Exposure Metering Modes vs Exposure Compensation

[@torreyanderson1525]

Hi, just wanted to say thanks for the great education. I'm just a hobbyist, and just switched to micro 4/3 when my fujifilm point and shoot finally went dead. I did a lot of research and made the switch to Olympus. E PL-1. I love it, and your videos are teaching me so much about photography. Keep them coming!

[@flyfishnfoto]

Peter the best demonstration of the exposure meter producing the 18% grey result with the half black and half white paper. Well done again!

[@mucklark6943]

I've just thrown everything I believed about correct exposure out of the window ! I just switched from a Nikon DSLR to an Olympus E-M10 Mii. I still have to get used to the fact that I can see so much info directly in the viewfinder. After more than one attempt to understand the Histogram , I've finally got it ! A big thanks !!

[@dedclownsRfunny]

How did you go with the change from Nikon dslr to the Oly?

[@ThomasEisl.Photography]

Very interesting points and explanation, Peter!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Glad you think so!

[@tonycostanzo4383]

Peter, this was an excellent video and hugely informative. That’s why your channel is a “go to” channel for me when it comes to learning how to get the most out of my camera.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you.

[@stevenpitts4689]

Great tutorial Peter! I've been struggling with metering modes for a while, trying to get the best pics possible. It's a challenge! Actually all your videos are so helpful; Thanks!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Glad it was helpful!

[@wayneemery5709]

Hi Peter since following your advice I now have perfect exposure. 👍

[@ForsgardPeter]

Great to hear!

[@meredithpottery]

Thank you so much for this clip, Peter. It is great to have you give me the reasons why I shoot photos as I do! I never understood how the in camera meter helped me get the right exposure...it almost always was worse than my use of the histogram and EC. You are great to do these lessons for us. Much appreciated. I also really liked your lesson about exposing to the right, a while ago. It made my post processing and overall image quality much better. Have a great week.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Great to hear, Thank you.

[@davideynon4226]

Thanks for the information Peter. Keep up the weekly videos I find them very helpful and look forward to them.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you, I will. That is my plan.

[@spinninghirmu2966]

Thanks Peter, these were big reasons to me why I chose the OM- bodies. I have used spotmetering since the 70:s, and the exposure correcting with the EVF gives me the right exposures very easily nowadays.

[@gavinmcguire1746]

Thanks Peter.

[@alvaro5162]

Brilliant video, thinking is the hardest part of photography and not everyone does it.

[@elaineowen3353]

Your videos have helped me so much Peter, thank you ☺️

[@ForsgardPeter]

Happy to hear that!

[@rodmehta5356]

Excellent video! Cheers from the Southern Ocean !

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you.

[@stephanhan.8390]

You've nailed it. New subject.. greatly explained.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thanks.

[@rudolfabelin383]

Hi Peter! I apologize, I couldn't help it. Grey is the new black! LOL Thanks for helping me as an amateur (restarter). I always wanted an Olympus OM-4 back in the film days (never got it). That camera was a pioneer in weighted spot metering. Launched 1983.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Yes, grey is the new black! 😂

[@Rebla01]

Ok so that’s another thing less to worry about 🤷‍♂️. its all good! thanks Peter✌🏼

[@cmalc8]

Taking a reading from medium grey paper used to be a good method for ambient light exposure setting (a LONG time ago). Now the easiest way is to make sure a tiny bit of your image is flagging up orange using the highlight/shadow indication and if possible, back it off a little from there as long as no blue shows up. It's best to have your thumb dial always set for +/- !

[@ForsgardPeter]

Yes the grey card method was the best way back in the film days. It still works very well, but we also have the histogram and the warning colors.

[@sheriffnobel4274]

Thanks alot. I learnt a lot from your videos.

[@ixoye56]

Thumbs up Peter 👍

[@marekq6756]

Great video! As the metering modes in our cameras are useless, why Olympus and other camera makers do not give us a proper metering mode? So far we have to shift histogram to the right manually by rotating a compensation dial (this is what I normally do). But what are the processors for (in 21th century) ? This should be done by the camera processor. User should only switch to ETTR metering mode.

[@jwickerszh]

And that .. is why I hate dealing with exposure on my wife's Canon 6Dii .. Now I should look into how to use exposure bracketing on that one. Histograms and live view of what you get are so much easier to use.

[@WMedl]

Dear Peter, in film days well educated photographers used a light meter to expose correctly - the very very small availability of "storage" i.e. film rolls (and images on such a roll) forbade the mere wast of film called bracketing. In newer film cameras a light meter was built in and enhanced the chance of "correct" exposure ( by the way "correct" exposure is so manifold). And experienced photographers can very accurately estimate the "correct exposure". Baded on the mathematical relationship prescribed of EV to time and aperture a correct EV estimate will simply result in the vector if possible time/aperture/ISO triplets. But metering helps to set intentionally areas to the intended EV! That is espscially necessary if the dynamic range of the scene extends that of the camera. In that case setting the meteting to the intended result is important. And expose to the right implies in most circumstances post processing and thus raw format. There is a motivated group of photographers preferring SOOC - straight out of the camera and thus metring is indispensible!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Yes, I did too use a light meter. The reason was that the SLR meter could not trusted. My Mamiya RB67 did nit even have a light meter. We also did over exposure snowy scenes etc. But what i am saying that it is so much easier if think this different way and forget about the values light meter in camera gives us.

[@zandanshah]

Professional done.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you.

[@TCizauskas]

Always avoid the Dark Side, Luke!

[@arniecoons8248]

Pardon my ignorance but I'm a new arrival at the party. Will the exposure methods you discuss work if one is shooting only jpeg? If not, what method would be best? Thanks for doing what you do.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Yes they work also with jpg.

[@arniecoons8248]

@@ForsgardPeter thank you so much! Keep up the good work!

[@mattisulanto]

Well said and I couldn't agree more with you.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thanks Matti.

[@aililaoshi]

I love my histogram! Please send information on how to schedule face-to-face classes using my OM-D em1 mark II. Thanks!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Yes, I will. I have it almost ready. Have you used the flag colors also?

[@aililaoshi]

@@ForsgardPeter Not yet...The camera's menus are complex. I have taken several photography classes in Missoula, Montana: however, the instructors were unfamiliar with the camera. I am looking forward to collaborating with an Olympus visionary who KNOWS the E-M1 mark II.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Have you seen this video about the flag colors: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmPLY3lqn9p9d8U

[@certoglenn4840]

[@ForsgardPeter]

That is the way we used to do, and of course it still works.

[@alvaro5162]

@@ForsgardPeter When you recompose rotating the camera you are altering the distance between the object and the focal plane.

[@39zack]

Alvaro del Rio and that's why I don't use back button focus

[@micha5645]

Thank you, well explained!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thanks.

[@dance2jam]

Thank you for your videos Peter. Appreciate the time and energy. As you know, as a beginner, I like asking detailed questions, so here goes. First, I agree having your histogram in the viewfinder is a terrific asset (I don't own a mirror-less camera yet - waiting for one to protect against sensor dust, etc). So here's my question: I get exposure using ETTR (Expose to the right) saturating as much of the sensor pixels with good information. Blinkies for me, while useful, sometimes lie. I have found white blown out even though I can't see any blinkies. Nikon has a chimp screen on the rear screen that separates all histogram channels. One or occasionally more may be too far to the right. Assuming that the one or two channels too far to the right are important (i.e. red, green) in your photo as is the blue channel, what is your suggested solution? Just curious how you balance this equation. Thank you as always.

[@ForsgardPeter]

Dust is not a problem with Olympus. It has very effective dust reduction. I have never had to get my sensor cleaned in these five years I have used Olympus. Do not how blinkies work in Nikon, but yes sometimes a RGB-channel might get over exposed. If you have a correct white balance that will help. Correct in the way that all the three colors are at the same place in the histogram. Of course sometimes there might be one color that is dominanat just because the scene has that color more than the others. On those situations you need to be very carefull, especially when photographing people. You do not want the red channel to get over exposed.

[@meredithpottery]

@@ForsgardPeter I agree about the effectiveness of the sensor to stay dust free. I have never needed either of mine to be cleaned in 5 years.

[@francoiskoegler4529]

Hello, very good video, like the others too. My question : what exposure setting to use for very contrasted and fast moving subjects like flying birds in the sky ?

[@ForsgardPeter]

If the light is very contrasty, the exposure itself wont help. What you need to do is exposure so that the white parts of the bird is not over exposed and then in post you need to open up the shadows a bit. It will introduce some noise, but there is nothing you can do about it. Shutter speed must be fast enough to freeze the action.

[@francoiskoegler4529]

Thank you very much.

[@jdlu3282]

Thanks!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you very much.

[@icarofoto]

Totally agree with that, using that technique since the em5 old

[@celestewalz8342]

WYSIWYG histogram is the single biggest advantage of mirrorless. And there are a LOT of advantages.

[@stuarthirsch]

Very informative. How do I get the histogram in the viewfinder or LCD display before shooting? Also can I expose using the histogram only on aperture priority and manual modes only or use compensation on all modes including scene and iauto?

[@ForsgardPeter]

In Olympus cameras pressing the info-button to toggle between the different info on the EVF and LCD. Yes you can use only histogram if you want. Just make sure that the highlights do not get over exposed.

[@maritessantiago608]

Hi Peter what lense would you recomend for Olympus omd em10 mk2 for night photography and for shooting aurora borealis? thank you

[@ForsgardPeter]

12mm f2.0 is small and is very high quality.

[@bimer3]

hei i orded Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT to use for astro and northen lights,,,was that a mistake? should i gone for 7-14 2.8?

[@ForsgardPeter]

Laowa 7.5mm is a good lens for astrophotogarphy

[@bimer3]

@@ForsgardPeter thanks=)

[@bimer3]

have some quistions about my omd e m1 ,, been shooting some astro with my 7.5mm f2 now,,,but wanna make sure i have the settings right.. my noise filer in the camhouse, is on standard,,should i turn it of? and fix the noise in ps? set it low?or high?....noise reduction is on auto,should i change that? ....image stab is on, so is lens i.s priority......af area is on full grid,,,and metering ive been shooting on esp,tried spot,but wasent much different... do i get better shots if i shot in aspect 3:4 then 16:9 ? less noise? it collect the same ammount of light so.......anyway,,if you have any tips or suggestion about my settings or something else i should know is much appreciated ! here is my first attempts btw=) gurushots.com/photo/8ecf47f87980c743ed58e3830dec2f1f

[@debbiekarnes22]

Hope you can help. I have an Olympus OMD E-M10 III. In manual mode, my exposure compensation is stuck on -3. It will not move at all. I saw in an Olympus form that this question was asked and not answered. Help! Thanks in advance for your help!

[@ForsgardPeter]

You have tried to adjust the exposure and nothing happens?

[@debbiekarnes22]

Yes. No matter how I move the dials, the exposure compensation remains at -3

[@ForsgardPeter]

That is very odd. Have you checked all the settings? If everything seems to be ok and it still does not work try to make a factory reset to the camera. You can find it from Shooting Menu 1 > Reset. Try the Basic reset first and if that does not help then try Full reset. You will need to make set all the settings to your camera after reset.

[@davideynon4226]

Hi Peter - Can I suggest maybe a video on how to update firmware.

[@ForsgardPeter]

I have one from spring 2018: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iImXpaWrltKCi7s

[@DiviPhotos]

Great video nice

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thank you.

[@AaronSmith-sx4ez]

You mentioned that "the metering modes are totally useless". Are you 100% sure these are the same as EV adjustments? When I use spot metering, it appears to also affect contrast. Local contrast tends to be more accurate while picture-wide contrast tends to be more exaggerated and less accurate. So if I shoot a black bug on a light colored leaf...the black bug will have correct contrast with spot metering but not ESP (regardless of EV corrections). Can you verify what is going on?

[@AnandaSim]

Aaron, all the metering modes and exposure compensation do is to adjust the brightness aimpoint of the scene, they don't adjust image contrast (in the old days we used to call that gamma). The Exposure Compensation has a limit of how dark or bright you can offset the aimpoint, so if you hit the limit on that with ESP, Spot metering on a black bug could hit the aimpoint more conveniently.

[@ForsgardPeter]

As Ananda said metering modes do not affect the contrast. As I said in the vidoe metering modes can give a better starting point, but with exposure correction you will get to the same results.

[@dapastra]

Really well zone!!!

[@ForsgardPeter]

Thanks.

[@andreika6681]

well, it's still bs saying it's totally useless , it does do decent work for automatic choices, you don't have time adjusting your histogram/zebra while action is happening fast around. i can't live without choise b/w spot and central zone metering, shooting dansing parties in difficult light (often switching b/w candle light dim conditions to flash) sometimes i *have* to switch b/w modes and i don't have time at all checking anything else

[@ForsgardPeter]

Have tried the flag color method? It is faster than trying to use the spot metering.

[@LarsKiel]

👍

[@aengusmacnaughton1375]

Starting off by telling all of us that we're most likely doing something significant, like exposure, wrong????? :-) Just joking with you!

[@ForsgardPeter]

:D

[@careylee5951]

Lol bs

[@ForsgardPeter]

What is bs? Did you watch it?