It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog entry, so I thought this had better be a good one!
First of all, though, an exhortation to all those students who are wrapping this course up for graduation credit: work hard! (Exhortation complete).
The reason this is going to be a better-than-usual blog entry is that I have asked nature photographer Reiny Dusdal to explain how he has used spot metering to produce images that use light so very effectively.
But two things first: For your viewing pleasure, the website of Irina Werning, who has a wry sense of humour in her portraiture – you can steal this idea and have great fun.
And a man possessing huge technical skill with high-speed photography identifying himself only as “Frans” makes amazing images of insects in flight and water drops.
But here is the main event: Reiny Dusdal whose images demonstrate (among many other qualities) precision in exposure and a profound love of nature, telling us how he does it.
Reiny on exposure:
Thanks, Warren, 'a love of nature' sounds a lot better than 'getting soft in your old age'!
Anyway, I use spot metering whenever I have a scene with a high degree of contrast...very dark areas and very bright areas in the same scene.
Like this hibiscus...
The sun is shining through the flower, and the background is in the shade. If I meter for the whole scene, my camera would try to expose the background as well as the flower and the result would, at the very least, be a very overexposed, washed out flower...leading to the dreaded post production time spent looking at a computer screen instead of a camera viewfinder.
And even more likely, the flower would be blown out to the extent that all you would see in your picture would be a glowing white blob in the shape of a flower.
So I set my metering to spot meter, meter off the bright part of the flower, and my exposure will be close to what I want. I then check my histogram and if I want to tweak the exposure, I'll use the exposure compensation dial.
This picture needed a little more effort, but not much.
I spot meter ANY white object due to the very limited dynamic range of my camera.
Here, I would move my camera closer to the spider (or zoom in) to make sure my spot metering 'takes'. Then I'll meter on the spider and lock in the exposure.(Just as an aside, I have to use the centre focusing point on my camera to make the spot metering work.
The other focusing points automatically meter for the whole frame.)
Move the camera back, (or zoom out), compose my picture, focus on the spider, and take the picture.
Check the histogram, and adjust the exposure compensation, if needed.
That's it!
Spot metering...great for backlit flowers, sunset silhouettes, and blond grandchildren playing outside on sunny days.
(I told Warren I would keep this referring to spot metering, but another thing I found helpful is to compare my histogram to my setting.
Because the camera would like to make everything midtone, I often compensate if I am in a darker or brighter than average setting.
In a dark forest, I will use the exposure compensation to push the histogram to the left to give the darker feel to the photo.
On a bright, sunny beach, I will push the histogram to the right to give the picture a brighter feel.
I know you could do this at home on your computer, but for me it's easier to do it right away in camera and I get a better feel for how things really looked.)
