I just came across these few words:http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/more-on-over-exposing-photos/? -- Olga

Olga Johnsonwrote:I just came across these few words:http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/more-on-over-exposing-photos/? -- OlgaThanks Olga,very interesting read , unfortunately some of my masterpeices so far have come from me not knowing what the hell i am doing or trying to achieveSo saying i did it on purpose isnt an option yet !! or hmmm maybe it is after reading that article.

Another vote here for Av mode! Myself, and all my shooting buddies, have always used aperture priority. With my T2i and my Xti during bright, mid-day shooting I start with my EC at -1/3 and use AEB. Later on in the day - late afternoon, etc, I will set EC back to 0. I think these cameras tend to over expose in bright light just a little.

karl mohrwrote:Another vote here for Av mode! Myself, and all my shooting buddies, have always used aperture priority. With my T2i and my Xti during bright, mid-day shooting I start with my EC at -1/3 and use AEB. Later on in the day - late afternoon, etc, I will set EC back to 0. I think these cameras tend to over expose in bright light just a little.Hi karl, Do you disable Auto Lighting Optimizer to ? Thanks.

aeneonwrote: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.Thanks! Enjoy the ride, taking lots of shots really helps you along -- Kind regards Imqqmihttp://www.pbase.com/imqqmiThe DSLR jargon cheatsheet: http://www.jmbfoto.nl/dslrcheatsheet.pdfSunset blending tutorial: http://www.jmbfoto.nl/tutorial/blendingTutorial01a.pdf

Yes, I do. I think that tends to negate the effect of the bracketing.

karl mohrwrote:Yes, I do. I think that tends to negate the effect of the bracketing.Ok, got it

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.What metering mode are you using? This has a significant effect too even if you're in M mode.Spot only meters the circle in the centre. Partial meters a slightly larger circle. Center Weighted Average meters the whole scene with some priority to the centre. Evaluative is a bit of a blackbox. The manual claims it to be an intelligent metering mode, metering the entire scene but in practice it seems to simply be strongly tied to the focus point. Seehttp://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=33582253 Your choice of metering mode will affect how much of the scene is metered.

PhilPreston3072wrote:What metering mode are you using? This has a significant effect too even if you're in M mode.Spot only meters the circle in the centre. Partial meters a slightly larger circle. Center Weighted Average meters the whole scene with some priority to the centre. Evaluative is a bit of a blackbox. The manual claims it to be an intelligent metering mode, metering the entire scene but in practice it seems to simply be strongly tied to the focus point. Seehttp://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=33582253 Your choice of metering mode will affect how much of the scene is metered.Hi Phil, i was using Center Weighted as the sky was bright and the land dark.I am only a beginner so i'm learning steadily , already knowing that the meter dead center is not always right ! Thanks for the link.