GH13 How do YOU nail exposure everytime?

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seven.b

Well-known member
Hey everyone, just wondering what your common practice is for nailing exposure everytime? I shoot mountain biking and therefore can't have an external monitor as it wouldn't be very portable.

How do you nail exposure everytime?


Thanks
 
I find a good practice to always go one stop below what I think is peak in bright areas, and one stop above what I think is bright enough in dark areas. I tried using the histogram but it just gave me a headache over eyeballing it myself.
 
Get a gray card and expose off of that. But there are usually too many variables at work to make that a rule. In my case I will check with a gray card to get a felling of the mid-tones and then expose for the balance between shadow detail and hi-lights most of the time. The gray card is not full prof and you need to make judgment calls. Make a hood for your LCD and get a 18% gray card.

You should take a look at your histogram as well. For outdoors run and gun type shooting you will really need to get a good feel for what the camera can do and live within those limitations. It really hard if not impossible most of the time to get that perfect exposure were the hi-lights are not blown and you get good shadow detail. So deciding on a look can really help.

Also graduated ND filters can help out a lot if used right.
 
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Don't forget to take a still of the scene before hand and check the RGB histogram in preview to ensure you're not clipping on a single channel. Though I've found a great way to fix chroma channel clipping in After Effects.
 
I don't think there's a right and wrong way to expose any scene, so I find the idea of "nailing" it is more a case of learning to be a good photographer. Often, some of the nicest photos and video images are wildly over or under-exposed from the scene average exposure that a light meter or grey card would suggest. Expose by eye, and experiment.

For example:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Shutter_speed_in_Greenwich.jpg

Right? Wrong? Comme ci comme ca
 
seven.b said:
Hey everyone, just wondering what your common practice is for nailing exposure everytime? I shoot mountain biking and therefore can't have an external monitor as it wouldn't be very portable.

How do you nail exposure everytime?


Thanks
Click to expand...

The easiest way is to decide what object in view you want to expose for and adjust the exposure for that area alone. If you are shooting an interview make sure the face is properly exposed (not over or under) don't worry about the background - although if it is way off try changing your shot. But as long as you have a proper EVF rather than an Optical VF exposure is the easist thing to get right.
 
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