A small coincidence: Someone emailed me about how exactly did I take
the picture of the Caiman. Their question was what adjustments did I
make and how. At the same time I just spent the weekend taking
pictures of musicians using fill flash. I have honed some techniques
a little more and I was considering posting a note like this as a
result. I wasn't sure anyone would be interested but the email tells
me that at least one person is. So I am going to post this for
general consumption.
My fear of posting articles like this is I may come across as thinking
I know what I'm doing. Thats far from the truth. I'm discovering all
the time and hoping to share my discoveries. Feed back, additions,
and corrections are most welcomed.
This memo is strongly biased for Canon 1Ds users. I've used the 1V
and 1Ds and their controls are exactly the same. I know that the D30
and D60 can not do all of these things. I have no clue about other
cameras.
The caiman was shot using: 1/125, f/8.0, spot metering, 560mm, ISO
100, -1 exposure comp, -1 flash exposure comp, 100-400mm lens with 1.4
extension.
I was using a flash with the caiman shot. You have two variables to
play with. There is the exposure compensation and the flash
compensation.
Sidetrack: If you are not using a flash, then you just lose one side
of the image. This is basically one item that Michael talks about in
his histogram article. If the exposure is too wide, you have to pick
what you want to look at: the highlights or the shadows. You will
usually hear the phrase "expose for the highlights and let the shadows
fall where they may" but every scene is different of course. With the
digitals, you can usually pull some details out of under exposed
shadows using Photoshop but, when the highlights burn out, they are
gone.
Back to the caiman: On the 1Ds, the two compensations are both on the
camera. I actually did not realize this until the Costa Rica trip.
The flash compensation you do by hitting the button that is on the
left side of the camera, on top, the one that is furthest "back" or
closest to your face when you are taking a picture. This is the same
button that you hold down to switch from spot metering, evaulative
metering, etc.
To set the flash exposure, hold that button down and then the big knob
on the back of the camera. The small wheel next to the shutter button
changes metering modes. The gage is on the LCD when you do this.
Frequently, I dial in -1 2/3 stops to start with.
How to change the normal compensation you probably already know. Its
the big wheel on the back after you touch the shutter button (assuming
all the switchs are on.)
Since the flash is going to highlight the highlights as well as the
shadows, you need to get the highlights within range first. Start
with "a lot" of flash compensation, adjust the normal exposure
compensation until the hightlights are within range, then bring up
(decrease) the flash compensation until the shadows fill out as you
want keeping an eye on the highlights as well.
I frequently switch to spot metering and this brings in a whole other
set of troubles. The metering as well as the flash metering is done
off of the spot which starts out in the center but more on this later.
So you must put the spot on the same place each time to get repeatable
results. Otherwise you will notice that exposure from shot to shot
varies wildly. This needs to be well understood in the sense that if
you are taking pictures and making adjustments and one picture comes
out why out of whack from the others, you probably had the spot in a
different place; its best to ignore it and retake the shot with the
same settings.
The reason I switch to spot metering is I *think* I have more
repeatability but I can't say that this has been proven. I just
assume that with evaulative metering even slight changes in framing or
changes in the background could change the readings.
With spot metering and a flash, the usual sequence of putting what you
want in focus and exposed properly in the center of the frame, hold
the shutter half way to focus and get the exposure, then re-compose,
and fire does not work for two reasons. First, if you read the book,
I *think* the exposure lock does not happen the same in spot metering
as it does in evaulative metering. I can't actually remember all the
details. Second, the flash metering is going to happen when you take
the shot and if, after re-composing, the metering spot is on a black
shirt (that musicians tend to love to wear so they can be "different")
at that time, the musician's face is going to get washed out. (Can
you say "resentment"?)
The first "awe haw" is to use FEL: the button closest to the shutter
button. As before, you frame with the point of interest in the
center, touch the shutter to focus, then hit the FEL button to
determine the flash, hold the shutter to refocus, re-frame, and then
release the shutter. I can even do this while standing on one foot
and drinking a glass of water.
Add into this mix a musician bouncing around the stage and you have a
challenge. Plus, I do not know exactly how the normal exporsure works
in this case: if it is calculated when the FEL button is pushed, when
the shutter button is pressed half way, or at the time the shutter is
released.
So its time for the second "awe haw". The 1Ds can be set to use one
of only 9 of the 45 focusing points. Also, it can be set so that the
spot for spot metering follows the focusing point. The same spot is
used for the flash metering. This is also true for the case where
only 11 points can be used but I prefer to limit it to just the set of
9. The 9 points are on the perimeter of the focusing oval.
I prefer the set of 9 because to change the focusing point, you simply
hit the "change the focusing point" button (over by the right thumb)
and turning the big wheel which rotates the focusing point around the
oval. To me, this makes intuitive sense. In the set of the 11
focusing point mode, the controls are the same as in the 45 point mode
which is that one wheel is the vertical selection while the other
wheel is the horizontal selection. I can't keep straight which is
which, plus the small wheel, for me, is not extremely comfortable to
use. Also, the position of the two additional points is on the center
line mid-way left and right which I do not find useful in my
composing.
Now the process of taking a picture is quite different. If I am about
to take a horizontal (landscape) shot of a musician with a guitar for
example, I move the focusing point to the top left (because the guitar
points to my right). This can be done pretty quickly before I
completely raise up the camera for the shot and, obviously, it does
not need to be changed for each. After that, you basically just point
and shot keeping the selected focusing point on the musician's face or
the point of interest. For the case of a vertical (portrait) shot, I
move the point to the "top" focusing point when the camera is held
vertically which is the rightmost focusing point.
The one thing to watch out for is if you touch the shutter button, the
big wheel is now chaning the exposure compensation. If you hit the
shutter button my mistake, move the big wheel, and notice the focusing
point isn't changing, be mindful and remember to put the exposure
compensation back where you want it before hitting the button to move
the focusing point.
Over the weekend, I got so this method was very intuitive, reliable,
and repeatable. It is also the same process to take a picture with
flash and without flash. When I change from taking pictures using
ambient light to using fill flash, I can just turn on the flash and
not alter my shooting technique.
This feature can also be used for shooting landscapes. Michael has
mention taking two pictures at different exposures and then blending
them together. The problem I had was I wanted the foreground to be in
focus and I wanted the "base" exposure proper for the foreground. One
sunset we used fill flash as well. After trying to solve this problem
for a few sunsets, I finally hit upon the same method as I just
described. I would move the focusing point as well as the spot
metering point and frame so that it was on top of the forground object
of interest. Then I could set the camera for bracketing and take the
three shots without doing any tripod gymnastics.
I must admit that when I first got my 1V, I read through the book and
frequently would think "thats just silly" or "yea, right... another
marketing gimmick". But I be damned if I have not discovered that
those "gimmicks" are very useful in a lot of situations.
