The Water Table, Settings Snafu and Spot Metering! {Oh My!}

By
Lynda Giddens
– Sun June 27, 2010Posted in: Photography

My mom bought Mr. Serious a water table that arrived last week and let me just say that this is about the greatest summer toy ever! He is so entertained by it for such a long time. He uses it outside, which is a good way to get out and play without getting into stuff he shouldn’t (the hose. the grill.) From our living room, we can easily see into the backyard, so I’ve opened the blinds and let him stay outside while keeping an eye on him. He is turning into such a big boy!

06-25-10 - Elias and the Water Table - Vintage Tinted Lens - Alchemy - Grass is Greener

06-25-10 - New Water Table 06-25-10 - Elias and the Water Table 2

A Basic Snafu…

So, I was taking pictures of Mr. Serious and his new water table and somehow through an incorrect sequence of button mashing and wheel clicks (I was trying to fiddle with the flash settings and I never use the on-camera flash…) I somehow set my camera to shoot as JPEG Basic instead of Raw. Gasp! When I grabbed my camera the next night to take some more shots I thought it said it had 30 exposures left. But after shooting some incredibly beautiful sunset skies I looked down and it still indicated 30 exposures. Until I looked closer and it actually read 3.0k exposures. Oh no! I set it back to Raw, but it taught me a valuable lesson on looking at my camera’s display to confirm settings every time I pick it up.

06-23-10 - Water Table Fountain [173/365]

I’m entering this photo in this week’s Skinned Knees Photo Challenge! The theme is, Splash! Click the link or icon and head on over to Skinned Knees to see this week’s awesome entries!
The next series of photos are submitted for Skywatch Friday! Please be sure to check out the site to view everyone’s really cool sky shots!

06-23-10 - Moon in the Sky - Get Off My Cloud - Death Mask - Bluer Sky

Would that I could have gotten these in Raw!

The sky was absolutely stunning that night! These were also shot JPEG Basic. Sigh, folks. Sigh.

06-25-10 - Orangey Sunset

06-25-10 - Gradient Purple Sky

06-25-10 - Gradient Sky - Possible Overlay

I think this might make a nice overlay! I’m eager to use it as one. If you would like to use it, please feel free! Just click on the photo and download it from Flickr. If it works, leave me a comment and let me know!


Why Spot Metering Rocks my Socks…

I use spot metering as opposed to the usual default setting matrix metering. With matrix metering, your exposure is set taking the entire photo’s lighting into account. Shadowed portraits, sunset photos, silhouette shots and the like are really hard to get when you’re adjusting exposure by looking at the overall lighting situation. With spot metering, you can focus in on one spot, lock in metering against the light only there and then recompose your photo to take the shot based on what you’ve locked in. Read your camera’s manual for specifics on getting this set up, but I highly recommend it. In fact, if there is a benefit to matrix metering, I would love to know!

In the photo on the left, I metered the shot against the house and therefore the house is visible and the sky is not very interesting. This is likely similar to the effect you would get with matrix metering. In the photo on the right, I metered against a medium patch in the sky, then recomposed the shot and snapped. I’m a lot happier with the shot on the right.

06-25-10 - Why Spot Metering Rocks06-25-10 - Orange Fire Sky at Night

What are your thoughts? Do you prefer spot or matrix? Do you have any special techniques for capturing sunset skies you’d like to share?

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Tags: , , , , ,