light metering

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Watersedge

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i have a canon 60d what should i have the light metering set to when taking portraits and groups of people
 
Watersedge said:
i have a canon 60d what should i have the light metering set to when taking portraits and groups of people
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Unless you know what you're doing, put the meter on evaluative and leave it there. This will see you through 95% of everything pretty well.

If the exposure is too dark or light, use +/- compensation.
 
nope not now. is it best to use AWB and the conpensation you mentioned or can i do this after ive taken photo in RAW
 
Watersedge said:
nope not now. is it best to use AWB and the conpensation you mentioned or can i do this after ive taken photo in RAW
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If you shoot Raw, you can can correct a lot of things in post processing including complete control of colour (you can also do more extensive corrections to JPEGs than some folks seem to think). But just about the only thing you can't correct later is exposure.

Raw will give you more lee-way on exposure for a bit of tweaking, but it can only work with what the sensor has recorded. For optimum results, always get exposure right in-camera. As a rule, it's usually better to get as much right as you can in camera, rather than trying to post process your way out of problems later.
 
Someone please tell me this is a wind-up, only a few days ago the op was putting himself up as a pro, now he's asking the most basic of questions?

Is it any wonder that few of the general public place any value on professional photography?
 
After reading/replying on this thread, I read the other threads - sadly, this being a wind-up really would be the most desirable explanation.
 
I say give the guy a break. He's trying to learn and has taken some pretty blunt comments on the chin, on another thread. He's taken advice and responded with some maturity - which makes a pleasant change from most wedding threads :lol:
 
Watersedge said:
i have a canon 60d what should i have the light metering set to when taking portraits and groups of people
Click to expand...

It really doesn't matter. What matters is getting the exposure, framing and lighting correct

Exposure modes only confuse things...

Let me explain: You need to get away from "the camera has settings that do everything for me mentality" and simply understand correct exposure is a simple triad between ISO, Aperture and Shutter-speed. Assuming you want a nice clean shot, and you set the ISO to 100 or 200, then it really is only the balance between shutter-speed and aperture

Since regular portraits and group shots don't jump about too much, the basic answer to your question is "How much DOF do you want / need?" - as that is determined by your lens choice and distance from the group and aperture

So to totally answer your question. I generally use ISO set as low as the camera goes, I decide what aperture I want (to get the shot DOF right), and vary the shutter speed to get the exposure right. I generally shoot on manual or aperture prioritory.
 
Leaving ISO out of the equation to make things simpler (there now follows an analogy that i'm not resposnsible for, but I believe is a good one), imagine exposure to be like filling a bucket with water - you need a fixed amount of water (light) to fill the bucket to the right level (correct exposure). You can open the tap fully or let it trickle (this is like aperture - the size of the hole determines how much can come through it) and you can leave the tap on for ages or you can give a quick burst (this is shutter speed - the longer the shutter is open, the more light passes through).

You can take full manual control of both shutter speed and aperture or you can go for an 'automatic' mode where you let the camera's light meter determine how much total light is required for the exposure - you select the aperture and the camera calculates the shutter speed (aperture-priority or Av) or vice-versa (shutter priority or Tv). you can also go fully automatic and let the camera make all the decisions - but that gives you little control over the proceedings.

If you go for an automatic mode, you can 'trim' or 'fine-tune' by dialling in some exposure compensation to compensate for dark or light backgrounds, for example.

Probably the best thing you can do is to switch on 'blinkies' so that your photo preview screen will 'blink' (flash black and white) where there are areas of total black or total white in the image - signifying under or over exposure.

The light meter works in different ways too (read your manual) but evaluative or spot will probably work best for most situations.

As you have said in previous posts that you have film SLR experience, I won't go into ISO other than to say the results are similar in DSLR (substitute grain with noise).

As Richard said, get away from thinking about what settings/modes to use and start thinking about balancing the light to get the exposure you want - where you want to measure the light, what you want to be exposed correctly - where you want the detail to be (some shot are impossible to get beautifully exposed across the whole frame).

On top of all that - remember that wide apertures tend to give shallow depth of field and slow shutter speeds tend to increase motion-blur from either side of the camera.
 
AWB is Auto[matic] White Balance. When a digital image is processed, there has to be a 'reference' point for white - because white objects appears different colours depending on the colour of the light reflected off them - some 'white' light is yellower than other; some is bluer, for example (think of candlelight compared to lightning).

When you choose a white balance setting for your camera, you are giving it a reference point which the camera manufacturer has pre-set for certain conditions (daylight, cloudy, flash, tungsten bulb etc). If you are shooting jpeg - this will determine the colour-cast of the image. If you are shooting raw, you can adjust that reference point out of camera (but the software will usually apply the camera setting as a default - so if the camera setting is accurate then you don't have to adjust). You can take a picture of a white or (18%) grey object (in the lighting conditions that you intend to shoot) and tell your camera that it is 'white' - this is creating a custom white balance.

You might find that AWB gets pretty close for most natural light shooting.
 
weybourne said:
AWB is Auto[matic] White Balance. When a digital image is processed, there has to be a 'reference' point for white - because white objects appears different colours depending on the colour of the light reflected off them - some 'white' light is yellower than other; some is bluer, for example (think of candlelight compared to lightning).

When you choose a white balance setting for your camera, you are giving it a reference point which the camera manufacturer has pre-set for certain conditions (daylight, cloudy, flash, tungsten bulb etc). If you are shooting jpeg - this will determine the colour-cast of the image. If you are shooting raw, you can adjust that reference point out of camera (but the software will usually apply the camera setting as a default - so if the camera setting is accurate then you don't have to adjust). You can take a picture of a white or (18%) grey object (in the lighting conditions that you intend to shoot) and tell your camera that it is 'white' - this is creating a custom white balance.

You might find that AWB gets pretty close for most natural light shooting.
Click to expand...
Or just shoot RAW, leave the camera on AWB anyway, and tweak (if needed) the WB in PP
 
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