Hello,Been busy reading through my books "field guide and understanding exposure" for a few days learning how to read histograms etc and have left my 550d on manual as promised , photos have turned out nice but and this is a big but..... even thoughl i have got the meter bang in the centre for my outdoor shots , be it at ISO 100 or 1600 etc... and still all of my shots show spiking either in blacks or whites in the histogram . I have tried everything i can imagine and its still spike after spikeOne thing i miss that my LX3 could do was that its Histogram was live and you could see it as you were positioning your shot , but thats gone now.. i just dont see what else i can do to avoid spikes and over/underexposing, i also tried different shutter/aperture settings all with the meter bang middle... well you guessed it ... more spikes. What am i getting so wrong do you think ? Thank you.

Some pictures do need spikes right or left or even in both places. It depends on the image. You just don't want the extreme bunching up against one side or another. Then again, there might be a reason for that. I took a moon shot last night. The moon was very small in the frame. My histogram is bunched up on the left. That's because I have more dark pixels than light ones in my frame.Then again, why are you trying to keep the meter bang in the center? Not all pictures should be taken with the meter bang in the center. The meter bang in the center means exposure compensation of zero. Sometimes your EC has to go up or down (to the right or to the left) for proper exposure. I think we had discussed that before.Check out the histogram of a few images taken by other folks.Example:He's a histogram of one of my images:Nothing wrong with it. Here is the image:

As usual.. big thank you to you OlgaHave you thought of wrting a book for beginners as you are easier to understand than my books !!I did remember that you told me that not all photos should have the meter bang centre / center but i am finding that hard to judge as well presently , some of my outdoor photos came out with over exposed sky and i tried the centre weighting to , i know its a matter of getting used to the 550d and the month ive had it isnt long for learning a DSLR im sure .. maybe im trying to do too much too fast !!

aeneonwrote:maybe im trying to do too much too fast !!My first thought was "he's (or she's) over-thinking this too much."It might be easier for you if you use Av Mode. You set the ISO and the aperture, the camera picks the shutter speed. If your image looks overexposed, then dial in negative EC. If it looks underexposed, dial in positive EC. If the shutter speed is too low, increase the ISO.

In Live View you can get the histogram to show before taking the picture.Steve W.

Olga Johnsonwrote:aeneonwrote:maybe im trying to do too much too fast !!My first thought was "he's (or she's) over-thinking this too much."It might be easier for you if you use Av Mode. You set the ISO and the aperture, the camera picks the shutter speed. If your image looks overexposed, then dial in negative EC. If it looks underexposed, dial in positive EC. If the shutter speed is too low, increase the ISO.I am he the thinker !!!i'm actually quite comfy in manual now as most people were telling me to take it out of av mode for ages , but all i have to do is delete and reshoot. A-ha exposure compensation... i havent played with that yet. thank you.

sjwolfhopewrote:In Live View you can get the histogram to show before taking the picture.Steve W.Thanks Steve, That might just speed up my learning curve. How do i turn it on ? thank you.

I have a T1i, but the buttons should be the same for the T2i, but maybe located differently. Go into Live Mode - second button down on the right side of the LCD on the T1i. Then hit the DISP button until it shows the histogram - could take up to three presses. The histogram should show up in the upper right quadrant of the LCD display. As I said this is for the T1i, but should be pretty much the same for the T2i. See if this is what you are looking for.Steve W.

aeneonwrote:i'm actually quite comfy in manual now ...Really? Cause it sounds like you are having loads of trouble.A-ha exposure compensation... i havent played with that yet.EC doesn't work in Manual Mode, only (I think) in the Creative (auto) Modes (P, Av, Tv, A-DEP).In Manual Mode you have complete control over both shutter speed and aperture (and ISO¹), the exposure meter indicator tells you what the camera thinks of your choices.¹ Note: none of my cameras have Auto-ISO so I don't know how that enters into the mix when using Manual Mode.... even thoughl i have got the meter bang in the centre for my outdoor shots , be it at ISO 100 or 1600 etc... and still all of my shots show spiking either in blacks or whites in the histogram .Because each picture whether at ISO 100 or 1600 has the same equivalent exposure if you are centering the meter for each one.When metering a scene the exposure settings required to center the meter will be different based on the brightness of whatever you are pointing the camera (and meter reading area) at, and will be based which meter mode you have set (partial, center-weighted, evaluative).In addition as forum member Olga mentioned not all scenes will look best with a centered meter.One thing i miss that my LX3 could do was that its Histogram was live and you could see it as you were positioning your shot , but thats gone now.. i just dont see what else i can do to avoid spikes and over/underexposing,If instead of the dslr with which you are having so much trouble, but instead you were still using your LX3, how would you go about adjusting the histogram for a scene you were about to photograph?If you can explain those steps then maybe we cantranslatethose steps into what you now would do with your Canon dslr.i also tried different shutter/aperture settings all with the meter bang middle... well you guessed it ... more spikes.Because when the meter is centered each time then they are all basically the same exposure.What am i getting so wrong do you think ?Maybe partly over-thinking, partly trying to "solve/figure out" too many things at one time.Personally I don't think you should be shooting in Manual Mode, my guess is all you're doing is making things un-necessarily harder for yourself ...

Roonal_Zwrote:aeneonwrote:i'm actually quite comfy in manual now ...Really? Cause it sounds like you are having loads of trouble.A-ha exposure compensation... i havent played with that yet.EC doesn't work in Manual Mode, only (I think) in the Creative (auto) Modes (P, Av, Tv, A-DEP).In Manual Mode you have complete control over both shutter speed and aperture (and ISO¹), the exposure meter indicator tells you what the camera thinks of your choices.¹ Note: none of my cameras have Auto-ISO so I don't know how that enters into the mix when using Manual Mode.... even thoughl i have got the meter bang in the centre for my outdoor shots , be it at ISO 100 or 1600 etc... and still all of my shots show spiking either in blacks or whites in the histogram .Because each picture whether at ISO 100 or 1600 has the same equivalent exposure if you are centering the meter for each one.When metering a scene the exposure settings required to center the meter will be different based on the brightness of whatever you are pointing the camera (and meter reading area) at, and will be based which meter mode you have set (partial, center-weighted, evaluative).In addition as forum member Olga mentioned not all scenes will look best with a centered meter.One thing i miss that my LX3 could do was that its Histogram was live and you could see it as you were positioning your shot , but thats gone now.. i just dont see what else i can do to avoid spikes and over/underexposing,If instead of the dslr with which you are having so much trouble, but instead you were still using your LX3, how would you go about adjusting the histogram for a scene you were about to photograph?If you can explain those steps then maybe we cantranslatethose steps into what you now would do with your Canon dslr.i also tried different shutter/aperture settings all with the meter bang middle... well you guessed it ... more spikes.Because when the meter is centered each time then they are all basically the same exposure.What am i getting so wrong do you think ?Maybe partly over-thinking, partly trying to "solve/figure out" too many things at one time.Personally I don't think you should be shooting in Manual Mode, my guess is all you're doing is making things un-necessarily harder for yourself ...Hi Roonal,Hmm lots to muse over there... i went manual as lots of forum members told me to do it and said it was the only way i would learn to use the DSLR !!The LX3 had a live histogram and it was easy to change shutter , aperture and iso accordingly so that the spiking was less prominent. also i could shift position slighty and see instantly how it affected my shot. i'll read your other tips tomrrow its alte over here in the UK. thanks.

aeneonwrote:A-ha exposure compensation... i havent played with that yet. thank you.You have to first learn how EC works and it's easier in Av, Tv, or even P mode than it is in M mode. In M mode you cannot use the EC as you do in the other modes. That's because you have to do it by positioning the meter away from centre by using shutter or aperture. So make it easy on yourself. Turn the dial to Av and practice there.

sjwolfhopewrote:I have a T1i, but the buttons should be the same for the T2i, but maybe located differently. Go into Live Mode - second button down on the right side of the LCD on the T1i. Then hit the DISP button until it shows the histogram - could take up to three presses. The histogram should show up in the upper right quadrant of the LCD display. As I said this is for the T1i, but should be pretty much the same for the T2i. See if this is what you are looking for.Steve W.Thanks, ill try it tommorow.

If you expose for middle grey (with the needle indicating '0') and the scene is very contrasty (sun in clear blue sky, sun not at your back with lots of shadows) the rest of the scene can have stuff that's brighter than 4 stops from '0' you metered. There's about 2 stops brighter you can go before blowing out highlights.Take this image for example. If I metered '0' the spoonbill would've been blown. So I metered on the spoonbill to read '+2'. The rest of the scene got darker but that's ok with me, it makes the spoonbill stand out more:Here the swan was very dark because I exposed for the background not to blow out. I had to brighten the shadows a great deal as I didn't want to turn it into a silhouette. There were trees in the background that made a nice pattern I wished to keep.If I'd exposed for '0' the goose would've been blown completely, the browns in the lower part of the background are reeds brightly lit by the sun, even so the goose feathers are more than 2 stops brighter than that:What I usually do is spot metering in M mode, meter on the brightest part of the scene. Let the meter read 1 2/3 stop to 2 stops (without blinking) and you should get an image that's exposed for the highlights. If the scene contains a huge dynamic range (like shooting against the sun) you'll need to do some post processing to brighten the shadows.The spike in the shadow part of the histogram can 99% be recovered when shooting raw and doing some minor post processing.If you don't want to shoot in raw you can use Marvels Cine 2.1 picture style. It's produced to flatten out a highly dynamic scene which is much easier to post process than something with a 'Standard' picture style. It's intended for video use but there's no stopping you using it for pictures as well.aeneonwrote:Hello,Been busy reading through my books "field guide and understanding exposure" for a few days learning how to read histograms etc and have left my 550d on manual as promised , photos have turned out nice but and this is a big but..... even thoughl i have got the meter bang in the centre for my outdoor shots , be it at ISO 100 or 1600 etc... and still all of my shots show spiking either in blacks or whites in the histogram . I have tried everything i can imagine and its still spike after spikeOne thing i miss that my LX3 could do was that its Histogram was live and you could see it as you were positioning your shot , but thats gone now.. i just dont see what else i can do to avoid spikes and over/underexposing, i also tried different shutter/aperture settings all with the meter bang middle... well you guessed it ... more spikes. What am i getting so wrong do you think ? Thank you.

imqqmiwrote:If you expose for middle grey (with the needle indicating '0') and the scene is very contrasty (sun in clear blue sky, sun not at your back with lots of shadows) the rest of the scene can have stuff that's brighter than 4 stops from '0' you metered. There's about 2 stops brighter you can go before blowing out highlights.Take this image for example. If I metered '0' the spoonbill would've been blown. So I metered on the spoonbill to read '+2'. The rest of the scene got darker but that's ok with me, it makes the spoonbill stand out more:Here the swan was very dark because I exposed for the background not to blow out. I had to brighten the shadows a great deal as I didn't want to turn it into a silhouette. There were trees in the background that made a nice pattern I wished to keep.If I'd exposed for '0' the goose would've been blown completely, the browns in the lower part of the background are reeds brightly lit by the sun, even so the goose feathers are more than 2 stops brighter than that:What I usually do is spot metering in M mode, meter on the brightest part of the scene. Let the meter read 1 2/3 stop to 2 stops (without blinking) and you should get an image that's exposed for the highlights. If the scene contains a huge dynamic range (like shooting against the sun) you'll need to do some post processing to brighten the shadows.The spike in the shadow part of the histogram can 99% be recovered when shooting raw and doing some minor post processing.If you don't want to shoot in raw you can use Marvels Cine 2.1 picture style. It's produced to flatten out a highly dynamic scene which is much easier to post process than something with a 'Standard' picture style. It's intended for video use but there's no stopping you using it for pictures as well.Thank you imqqmi ,Thank you for taking the time to do all that, i always read and make notes when people reply to me , seeing as they take the time to explain. I also adore your photos of the birds and they are so well captured. I see that i will need to study what i am photographing a little more before i press the shutter button and think what is most important in the scene that i want in the best light possibleHave only just begun reading "Understanding Exposure" and think that may help further to. Thanks again for the valuable tips.

"i know its a matter of getting used to the 550d and the month ive had it isnt long for learning a DSLR im sure .. maybe im trying to do too much too fast !! .........Have only just begun reading "Understanding Exposure" and think that may help further".............A histogram is only a reference 'tool', and I can assure you that the vast majority of 'pro-level' photographers never refer to one. Olga and imqqmi have illustrated clearly how a histogram is of no real value if you are attempting to centre its values.Whether your (excellent, by the way!) Lumix LX3 or your Canon T2i, it is much more important to, in your words........."see that i will need to study what i am photographing a little more before i press the shutter button and think what is most important in the scene that i want in the best light possible".........In many ways the quality P&S cameras like the LX3 and G12 will much more easily deliver better results than DSLRs; a DSLR has a bigger 'toolbox' and it's up to us to select and employ them properly.good luck!

As Olga commented... I mostly use the histogram to make sure I'm not clipping on the bright or dark side. If you have a big spike all bunched up at the end then you need to adjust the exposure to bring it in some (I use the flashing highlight/clipping alert when chimping, too). A spike in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing... just a characteristic of what you're taking a picture of. A boat out in the middle of a uniformly lit blue ocean would have a spike at the brightness level of the water, but it doesn't mean that it's a problem... just that there's a lot of pixels as that brightness level.

Schnapperwrote:As Olga commented... I mostly use the histogram to make sure I'm not clipping on the bright or dark side. If you have a big spike all bunched up at the end then you need to adjust the exposure to bring it in some (I use the flashing highlight/clipping alert when chimping, too). A spike in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing... just a characteristic of what you're taking a picture of. A boat out in the middle of a uniformly lit blue ocean would have a spike at the brightness level of the water, but it doesn't mean that it's a problem... just that there's a lot of pixels as that brightness level.Thanks Schnapper,So as long as the spikes dont gather at the sides of the histogram , then that isnt necessarily bad... that makes sense to me. Did i get that right ? Either side is either lost shadow detail or blow highlights ... right on the edges ?

canuck davewrote:"i know its a matter of getting used to the 550d and the month ive had it isnt long for learning a DSLR im sure .. maybe im trying to do too much too fast !! .........Have only just begun reading "Understanding Exposure" and think that may help further".............A histogram is only a reference 'tool', and I can assure you that the vast majority of 'pro-level' photographers never refer to one. Olga and imqqmi have illustrated clearly how a histogram is of no real value if you are attempting to centre its values.Whether your (excellent, by the way!) Lumix LX3 or your Canon T2i, it is much more important to, in your words........."see that i will need to study what i am photographing a little more before i press the shutter button and think what is most important in the scene that i want in the best light possible".........In many ways the quality P&S cameras like the LX3 and G12 will much more easily deliver better results than DSLRs; a DSLR has a bigger 'toolbox' and it's up to us to select and employ them properly.good luck!Thank you.My LX3 is sold and now just a 500d user, not that thats a bad thing. I have zoom at last for one !

I have had my 550D nearly a year now and have never ventured out of av mode, (I know many experienced photographers who rarely use any other mode). As others here have said do not over complicate things, stick to av for now and learn how EC can help you take better images. You can also set up the camera to display the histogram along with the image after the shot has been taken, this can help you decide if your settings are correct for the situation.Regards, Alan

Albenwrote:I have had my 550D nearly a year now and have never ventured out of av mode, (I know many experienced photographers who rarely use any other mode). As others here have said do not over complicate things, stick to av for now and learn how EC can help you take better images. You can also set up the camera to display the histogram along with the image after the shot has been taken, this can help you decide if your settings are correct for the situation.Regards, AlanThanks for the tips Alan , Hope you are enjoying your 550D