Metering & Bracketing

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:13 pm

Are there some situations I can 'set up' for practice shooting that would help me understand these two functions? I sort of understand bracketing, but not enough. And metering... well, I know it's a way to sort of 'read' the light in a setting, but I really DON'T understand how to use it. BTW, I had a Minolta Maxxum 5 35mm which I just broke but will be replacing it with a Minolta Maxxum 7 35mm in just a little over a week. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:34 pm

O.K... is this not a senisble question? I just notice there's been 15 views and no replies. Is there anything anyone could suggest for understanding these two functions? Sorry if it REALLY IS a dumb question. I just know LOTS of practice is what usually gets it in my brain, but I'm not sure I even understand enough to know HOW to practice with these.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:55 pm

No point in me writing a tutorial since there's already one here:

http://www.silverlight.co.uk/tutorials/toc.html

Metering is what your camera does (detects light levels) to decide what exposure to use. Exposure is controlled by aperture and shutter speed, and constrained somewhat by the film choice or sensor speed setting.

Bracketing makes your camera take several consecutive shots with different exposures, so if (on some arbitrary scale) the meter says "expose for light level 10" then your camera can bracket by taking three photos for light level 9, 10 and 11. This way you have several final results to choose from.

Read about it. You'll learn.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:32 pm

Much thanks. I think that helped a bit. I've read my manual over numerous times, but it just doesn't go into enough detail for my brain. I've bookmarked that so when I get my new camera next week, I can refer back to it. I think my new cam will help too... all the info will be displayed on the back very clearly instead of me having to look through the viewfinder.

Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 249 Location: South Africa

The lightmeter in your camera tries to convince your camera it lives in a 18%-grey world. If you filled the picture in your viewfinder with a white sheet, grey sheet or black sheet, the pictures would all come out as mid-grey sheets. Why? because the lightmeter told your camera it lives in a world which averages out as grey.

Today there are many lightmeters, the cheaper (older) ones tend to be "spotmeters" as they can only measure light in a small spot in the centre of the image, while newer models have grids with light meters in which allows it to find the average exposure level more accurately in more situations.

Many people use grey cards, some use the back of their hands (with some experimenting to find out how much darker or lighter than midgrey they are), I personaly use precast cement walls (lots of them over here so i always have a grey card available).

Ultimateley the grey card is put in the same light as the object you are shooting, and then the meter reading is done. Now you can enter or lock in those metered suggestions, remove the grey card and take your picture.

The bracketing part comes in because lightmeters are not accurate under all conditions. Sometimes they have a hard time telling whats up with reflective surfaces like the ocean surface, and one has to compensate by exposing more or less than the meter says to.

So you might take a shot at the metered suggestion, one a stop higer and one a stop lower. This is called bracketing, I guess as experience mounts you will need to do less and less bracketing.

MOST IMPORTANT, if you are NOT shooting slide film, bracketing is mostly a waste of time, as print film has so much "error" lattitude that only very large jumps in bracketing will be noticeable. With slide films an exposure out by as little as half a stop can sometimes be a disaster, so bracketing becomes crucial there.

Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:34 pm

Thanks again. As I said, I'm getting my new Maxxum 7 next week, which is suppose to have much better metering ability than the Maxxum 5 I just broke, so maybe afer reading all this, I'll understand a bit more when I read my new instruction booklet.

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:10 am

newbie328 wrote:

Thanks again. As I said, I'm getting my new Maxxum 7 next week, which is suppose to have much better metering ability than the Maxxum 5 I just broke, so maybe afer reading all this, I'll understand a bit more when I read my new instruction booklet.

You'd be better off reading a general photography guide than your instruction book. I think most instruction books are very very thin on photographic theory and probably assume a working knowledge of basics like exposure.

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:45 am

Actually, what I'm referring to is the actual 'know how' of using this feature on the camera. I read the manual on the Maxxum 5 and like I said I understood that it measured the light, but I couldn't figure out what to DO with the camera to make it do that. I just meant, now that I understand a tad more about what it actually does, maybe I can comprehend HOW to do it. I would like to get a good book on BASIC photography... but I've hesitated because I don't know which one would be as basic as I need it. I've looked on the net, but I need to go to a good book store and actually see the books. I've just mostly been reading on this site and a few others places along the way. Any suggestions on a good 'very basic' book would be appreciated.

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:00 pm

I'd like to expand on what Nordic said about color print film having a lot of built in latitude on exposure. I believe that most color print film can record over a 7 stop range. Basically, if you have good intentions, you will get satisfactory results.

If you do choose to bracket for color print film, don't mess with 1/3 stop increments; these changes will not even show up on the print. If I were to bracket in color print film, I'd shoot one (1) shot at the indicated reading and one (1) shot two f/stops over exposed.

Packard

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:25 pm

Thanks Packard. That does make some sense to me. I did attempt to use the bracketing feature during the holidays to take some pics of Christmas lights at my elderly friend's house. I might have seen the slightest variation, but really very little. That's the part I didn't understand... how to know what increments to use. So, since I do use color film, I'll try to remember this.

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:30 pm

Newbie328-

That applies to color print film.

Color slide film is very fussy about exposure.

Packard

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Right... just left out the word 'print'. A gardening forum friend recommended that I use color slide film... said he has much better results. I haven't used any yet, but probably will eventually. Figure I need to master the basics first.

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:15 am

Just a thought from someone who considers himself relatively "green":

I found that you learn most with the simplest of equipment, it forces you to understand the "why" behind the "how". It also does not overwhelm you with options you may not understand or even need.

I learned most of what I know on a Russian Zenit that has to be nearly 30 years old (its been around the house since I can remember, and I am 30, hehehehe). It has a very simple light meter mounted over the lens with a "calculator" for f-stop and shutter speed combination for a given film speed. And one more thing - once I learned more, and ran into more and more limitations of my old camera, I really knew not just what features, but why I would want this or that feature on my next camera. I cant count the number of times I have smacked my forehead and said to myself "Now I get it - I finally understand why this guy was going on about this feature - I could really use it!". Of course, you learn a lot by trying to work around these limitations, where a more advanced camera woulld offer to do it for you, teaching you nothing!

You can pick up a camera of that ilk on e-bay for $25 bucks or less. And I think you would be surprised at the quality of picture you can produce using such equipment! Best of luck, and if this reply is not exactly what you were looking for, then accept my apologies.

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:05 am

You have gotten some really good advice in this tread. When you get ready to learn buy some slide film and have at it. With slide film you will see your results of metering and bracketing instantly as the film is not processed into a print.

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:24 am

Will do! And hopefully, I'll have something to show after I do!