Old barn Opinions on overall brightness?

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Originally Posted by xpatUSA

+1, I am a spot metering guy too, although my own foray into "real photography" was with a Praktica MTL3 armed with a battery-powered Cadmium Sulfide cell which was probably just a scene-averaging device - my, my, how much have we have progressed since then!

In spite of all the wonderful "matrix" metering with an ever-increasing number of points, what you're getting is the opinion of some programmer from a far-off land as to what you're actually looking at, even though he is not there looking over your shoulder.

Sux, IMHO.

Trevor, don't even bother with it.

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I use all different types of metering, but for run of the mill snow-covered landscape shots like Trevor's scene here, I use matrix metering for the initial settings PLUS exposure compensation (I'll usually start with +1 or +1-1/3) . I'll fine tune based on what I see on the histograms. I could shoot on manual too, but that is not usual workflow. The issue I have with spot metering in these situations is determining what point to meter as a small change in position can give vastly different readings. Selecting a spot that has the same tonality as middle grey going to require a lot of luck.

The main issue with shooting snow is that on its own, it tends to be quite boring; a solid, white amorphous mass. Add some shadows and you can have an interesting subject. The problem that Trevor is facing with this shot is a plain overcast sky (boring), which means no interesting shadows in the snow (also boring). Trevor is a lot more adventurous than I would be; my camera tends to stay in the house when the shooting conditions are like the one had.

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Originally Posted by Manfred M

I use all different types of metering, but for run of the mill snow-covered landscape shots like Trevor's scene here, I use matrix metering for the initial settings PLUS exposure compensation (I'll usually start with +1 or +1-1/3) . I'll fine tune based on what I see on the histograms. I could shoot on manual too, but that is not usual workflow. The issue I have with spot metering in these situations is determining what point to meter as a small change in position can give vastly different readings. Selecting a spot that has the same tonality as middle grey going to require a lot of luck.

The main issue with shooting snow is that on its own, it tends to be quite boring; a solid, white amorphous mass. Add some shadows and you can have an interesting subject. The problem that Trevor is facing with this shot is a plain overcast sky (boring), which means no interesting shadows in the snow (also boring). Trevor is a lot more adventurous than I would be; my camera tends to stay in the house when the shooting conditions are like the one had.

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For some reason I mostly use a negative ev. Nikon D700. But that completely depends on the situation .

Let me explain my point again. Trevor spot meters on A and adjusts the setting on basis of B. That's very illogical. Spotmeter the snow, you can use a correction on the forehand of 2 or whatever based on experience. As said before here.
It doesn't make much difference how you com to a good exposure. Just know what you're doing and keep it simple.

George

I don't disagree with most of the above comments but my rather simplistic appreciation of the image comes from the barn and its timber. The snow is of secondary importance to me and so long as it is not blown or a strange tint it won't distract significantly from the image. So I would like to see a little more contrast and life in the timber. Maybe a slightly warmer colour balance in the timber and a touch more sharpening.

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Originally Posted by pnodrog

I don't disagree with most of the above comments but from my rather simplistic appreciation of the image comes from the barn and its timber. The snow is of secondary importance to me and so long as it is not blown or a strange tint it won't distract significantly from the image. So I would like to see a little more contrast and life in the timber. Maybe a slightly warmer colour balance in the timber and a touch more sharpening.

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Absolutely.

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Originally Posted by george013

For some reason I mostly use a negative ev. Nikon D700. But that completely depends on the situation .

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Exactly. The camera's metering system will provide settings that will ensure that a scene would be properly exposed it it were "middle grey". If one takes a black card, grey card and white card and follows the recommendations of the camera's metering system, all three will show a virtually identical histogram.

In general a snowscape, shooting a scene with a lot of sky or a white sand beach will lead the camera's metering system to recommend underexposure, hence a +ve setting for exposure compensation is used.

A night scene, for instance, will tend to be overexposed by the camera's metering system and will come put too light if a -ve exposure compensation is not used.

This entire thread shows that even the best here sometimes have troubles getting a good shot of a given scene. I guess when the light is bad, it's bad and not too much we can do about getting a good image.

Trevor, you made a good try on this. I wonder if you tried converting to b&w . . . Would still not get any real detail from the foreground, but some of my shots like this end up a bit more acceptable in b&w.

Thanks for sharing.

Zen:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by zen

This entire thread shows that even the best here sometimes have troubles getting a good shot of a given scene. I guess when the light is bad, it's bad and not too much we can do about getting a good image.

Trevor, you made a good try on this. I wonder if you tried converting to b&w . . . Would still not get any real detail from the foreground, but some of my shots like this end up a bit more acceptable in b&w.

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Veering slightly off-topic:

Sometimes, but not always, a scene gets more pop when shot in IR. I was reminded of this thread by this shot (not mine):

http://www.apogeephoto.com/wp-conten...1-1/irbarn.jpg

http://www.apogeephoto.com/infrared-...bunking-myths/
.