EV as in exposure. So far, aperture/shutter speed/iso has served me well in handling most of my shoots. I see the term everywhere but hardly find a time where I need to use it. I've never used EV before in any of my shoots, so I'm wondering if any pros here know the use of it.
Do you ever use ev when you shoot?
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EV correction is good for the fast correction required at times. For me personally, I use flash ev compensation a lot. When shooting macros, I drop to -2.0ev and will bring it up to -1.0ev for portraits.
Yes I will use the EV compensation depending on situation to achieve the correct exposure. If your subject and/or background is mostly white, then I will overexpose from the metered reading. If it was mostly black, then I will underexpose from the metered reading. The in camera meter can be easily fooled when shooting something that is mostly white or black.
In extreme lighting conditions where 0EV on aperture priority mode is difficult to handle, I'll underexpose by about 1/3 to 1 stop and bump up the exposure in post-processing. This is a last minute resort. Of course, if flash is used, I won't do that.
How do we judge what amount of exposure compensation is enough? The consensus seems to be that in bright scenes, we might need to overexpose in order to compensate for the camera attempting to underexpose thinking it's too bright. But how to judge how much exposure compensation is enough? Do you look at the histogram? Or by gut feeling and experience?
What do you mean by using EV as in exposure? Are you talking about EV as a unit of measurement, or are you actually referring to exposure compensation? EV stands for exposure value - 0EV means with a given set of exposure settings, you are getting an exposure of 18% grey at the metered spot.
Most (if not all) light meters register a well-exposed image as being 18% grey. Assuming you are metering a white wall on Program AE Mode with no exposure compensation, the camera will give you a set of settings to shoot with, correct? Let's say you take that set of exposure settings and shoot the photo, your wall in the picture will not look white, but grey (i.e. underexposed). Similarly, shoot a black wall with no exposure compensation on Program as well; your black wall will look grey (i.e. overexposed)
Hence, since camera meters push white down to grey, and black up to grey, one has to be able to know when to override these automatically generated settings to render white as white (overexposing by about one stop), and black as black (underexposing by one stop).
In terms of tricky lighting situations, one has to look at what is the intended subject that needs to be well-exposed. Sometimes, you have to compromise by blowing out a certain amount of highlights to ensure your subject is well-exposed; exposing for the highlights may mean your subject is underexposed. Makes sense?
Most (if not all) light meters register a well-exposed image as being 18% grey. Assuming you are metering a white wall on Program AE Mode with no exposure compensation, the camera will give you a set of settings to shoot with, correct? Let's say you take that set of exposure settings and shoot the photo, your wall in the picture will not look white, but grey (i.e. underexposed). Similarly, shoot a black wall with no exposure compensation on Program as well; your black wall will look grey (i.e. overexposed)
Hence, since camera meters push white down to grey, and black up to grey, one has to be able to know when to override these automatically generated settings to render white as white (overexposing by about one stop), and black as black (underexposing by one stop).
In terms of tricky lighting situations, one has to look at what is the intended subject that needs to be well-exposed. Sometimes, you have to compromise by blowing out a certain amount of highlights to ensure your subject is well-exposed; exposing for the highlights may mean your subject is underexposed. Makes sense?
Yes, this was what I was curious about.
For my P&S, when I apply EV compensation and half-press the shutter button, the image on the LCD will be boosted brighter or darker accordingly so I can at least get an impression of what the outcome is going to be. But what I see on the LCD might not be accurate, perhaps due to LCD brightness/calibration issues or the like.
For best results, would it be better to judge based on some form of quantified indication? Maybe the histogram is not a good idea in this case... but any other methods? Or perhaps spot metering?
Thanks!
Certainly. Why not?
You can use Auto Bracketing for HDR shots.
Also like what others said, to do fast correction for metering, unless you want to switch to M mode and test it out yourself.
Using 0EV compensation is ok, but you will be relying on yout camera's metering 'skills.' Sometimes the metering may or may not be correct. Plus, if you know your camera has an inherent tendency to over(or under)expose, then you can set your exposure compensation accordingly.
If I'm not wrong, your LCD is working fine. Since p&s cams rely on the LCD instead of the viewfinder, the LCD will be boosted so that you can still check your framing and see what you are shooting.
For example, if you are at aperture priority mode and you selected f/8. At half-press, the size of the aperture will be made smaller. As a result, your LCD should be darker than before. However, the p&s wants to help you in your framing, so it automatically boosts the LCD to be brighter. Yes you may get tricked into thinking that will be the produced image.
You can use Auto Bracketing for HDR shots.
Also like what others said, to do fast correction for metering, unless you want to switch to M mode and test it out yourself.
Using 0EV compensation is ok, but you will be relying on yout camera's metering 'skills.' Sometimes the metering may or may not be correct. Plus, if you know your camera has an inherent tendency to over(or under)expose, then you can set your exposure compensation accordingly.
If I'm not wrong, your LCD is working fine. Since p&s cams rely on the LCD instead of the viewfinder, the LCD will be boosted so that you can still check your framing and see what you are shooting.
For example, if you are at aperture priority mode and you selected f/8. At half-press, the size of the aperture will be made smaller. As a result, your LCD should be darker than before. However, the p&s wants to help you in your framing, so it automatically boosts the LCD to be brighter. Yes you may get tricked into thinking that will be the produced image.
I believe you're asking: on PNS, you can roughly gauge the EV compensation outcome from the LCD preview. What about on a DSLR?
Personally I eyeball with the histogram. But it depends on the scene too. If it is a scene with a good spread of brightness, as long as the graph falls fills up the two ends with no massive clipping on either side, it should do. If you're picky, it shouldn't even touch the right end. For dark/low-key scenes, perhaps make sure that the peaks are not bunched up at the lower 1/4. I guess it's more or less an experience thing.
Also, as you take more photographs, go back and compare them on screen vs the camera LCD. Gives you better idea of how far off the LCD is.
Check out http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_41/essay.html for some ideas.
Personally I eyeball with the histogram. But it depends on the scene too. If it is a scene with a good spread of brightness, as long as the graph falls fills up the two ends with no massive clipping on either side, it should do. If you're picky, it shouldn't even touch the right end. For dark/low-key scenes, perhaps make sure that the peaks are not bunched up at the lower 1/4. I guess it's more or less an experience thing.
Also, as you take more photographs, go back and compare them on screen vs the camera LCD. Gives you better idea of how far off the LCD is.
Check out http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_41/essay.html for some ideas.
However, as calebk has suggested, in some trickier situations (e.g. light source behind the subject, so subject appears dark), we might want to sacrifice some highlight details in the background in order to maintain proper exposure for your subject. In that case, histogram would be not useful for telling whether the exposure is enough on the subject, would it? Since we know our histogram is going to show clipped highlights on the right side anyway... our subject would be somewhere in the middle of the histogram? In this case, do we concede to relying on the LCD only, or is there another tool to help us?
for my pentax, in sunny conditions (sun behind subject or indoors) , i will bump up the exp by 1.0 at least.... like refraXion said, highlights will be sacrificed, but at least subject is well exposed... esp if its a person...
Hmmmmmmm.............this sounds useful for adjusting EV. I've always use the combination of aperture & shutter speed for different lighting situations but I've never thought about grey! Does it mean if we're taking shots with a white scene, we should increase EV by 1 step to make that white look white?
Hmmmmmmm.............this sounds useful for adjusting EV. I've always use the combination of aperture & shutter speed for different lighting situations but I've never thought about grey! Does it mean if we're taking shots with a white scene, we should increase EV by 1 step to make that white look white?
Yep, you caught my drift. EV is relative to both the scene you are metering, along with the set of exposure settings that you have inputted to your camera. EV ≠ auto-exposure compensation.
OK but in what situations do you usually change your EV settings? 60% of the shot is white? Or what?
What mode are you shooting on? If you are shooting AE modes such as Program, Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority, you are changing Auto Exposure Compensation (AEC), not EV.
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