only shows that you're not over exposing not that you have the correct exposure for your image.

 

[DG Phototraining]

Well that's me buggered at the first step then

As are most people commenting in this post - obviously

Dave

 

[DG Phototraining]

How is it better/easier/faster? It's not better/easier/faster if that's not part of your workflow. Blinkies only shows that you're not over exposing not that you have the correct exposure for your image.

Love this - its not better/easier/faster if you don't do it lol - good one

I'm pretty sure that nothing shows you what 'correct exposure' is as that's a judgment call depending on the look you're after

Histograms can tell you what's blown but not where its blown in the image, hence blinkies. In-camera metering or external won't tell you if part of your image will blow either, but if your aim is not to blow something out then blinkies is the only way to be (close to) sure where the problem lies for you to then decide if it is a problem or not

As often happens for me in shooting Landscapes & Weddings, the camera gives a reading, the blinkies confirm if its close to how I want it to record in a test shot and I adjust to get my version of a 'correct exposure'

Brains not kit decide

And let's not even get started on low/high key landscapes/portraits and metering lol

Dave

 

[welly]

Love this - its not better/easier/faster if you don't do it lol - good one

I'm pretty sure that nothing shows you what 'correct exposure' is as that's a judgment call depending on the look you're after

Histograms can tell you what's blown but not where its blown in the image, hence blinkies. In-camera metering or external won't tell you if part of your image will blow either, but if your aim is not to blow something out then blinkies is the only way to be (close to) sure where the problem lies for you to then decide if it is a problem or not

As often happens for me in shooting Landscapes & Weddings, the camera gives a reading, the blinkies confirm if its close to how I want it to record in a test shot and I adjust to get my version of a 'correct exposure'

Brains not kit decide

And let's not even get started on low/high key landscapes/portraits and metering lol

Dave

Some fair comments there although I'd disagree to a certain degree that an external (spot) meter won't tell you if your image will blow out. It's fairly easy to see the brightest part of a scene and metering off that as well as other parts of the scene will give you your highlight value, your shadow value and your tonal range, and you can make a judgement call from there.

I guess this is part and parcel of photography in that there is no one right way to do almost anything in photography.

 

[HoppyUK]

How is it better/easier/faster? It's not better/easier/faster if that's not part of your workflow. Blinkies only shows that you're not over exposing not that you have the correct exposure for your image.

See previous posts.Technically 'correct' exposure (eg incident reading) puts mid-grey in the middle of the histogram, which may or may not be optimum exposure. You can use a hand meter to take numerous spot readings, assess the dynamic range, and position key tones accurately if you want (so long as you've calibrated all your lenses at all focal lengths and apertures). It's just a lot quicker and easier to use blinkies that tell you exactly what's going on at sensor level (which is what matters) with all variables that a hand meter knows nothing about automatically taken into account.

 

[PhilH04]

An interesting resurrected thread At the end of the day, no matter how you arrive at a base exposure it is down to the grey matter to interpret that reading to reach the exposure that is desired. Camera meters these days do a surprisingly good job.

I have to be honest and admit to always having one of two external meters in my bag, (one is a spot meter), probably from being a bit old school (no built in meter on a Gandolfi ) but also for use with some of the specialist optics I use, which can and will confuse the in built metering system... I do often find that I prefer to use an external meter though, helps keep what remains of my brain cells working.

 

[Craig_85]

As this has been revived I’ll mention in case anyone benefits from it that setting your camera to the most neutral low contrast/saturation picture profile and looking at the rgb histogram will get you close to a raw histogram but is still based in the JPEG. Accurate white balance helps too, a cool feature in Nikon’s is as you zoom in during image playback rgb histogram mode it updates for the part of the scene you zoom to which is helpful with small bright sections...

 

[HoppyUK]

As this has been revived I’ll mention in case anyone benefits from it that setting your camera to the most neutral low contrast/saturation picture profile and looking at the rgb histogram will get you close to a raw histogram but is still based in the JPEG. Accurate white balance helps too, a cool feature in Nikon’s is as you zoom in during image playback rgb histogram mode it updates for the part of the scene you zoom to which is helpful with small bright sections...

Yes, that's been mentioned already but in practise it's only the contrast setting that moves the histogram significantly, or rather, it stretches/compresses it slightly. Setting contrast to minimum will get you closest to a Raw file, but you'll still have a whole stop at least of highlights headroom above the point where blinkies begin to flash. You need to to do proper comparisons with your camera and post processing regime to get an accurate measure of exactly how far you can push above the blinkies threshold.

I discovered that thing about Nikon histograms by accident - it's a brilliant feature I'd love to have on my Canons

 

[Brazo]

An alternative view

The good thing about Landscapes on my old Sony’s was blazing fast live view af and wysiwyg.

Absolutely no need for any external meters. Why people want a ‘fake’ ovf view (like I have to use now) is beyond me. Ovf only ever gives a fake unrealistic view of what the pic will turn out like. Live view in evf or rear screen shows you what your final pic will look like and also shows the effect of filters etc.

Of course having a decent dynamic range helps too if your fortunate enough to own a Nikon or Sony!

 

[Phil V]

Absolutely no need for any external meters. Why people want a ‘fake’ ovf view (like I have to use now) is beyond me. Ovf only ever gives a fake unrealistic view of what the pic will turn out like. Live view in evf or rear screen shows you what your final pic will look like and also shows the effect of filters etc.

Though completely the opposite if you’re using flash.
Just to point out that using half baked adsolutes in a willy waving manner always trips you up.

 

[Brazo]

Though completely the opposite if you’re using flash.
Just to point out that using half baked adsolutes in a willy waving manner always trips you up.

You do realise this thread is about Landscapes Phil? Whilst I appreciate flash can be used they are hardly used often and certainly not referenced by the op.

 

[chris malcolm]

As this has been revived I’ll mention in case anyone benefits from it that setting your camera to the most neutral low contrast/saturation picture profile and looking at the rgb histogram will get you close to a raw histogram but is still based in the JPEG.

That's what I do. With a "wysiwyg" EVF I set the contrast as low as possible, and turn down the saturation, to give me a better idea of the room I'll have in the RAW file. It also gives me more adjustment latitude in processing the JPEG. I shoot RAW+JPEG, only going back to the RAW when more extended processing than can be done on the JPEG is required. Shooting low contrast and saturation gives JPEGs which are rather dull looking, but that's very easily adjusted is processing and reduces the number of times I find it desirable to go to the more complex and time-consuming processing of the RAW file.

Accurate white balance helps too, a cool feature in Nikon’s is as you zoom in during image playback rgb histogram mode it updates for the part of the scene you zoom to which is helpful with small bright sections...

What an excellent feature! I wish my Sony A77 had that! It would save a lot of experiment and bracketing -- and failures when I haven't been careful enough -- when shooting very brightly coloured flowers.[/QUOTE]

 

[Phil V]

You do realise this thread is about Landscapes Phil? Whilst I appreciate flash can be used they are hardly used often and certainly not referenced by the op.

I do