Lesson 2 is all about Exposure. More about exposing the shortcomings of the photographer, I think :).
But before the homework, I wanted to share a photo I took a few days ago. I was taking pictures in downtown Chandler, AZ when I turned to go to my next shot and saw this amazing blue car parked nearby. The angle to the sun was "all wrong". I would be shooting into the sun, and that's normally a no-no. But the blue was so brilliant that I had to try. And my camera had a sun shade I had never used. So I snapped the shot, just altering the zoom to fit the composition. (click on the photo for a larger view)
Ok, I did fudge on the above picture a little. I used Photoshop to mask out the RAM brightwork logo on the truck in the background to remove the distraction. Other than that, no adjustments; shown as shot.
I took pictures for the homework for Week 2, mainly varying the exposure metering between center-weighted average and spot. Sometimes I would vary between the camera's more capable matrix metering and spot metering. And once I used spot metering plus an EV adjustment.
This was shot with the camera on center-weighted average metering, and shows how the light background drives the exposure.
To bring out the thermometer on the post, I changed to Spot Metering.
The next shot may be a little hard to understand, but it was taken of part of the small water feature we have out back. The bright upper part of the picture is the sloping side of the container for the pool, and the dark lower part is the water (in the shadow). The center-weighted avarage metering on the first photo emphasizes the sunlit side of the pool edges.
I changed the metering to Spot, moved the center of the lens down onto the shadow part of the water, depressed the lens half-way, held and moved the camera a little and snapped the photo. The Spot metering held for the shot. The bottom of the pool, around 8 inches deep, is clearly shown together with the reflections on the water.
The third setting was on the street where I wanted to capture the Stop sign, but thought that the matrix metering for the camera would emphasize the overall sunny areas.
I tried using the metering in Spot mode, but I could not seem to click and hold the metering (on the Stop sign) as I recentered the shot. So I adjusted the Ev by + 1.67, and that worked well. The first time I ever used the Ev adjustment on a camera. I was surprised, it worked.
Conclusion: This exercise forced me to learn more about using exposure to control what registers on the camera. Nice to know about how to use the Spot metering to overcome problem areas in major light/dark contrast areas of pictures. If there is an extremely strong light/dark boundary, the camera may not be able to get it all exposed well in one shot. Such as the pool and the water above. But the photographer can help with the adjustments.
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