So, the funny oblong metering pattern; any tips?

[rpavich]

I've been trying to wrap my head around the funny oblong metering pattern in the R-D1x but it's still not making sense to me.

Because the "most sensitive" part is the lower left corner does that mean that I point the camera with the subject in the lower left to meter?

I usually preset the camera via the palm of my hand or green grass or a grey card and I'm wondering if my hand, the grass, or the card has to be in the lower left corner for it to be accurate.

I DID notice that it metered much more accurately when I completely filled the frame with my hand. It was 1 stop underexposed when I didn't.


I'm just trying to grasp what's happening.

 

[rbelyell]

i find if i just over expose by 2/3-1 full stop with the exposure comp dial on top of the camera, i am typically right on. my pov was that its supreme simplicity and immersive scene involvement are really this cameras strengths and i didnt want to continually muck those up by worrying about metering on each shot. yvmv.

as far as grasping whats happening, i think youve got it--at the end of the day it underexposes by 2/3-1 full stop pretty much all the time. at least mine does. you can account for that with the exposure comp dial, or manually by shooting a stop slower than the camera recommends.
i personally have found simply accounting for this makes metering very accurate.
tony

 

[pagpow]

Is what you report exclusive to the R-D1x? I have the R-D1 with firmware update to the R-D1s and have not noticed underexposure problems shooting as I shot with Canon F1 and central metering. My bad? or...

Giorgio

 

[Monochrom]

hi,

When i hade my rd1s i painted with a sharpie some strips of the shutter, so i left only the center strip in clear colour, this selfmade pattern worked flawlessly for me.

 

[rpavich]

Is what you report exclusive to the R-D1x? I have the R-D1 with firmware update to the R-D1s and have not noticed underexposure problems shooting as I shot with Canon F1 and central metering. My bad? or...

Giorgio

AFAIK it's also with the R-D1 and R-D1s. I got the info from CameraQuest. Did you check it against an incident meter?

 

[rpavich]

hi,

When i hade my rd1s i painted with a sharpie some strips of the shutter, so i left only the center strip in clear colour, this selfmade pattern worked flawlessly for me.

Interesting. Can you be more specific?