SWAN

[lewiss]

hey,

i got these pictures of a swan, what do you think?

i haven't touched them at all.
The swan was underexposed by accident, but the picture came out sort of well i think.





lewis.

[colin C]

Re: SWAN

hey,

i got these pictures of a swan, what do you think?

Hello Lewis

Unless you are in very dull light, swans generally need a bit of underexposure to protect the highlights, but I think you have gone a bit too far with this one. Also, swans look a bit ungainly out of water and it is best to photograph them in the water, if you want to capture the serenity of their movement.

The second one looks more like a one legged rooster than a swan!

Colin

[Canon-Fodder!]

Re: SWAN

Hi Lewis;

f/29 ???? No wonder it was under-exposed...

If you play around with Levels, there's plenty of detail in the image to bring it out... However, it then doesn't work as an 'abstract, because of the mallard lurking right behind the swan's head!

Second is clearly a hybrid black-swan - Australis Negrus Cockrelli

[Millie]

Re: SWAN

Hi Lewis,
You were shooting in TV Mode with spot metering.
You choose a shutterspeed of 1/400 and ISO 400
The camera set the aperture to F29 based on where you metered from (or focussed on)

f/29 ???? No wonder it was under-exposed...

You need to be a bit careful were you are meter from, or what you focus on when using spot metering.
Did you focus on the swan ?

Millie

[lewiss]

Re: SWAN

no idea why it came out like it did it?? i focused on the swan and took the shot like i would any other time, that's mostly the reason i posted it up.

the one-egged-hyper-african-chickswan just cought my eye when i was uploading the swan, so thought i'd treat everyone to a little suprise.

[colin C]

Re: SWAN

the one-egged-hyper-african-chickswan just cought my eye

Here you go Lewis, I found a shot of his father ............. he looks a bit angry!



Colin

[Millie]

Re: SWAN

no idea why it came out like it did it?? i focused on the swan and took the shot like i would any other time, that's mostly the reason i posted it up.

I'd like to help, can you give a bit of background on the settiings you've used ?

Millie

[colin C]

Re: SWAN

Hello Lewis

It may be helpful if you understand how the camera tries to work out exposure for an average shot.

The camera exposure meter doesn't "See" in colour, just various tones of black and white. In a large majority of pictures, if you average all of the tones together, to get a correctly exposed picture, you end up with an average of around 18% grey. So if you choose the ISO setting and either Av, or Tv, then the camera will alter the non chosen Av or Tv, so that the average meter reading for the whole shot will equal 18% grey. That should be the correct amount of light for the colour sensor to process the image in colour.

There are different metering modes, which can alter how much of the scene the meter actually uses and rather than make this post unnecessary long, have a read of the Canon explanation - http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/control...articleID=2666

With most shots that have a lot of very light tones (Snow and Sand etc), the camera will normally underexpose them to a neutral grey and if a picture has a lot of dark tones, it will try to overexpose the blacks to a neutral grey. Rather than just accept that, our own experience will make us alter the cameras chosen setting to take that into account, to get a properly exposed picture. Perhaps +1 or +2 exposure compensation for light scenes and -1 or -2 exposure compensation for dark scenes. It just depends how light or how dark!

On my shot of the black Swan, if I had concentrated on the Swan itself by spot metering it, I would have ended up with a grey swan, with a pink beak. As it was, I have a bit of experience to know whether to overide the meter.

You spot metered on a white Swan, so the meter didn't see anything else and therefore underexposed the shot, making it a lot darker. I would suggest that as there were many darker areas within the scene, if you had used evaluative metering, you would probably have ended up with a more accurate exposure.

Tips for the future?

• Use evaluative metering for the majority of your subjects.
• Spot metering can be used for tricky subjects, if the tone your are spot metering is average to start with.
• Check the viewfinder information before you shoot. If you saw F29 in the viewfinder, you would have known that it was unusual and it may have tempted you to reconsider your settings.
• Look at the histogram after you take a shot. It will show the distribution of tones and whether the highlights are clipped, or the shadows are blocked.

Hope that helps?

Colin

[lewiss]

Re: SWAN

yep,

so the reason is was underexposed like that was down to using spot metering?

[Millie]

Re: SWAN

yep,

so the reason is was underexposed like that was down to using spot metering?

Nope,
Not down spot metering, sorry, it's just down to your apparent lack of understanding how to use spot metering correctly.

Try reading Colin's post and link it should help