Durr3
Established
I recently got my R-D1 back from alignment and decided to take her out for a spin. I mounted my VC 28mm 3.5 CS and drove to Natchez. Had some good and bad lighting to deal with and actually thought I was doing OK until I got home. Every image was underexposed by at least 1 whole stop. I shot in raw so all was not lost, but PLEASE help with the metering tricks for this camera. THANKS. -Durr
mwooten
light user
R
RML
Guest
Yes, I too set a +.7 over-exposure as standard, unless light levels drop such that I simply need the shutter speeds.
JNewell
Leica M Recidivist
Take a look at the metering diagram on the FAQ website. If you were shooting vertically, as I usually do, with the advance lever down, you will meter the sky and underexpose. If it was happening with horizontal shots, something else is going on.
Didier
"Deed"
Durr,
First: By using a 28mm lens on the R-D1 you still have a wide lens on (42mm field of view). This means the chance is big there's a lot of sky in your picture, influencing the metering.
Second: The metering pattern of the R-D1 is not centered, see RichC's very useful site.
Third: The camera meter does indeed conservatively expose, like many pro digital camera bodies. This is to prevent overexposed areas especially blown out highlights. A slightly underexposed RAW has the best potential for further editing. Once you have washed out hightlights in it you can't change them anymore.
So you may consider this all together when shooting. If there's much sky, hold the camera to what is less bright and measure this. If you like to shoot jpg so you may fiddle the exposure by a new custom film setting, or by the AE over/underexpose correction wheel.
Personally I shoot and edit RAW so for me the Epson's metering is quite ok. I do make corrections only from picture to picture depending light situation/framing. But I do not make general overexposure like others do, because of the mentioned highlights.
Didier
First: By using a 28mm lens on the R-D1 you still have a wide lens on (42mm field of view). This means the chance is big there's a lot of sky in your picture, influencing the metering.
Second: The metering pattern of the R-D1 is not centered, see RichC's very useful site.
Third: The camera meter does indeed conservatively expose, like many pro digital camera bodies. This is to prevent overexposed areas especially blown out highlights. A slightly underexposed RAW has the best potential for further editing. Once you have washed out hightlights in it you can't change them anymore.
So you may consider this all together when shooting. If there's much sky, hold the camera to what is less bright and measure this. If you like to shoot jpg so you may fiddle the exposure by a new custom film setting, or by the AE over/underexpose correction wheel.
Personally I shoot and edit RAW so for me the Epson's metering is quite ok. I do make corrections only from picture to picture depending light situation/framing. But I do not make general overexposure like others do, because of the mentioned highlights.
Didier
pzillig
Member
Durr,
first please pardon my rusty english writing. In my earlier years I used something in german so called ‚Kodak-Graukarte’ which reflects 18% of light intensity. Because these (expensive) little helpers were mostley gone I always use the (dry) asphalt between my feet for metering.
first please pardon my rusty english writing. In my earlier years I used something in german so called ‚Kodak-Graukarte’ which reflects 18% of light intensity. Because these (expensive) little helpers were mostley gone I always use the (dry) asphalt between my feet for metering.
JNewell
Leica M Recidivist
This has been my (limited) experience so far as well.
Didier
"Deed"
JNewell said:
What I sometimes get is a completely underexposed picture but that's maybe one on 1000.
Sam2nd
6x6
This shot is with +0.3 overexposed and metering for the middle of the shot.
I'm very satisfied with the colors and metering with the Rd1s, I don't like the pics with overexposed.
Normaly I set +0.7 for the general purpose, in interiors metering normal without compensation for not to have too much noise.
Sorry for my bad English.
I'm very satisfied with the colors and metering with the Rd1s, I don't like the pics with overexposed.
Normaly I set +0.7 for the general purpose, in interiors metering normal without compensation for not to have too much noise.
Sorry for my bad English.
Durr3
Established
My thanks to all of you
My thanks to all of you
Thank you all for your input. This helps me a lot and I plan on another outing this weekend so I will put into place your suggestions. There are some really nice people on this site. -Durr
My thanks to all of you
Thank you all for your input. This helps me a lot and I plan on another outing this weekend so I will put into place your suggestions. There are some really nice people on this site. -Durr
Jim Watts
Still trying to See.
I shoot RAW which gives a little more dynamic range but I agree with the consensus here that outside in overcast conditions and most situations inside I cosider the R-D1 conservative in protecting the high lights so I add +0.7 EV. In contrasty sunlight as metered or as much as -1.3 EV if reflective white areas I want to retain detail in are in the frame.
sonwolf
Established
I agree the R-D1's meter is aggressively oriented towards underexposure to protect highlights. I have done grey card tests on my camera comparing the camera's meter to handheld incident and spot meters and found approximately -0.7EV underexposure, in daylight, by the R-D1. The underexposure increases to approximately -1.0EV in a typical interior tungsten environment. The R-D1's meter exposed my grey card approximately -0.3EV on the histogram compared to daylight.
Despite the R-D1's meter bias, the amount of exposure compensation you should use depends on several factors. As previously mentioned, the R-D1 does not have a typical metering pattern. Rich Cutler's invaluable R-D1 website provides a diagram of the camera's metering pattern. When shooting landscape orientation, one needs to be very aware of the lower left quadrant of the frame and how close that region averages to a medium tone. If this area averages towards bright tones, relative to the rest of the frame, positive exposure compensation will need to be added. Not unusually, you might need to add +1.0EV to +1.5EV to reach optimum exposure.
Another highly influential factor is contrast. How bright are the highlights relative to the overall frame? A low contrast image can handle aggressive positive exposure compensation much better than a high contrast image. Be careful of just automatically setting the R-D1 to +0.7EV exposure compensation. In an environment with very bright highlights, this approach can easily lead to a blown histogram. Many times +0.3 or even no compensation is the best exposure option.
If you are shooting Raw, the exposure should be biased towards being as bright as possible without overexposing the highlights. 75% of a raw image’s exposure levels exist in the camera’s two brightest stops. Ideally, the R-D1’s histogram should show information in the two brightest sections on the right. Be careful of how far your image extends into the brightest far right section of the histogram. Depending on the raw converter, this area can lead to overexposure.
The best approach to mastering the R-D1’s meter is to ignore subject matter and artistic merit, and just spend time taking practice photos solely for judging exposure. Look at the viewfinder, make an exposure judgment, take a photo, and then see how close you came to optimum exposure. Then load the images into your raw converter of choice and compare its histograms to the R-D1, being especially mindful of the highlight readings at your default raw converter settings. Many raw converters add contrast, producing brighter highlights than indicated on the R-D1. Learn where the best maximum exposure line is on your camera relative to your raw converter. Additionally, you can adjust the R-D1’s raw histogram rendering, to better match your raw converter, by adjusting the camera’s contrast and saturation settings. The “raw” histogram is really a measurement of a linear conversion of the image, controlled by the R-D1’s film settings. These settings never change the actual raw image but do affect the camera’s internal raw conversion renderings that produce the histogram. A word of caution, these settings do affect the JPEG produce by the Raw+JPEG option.
Despite the R-D1's meter bias, the amount of exposure compensation you should use depends on several factors. As previously mentioned, the R-D1 does not have a typical metering pattern. Rich Cutler's invaluable R-D1 website provides a diagram of the camera's metering pattern. When shooting landscape orientation, one needs to be very aware of the lower left quadrant of the frame and how close that region averages to a medium tone. If this area averages towards bright tones, relative to the rest of the frame, positive exposure compensation will need to be added. Not unusually, you might need to add +1.0EV to +1.5EV to reach optimum exposure.
Another highly influential factor is contrast. How bright are the highlights relative to the overall frame? A low contrast image can handle aggressive positive exposure compensation much better than a high contrast image. Be careful of just automatically setting the R-D1 to +0.7EV exposure compensation. In an environment with very bright highlights, this approach can easily lead to a blown histogram. Many times +0.3 or even no compensation is the best exposure option.
If you are shooting Raw, the exposure should be biased towards being as bright as possible without overexposing the highlights. 75% of a raw image’s exposure levels exist in the camera’s two brightest stops. Ideally, the R-D1’s histogram should show information in the two brightest sections on the right. Be careful of how far your image extends into the brightest far right section of the histogram. Depending on the raw converter, this area can lead to overexposure.
The best approach to mastering the R-D1’s meter is to ignore subject matter and artistic merit, and just spend time taking practice photos solely for judging exposure. Look at the viewfinder, make an exposure judgment, take a photo, and then see how close you came to optimum exposure. Then load the images into your raw converter of choice and compare its histograms to the R-D1, being especially mindful of the highlight readings at your default raw converter settings. Many raw converters add contrast, producing brighter highlights than indicated on the R-D1. Learn where the best maximum exposure line is on your camera relative to your raw converter. Additionally, you can adjust the R-D1’s raw histogram rendering, to better match your raw converter, by adjusting the camera’s contrast and saturation settings. The “raw” histogram is really a measurement of a linear conversion of the image, controlled by the R-D1’s film settings. These settings never change the actual raw image but do affect the camera’s internal raw conversion renderings that produce the histogram. A word of caution, these settings do affect the JPEG produce by the Raw+JPEG option.