# Using exposure level indicator ?



## stratt0n (May 11, 2014)

How many people use exposure level indicator when shooting in manual mode? I use it all the time. But don't really know if it is the correct way to use manual mode. It seems to help . Sorry i was meaning to put this in the beginners section.


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## astroNikon (May 11, 2014)

The exposure level indicator is a tool to get the shot exposed correctly quickly.  I use it all the time.

When you are in manual ISO, manual Shutter & Aperture you need it to get the proper exposure for your technique, whether that is in f/2.8 or f4, f9 it lets you quickly adjust to the proper Shutter/ISO/exposure level.  Or if you want to bump up ISO then Aperture, for a particular shutter speed in various lighting conditions.

The exposure meter lets you get it right and quickly.
Then you can adjust after that whether you like to slightly underexpose, etc.


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## stratt0n (May 11, 2014)

Thanks. Makes  since.


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## KmH (May 11, 2014)

Most cameras will give you 3 or 4 metering mode options - Spot, Center-weighted, Matrix/Evaluative, and Partial.

Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure


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## minicoop1985 (May 11, 2014)

It also lets you expose backlit things just right. For example, getting the foreground to show up in a sunset shot, or adjusting for night shots. Sometimes you need to over or under expose by a stop or two.


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## unpopular (May 11, 2014)

The exposure meter will correspond to exposure levels. When using spot meter, this is most evident. Zero is equivalent to middle grey. It represent's 12-18% (depending) of the total light available being reflected from the subject into the lens. It will render near level 128 in an 8-bit image, in practice, it won't be exactly level 128, but that's the idea. So if you have half the amount of light in one scene than another, you will need twice the amount of exposure to render a subject at 18%, i.e. increase time, aperture or sensitivity by one stop.

+1ev represents one full stop more light reflected off the subject than 0ev. So if you expose something that reflects twice as much light as something that reflects 18% of the total light available at ±0ev, it will be appear too dark. To properly expose such a subject, you would need to increase exposure by one stop.

-1ev represents one full stop less light reflected off the subject than ±0ev. So if you expose something that reflects twice as much light as something that reflects 18% of the total light available at 0ev, it will appear too light. To properly expose such a subject, you would need to decrease exposure by one stop.

The vital thing to remember is that ±0ev does NOT mean "correct". It means that the same circumstances were met as when the meter was calibrated.


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## unpopular (May 11, 2014)

minicoop1985 said:


> It also lets you expose backlit things just right. For example, getting the foreground to show up in a sunset shot, or adjusting for night shots. Sometimes you need to over or under expose by a stop or two.



Or spot meter off the subject and spot meter off the background, and calculate a best scenario for the circumstance given latitude.


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## minicoop1985 (May 11, 2014)

unpopular said:


> minicoop1985 said:
> 
> 
> > It also lets you expose backlit things just right. For example, getting the foreground to show up in a sunset shot, or adjusting for night shots. Sometimes you need to over or under expose by a stop or two.
> ...


Pretty much, but I use the meter to determine exactly where I wanna end up. You just worded what I really meant better than I did.


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## unpopular (May 11, 2014)

Yeah. As a photographer becomes more familiar with what exposure means, the less guesswork is involved. It becomes more about compromise than "ehh, a stop or two". Even decisions about processing should ideally be made at the time of exposure ("do I want to provide increased exposure and pull shadows to maintain detail? how will this effect headroom?")

I think it's important to get away from this mentality early on. The science behind photography is pretty precise, it's what you do with that precision that makes it art.


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## benlinus78 (May 14, 2014)

I use the exposure level indicator too. That is how i learn drom the beginning.


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## cookedpixel (May 14, 2014)

stratt0n said:


> How many people use exposure level indicator when shooting in manual mode?



I do not because usually when I'm in manual mode it is because I am specifically trying to ignore the camera's exposure suggestion due to unusual lighting conditions or artistic effect.


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## unpopular (May 15, 2014)

cookedpixel said:


> stratt0n said:
> 
> 
> > How many people use exposure level indicator when shooting in manual mode?
> ...



Then you very clearly do not know how the meter works.

I don't mean to be insulting here, but the assertion that the meter is somehow "suggesting" something, or that it is exclusive to artistic control is completely erroneous - have you read _The Negative_?


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## Derrel (May 15, 2014)

I look at the metering display and center it; or deliberately over-expose; or deliberately underexpose. Sometimes I swing the camera around the scene, using the decades-old system that Nikon uses, which is a scribed, 12mm circle in the viewfinder, using that metering circle to check the values at  the brightest spot in the frame, and then to the darkest spot in the frame, and then swing the scribed circle to a point in-between, and then set *to that exposure* setting.


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## unpopular (May 15, 2014)

^^^  Camera swinging. That's kind of a funny mental picture.


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## cookedpixel (May 15, 2014)

unpopular said:


> cookedpixel said:
> 
> 
> > stratt0n said:
> ...



To be honest, that was a bit insulting. Perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say because I wasn't clear. Yes, I have read The Camera, The Negative, and The Print, along with many other photography books and frequently utilize the Zone System with black and white film photography. The meter is suggesting an exposure based only on a standard 18% reflectance (Zone V). Sometimes that average works, and other times it does not when the subject is lit differently than much of the scene.

For example, the below photograph was taken with exposure as the meter indicated. The lighting was flat, and the dynamic range was not large. I did use a conservative contrast filter to increase the contrast between the colored panels of the building. That worked for what I was trying to achieve.







The next photograph had some heavy shadow to the right of the mural. Had I exposed to what the meter averaged the entire scene as, some of the highlights in the mural would have crept up to zone IX and lost texture detail. Instead, I exposed a full stop less than the meter indicated to let the right side go dark and let the values of the mural land correctly.


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## unpopular (May 17, 2014)

Crooked - Really I didn't mean to be insulting, it's just that, as you know  there is so much misunderstanding about metering out there. Clearly this isn't the case here.

It's important that you remember to mention that what you are saying is the case if you leave the meter on center weighted, average or are using an incident meter. With spot metering you can place any reference into any zone.

In the case of the second example I would meter off the hilight, placing at Zone VIII and then meter the shadows to ensure the contrast is within latitude, processing accordingly (i.e. the Derrel swing method). The same might go for the first example, but I'd want to make sure the shadows aren't so compressed to require an excessive adjustment and decrease exposure until a 'conservative' contrast adjustment could be used. 

The process is basically reverse for film, expose for the shadows process for the hilight, a-la-Adams. I do have a +-N system for raw files  but it's not very practical, requires a lot of calibration, a lot of note taking and isn't very useful.

I'm pretty anal about precision. I don't think it makes me a better photography necessarily, but it certainly slows me down a lot. It is pretty impressive that you can do this all from an average reading, some people are just really good at seeing exposure. I'm not.


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## minicoop1985 (May 18, 2014)

Been taking more landscapes with skies that are FAR brighter than the ground. I've been finding that the meter can be fooled by way more than one stop, actually. So yeah, as a basic guide, it's great, but knowing how to spot meter is your friend.


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## IzzieK (May 18, 2014)

stratt0n said:


> How many people use exposure level indicator when shooting in manual mode? I use it all the time. But don't really know if it is the correct way to use manual mode. It seems to help . Sorry i was meaning to put this in the beginners section.


I make it a point to use the exposure level indicator all the time too. This is called EV in my mind btw. It really helps. But then I still consider myself a beginner and an amateur on some level so what do I know? I came here to learn too so to me, your question is a very ones.


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## cookedpixel (May 18, 2014)

unpopular said:


> Crooked - Really I didn't mean to be insulting, it's just that, as you know there is so much misunderstanding about metering out there.



I understand, and agree. No harm done, we're good as far as I'm concerned. All an in-camera light meter does is give you the exposure for an average reflectance using a specific method (spot, center weighted, evaluative/matrix, etc.). The photographer must understand the metering method being used and if he or she indeed _wants_ an average exposure given the metering method.



unpopular said:


> It is pretty impressive that you can do this all from an average reading, some people are just really good at seeing exposure. I'm not.



That skill came from years of using a meterless Leica M3 for my travel photography.


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## AlanKlein (May 18, 2014)

I've been shooting for 50 years.  I still make exposure errors especially if shooting in difficult light such as during the "magic" hours.  Light changes very quickly then. Most people, if they were to post a contact print of the entire film roll  or 50 digital shots, would show plenty of errors in exposure, unless they were shooting during mid-day and there were no light changes.  Add filters such as polarizing and contrast for BW film and it gets even more difficult.   Even though most of my shots are probably OK with the main exposure estimate, I always bracket just in case.  My landscape shots on tripod lends itself to this.  I kind of follow Derrel's method but I use a 10% spot on a separate hand held meter.  Then I take three readings and average for the initial photo and bracket two more photos at +1 and -1 stop.  Works for me.


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## bratkinson (May 20, 2014)

In my varied shooting situations, I oftentimes choose to use shutter speed priority and let the camera figure out the rest. This is especially true if the lighting is changing quickly. I just got back from vacation and took several hundred shots though the window of the train. As the train was continually changing angles relative to the sun, especially in mountainous territory, trying to determine what settings for each shot manually would result in a lot of poorly exposed shots. Instead, my 'absolute' was a shutter speed fast enough to stop my motion on the train, and since I was restricted to use my 135mm lens due to packing the wrong zoom as my 2nd lens, I held my shutter speed to 1/200th.

There were several situations, however, that what the camera figured out would not give the proper exposure. This was especially true during a couple of station stops and I was photographing the people boarding and deboarding the train, and they were in heavy shadows. So, I went to manual and adjusted my ISO and aperture accordingly, and slowed down the shutter speed when I had to. I went by the camera meter to make my choices.

But recognize that the camera meter alone isn't the sole criteria for making my settings. Knowing the exposure triangle is critical. In several shots, especially at night in the station(s), I had to make some critical trade-offs to get the desired exposure levels. In some cases, I cranked the ISO, in others, the aperture, and in others, slowed the shutter down to 1/60th to get what I wanted. No surprise, however, I went through several shots before I got the one I wanted, looking at the images on the LCD to decide if what I wanted was what I got. While there were perhaps 30-40 different combinations of ISO/aperture/shutter speed that would yield the desired results, knowing the various gains and loses for each choice can make the difference of getting a good shot or getting a GREAT shot!


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## Jusstin (May 21, 2014)

As per my experience, You camera must be in one the creative exposure modes to display the exposure level indicator, and when you will select one of these modes and depress the shutter button halfway, you will see a scale that will be represented by a dotted line and marked -2, -1, +1 and +2. Basically this is exposure level indicator and on many other cameras it can be displayed on the top-plate and back LCD panels.


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## stratt0n (May 31, 2014)

I shoot a Canon 70D and the ex poserlevel indicator is shown ibnt all the mods including the manual mod.


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