General Photography

Quick question - is it possible to see the exposure through the viewfinder? If I accidentally under-expose I'm not able to see it through the viewfinder before I take the shot - only on the LCD (liveview) or obviously after the shot was taken. Am I missing something? I'm not referring to the exposure meter indicator, rather the visual confirmation of how the shot will be exposed.

It's a Canon 550D.
 
Well, that is what the exposure indicator is for. You need to take your meter reading from the whitest part of the composition, this will ensure that your light colours are not over/under exposed.
If you have a large tonal range (very dark to very light), take the meter reading from the subject you want correctly exposed. Read the manual of the camera to see how to lock in this reading if you intent to rearrange the composition. Usually on the cheaper cameras you have to keep the shutter button depressed. And then, practice, practice, practice!

Also, it is the lesser of the two evils to have your shots under exposed as to over exposed. Over exposed and you loose the information and detail in the shot, not much you can do about it, but under expose and you can still rescue the photo in most all photo editors (within reason of course). Most photographers I know under expose their shots by as much as two stops and then tweak the contrast and brightness in the final stages on a PC. To do this successfully you need to shoot the highest resolution your camera supports in JPG or switch over to RAW for more control.

Hope this helps.
 
MyWorld said:
Also, it is the lesser of the two evils to have your shots under exposed as to over exposed. Over exposed and you loose the information and detail in the shot, not much you can do about it, but under expose and you can still rescue the photo in most all photo editors (within reason of course). Most photographers I know under expose their shots by as much as two stops and then tweak the contrast and brightness in the final stages on a PC. To do this successfully you need to shoot the highest resolution your camera supports in JPG or switch over to RAW for more control.

Hope this helps.
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Ouch - that made me wince. I cannot imagine an instance where I would consider doing that. In most cases I'd rather blow a highlight or two as long as it means getting the subject exposed correctly.
 
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MyWorld said:
Well, that is what the exposure indicator is for. You need to take your meter reading from the whitest part of the composition, this will ensure that your light colours are not over/under exposed.
....
Also, it is the lesser of the two evils to have your shots under exposed as to over exposed. Over exposed and you loose the information and detail in the shot, not much you can do about it, but under expose and you can still rescue the photo in most all photo editors (within reason of course). Most photographers I know under expose their shots by as much as two stops and then tweak the contrast and brightness in the final stages on a PC. To do this successfully you need to shoot the highest resolution your camera supports in JPG or switch over to RAW for more control.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to agree with bwana there. On a scene with even lighting you can overexpose a fair bit (sometimes two stops or even more) before blowing anything out. I have such shots in my photostream. When you underexpose, you're actually capturing less light, with the same amount of noise.

Also, your comment about metering the whitest part - this will give you underexposed shots if you have a lot of white in a well lit scene, especially daylight. You need to judge weather the white in your scene is of any importance or not. Very often, in daylight scenes, say there's a white wall or a white car, it doesn't really matter if you blow it out completely, because, well, when you blow stuff out, they became white.
 
When using the meter of the camera it is widely suggested to meter from a 50% gray area (not the whitest part). By doing this the camera meter will adjust correctly for ambient lighting, as well as white-balance. The trend is also to 'expose to the left' as MyWorld suggested, under-exposing. While maybe you could get some more detail out that way in post, I would rather correctly expose for my subject and let everything else fall where it may. Of course that does depend on what my subject is. If its clouds in the sky, or a white element that has texture that is the prominent feature in the photo, I might want to watch the exposure more carefully.
 
@ bwana & koffiejunkie:
You have to try it yourself to believe it is possible. If you "white out" your shot with over exposing you loose a tremendous amount of data, while even in the darkest of natural shots (within reason of course) you are still able to capture some light, if you can see it with the naked eye you are bound to be able to capture enough light to get a decent shot.
Hence the use of the highest resolution, the higher your resolution the better your end result.

I'm with you SubliminalThought, you have to get your exposure correct, but in a once in a lifetime shot, I usually get one on the money and then bracket down by even as much as 4 stops just to make 100% sure I have nailed the shot.
 
Shooting RAW gives you a realistic latitude of ±2 stops to recover, if you need more than that you should consider bracketing and generating an HDR image.
 
MyWorld said:
@ bwana & koffiejunkie:
You have to try it yourself to believe it is possible. If you "white out" your shot with over exposing you loose a tremendous amount of data
Click to expand...

Not if there wasn't a lot of detail to begin with. Something that's already a highlight is going to stay a highlight. I don't see how you can get pleasing results by underexposing under normal circumstances, unless you're compensating for excessive dark areas. I underexpose hand-held night time scenes (like street scenes) by two or so stops if I'm shooting with the default matrix metering (or whatever Canon calls it) because I know the large dark areas is going to cause the camera to try to overexpose.

Maybe your camera has a tendency to overexpose. I'd like to see one of those -4 shots that look OK after pushing it - before and after.
 
koffiejunkie said:
No. Thank goodness.
Click to expand...

lol, just to confirm - you can't get visual feedback on your exposure through the viewfinder (the indicator is irrelevant as an "appropriate" shutter speed for the chosen aperture has been selected by the camera - so the camera thinks the exposure is spot-on) and you don't have picture review through the viewfinder. So you have to look at the picture review on the LCD afterwards to confirm correct exposure, correct?


EDIT/ interesting posts about exposure. I was lead to believe that most photographers generally "shoot to the right" if anything. This website explains why it makes sense from a technical point of view - Expose Right. Interesting stuff!
 
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SiriS said:
lol, just to confirm - you can't get visual feedback on your exposure through the viewfinder (the indicator is irrelevant as an "appropriate" shutter speed for the chosen aperture has been selected by the camera - so the camera thinks the exposure is spot-on) and you don't have picture review through the viewfinder. So you have to look at the picture review on the LCD afterwards to confirm correct exposure, correct?
Click to expand...

LCD is an approximate anyway again unless its calibrated. The viewfinder indicator allows you to use your camera as a spot meter for reflected light. If you have spot metering you can select that and then use the cameras built in light meter to meter for you choosing the aperture or shutter (in Av and Tv) or to see how much stops your or under/over in manual. Of course if the meter is biased to under expose then you will have to act according. Its not as accurate by any means compared to an incident meter but practically its better to use unless you are shooting models on a time constraint and can't chimp using the built in meter.
 
SubliminalThought said:
LCD is an approximate anyway again unless its calibrated. The viewfinder indicator allows you to use your camera as a spot meter for reflected light. If you have spot metering you can select that and then use the cameras built in light meter to meter for you choosing the aperture or shutter (in Av and Tv) or to see how much stops your or under/over in manual. Of course if the meter is biased to under expose then you will have to act according. Its not as accurate by any means compared to an incident meter but practically its better to use unless you are shooting models on a time constraint and can't chimp using the built in meter.
Click to expand...

Gotcha, thanks! Question originated because I would take a few shots without chimping, just to see that they're all under-exposed. I guess with experience and practice I'll be able to more accurately guess when the "spot" metering is a better option than "evaluative" metering. As a matter of fact I'm probably going to start using spot (or partial maybe) , as my default metering mode.
 
My girlfriend is a photographer, check out here work over here: http://xpandoras-boxx.deviantart.com/

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Photography courses

Hello

Does anyone know of good photography courses in Durban??:)
 
Oh my gosh, saw a photographer at the VW rally in PE yesterday with a 7D and a Carl Zeiss lens from somewhere in the 1900's :O It looked so sweet. I didn't get to speak to the guy but I overheard him mentioning that he bought the lens from someone for R600. Poor bloke didn't know the value of the lens
 
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Preferred the navigation of the older one. Now Nikon and Canon stuff is all together... BLASPHEMOUS! Yah there is filters on the side... Other than that it is looking good.
 
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