It seems I can never properly expose my shots. Many are slightly under-exposed, many slightly over-exposed. I know, I can adjust the brightness in post-processing, but it doesn't seem to be quite as good as just adjusting the exposure. Can someone give some hints on how to best determine necessary exposure?
Keep in mind also that cameras' internal exposure meter has its own issues.
It's similar to FILM.... you can buy for example a Velvia film, rated ISO 64, though in cameras such as NIkon, you'd use ISO 50, which is about 1/3 less than what the label says.
Similarly for digital, you can't simply do spot metering using a spot meter (not from within the camera) and use the exposure reading, because they'll vary between the camera brands. You have to compensate by a factor from the reading.
Rules such as "metering off snow and add +2 stop" is fine, however, for digital, if you use the in-camera metering system, you may have to adjust it up by 1/2 stop or lower by 1/2 stop.
I would suggest doing some tests metering off a gray card and using different levels of compensation to determine what is right for your camera. I have found that exposure meters vary from camera to camera even within the same brand and model. I did some tests of my 1D against a friend’s 1D and found that his meter was about ½ stop under mine.
Eventually if you shoot a lot you will know given a scene whether you need to compensate one way or the other.
Anyway, with digital it's always better to underexpose, as you can recover the darkened image, versus "clipped" or blown image losing the highlights. You don't want to be too underexposed as noise levels will affect image quality but 1/3 - 1/2 stops would be no problem.
Originally posted by dadas115:
I would suggest doing some tests metering off a gray card and using different levels of compensation to determine what is right for your camera. I have found that exposure meters vary from camera to camera even within the same brand and model. I did some tests of my 1D against a friend’s 1D and found that his meter was about ½ stop under mine.
