Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Forgive me for asking such a newbie question, but how do you know you have enough/too much light to take a photo? I do fine job of it most of the time, but I've come to learn that I can't always trust the exposure meter on my t2i, when I end up with a picture that looks like it's seared with light, or taken in a cave. Then I've got to adjust aperture/iso/exposure time, et al, to get a decent looking shot. Any pointers, beyond carrying around a light meter (not that I would know how to use one now, anyhow : )?

Try the different metering modes on your camera.

Preview images can be deceiving. Glare, ambient lighting and simply having your eyes adjust can be enough to give you a false impression of what your image really looks like. Histograms never lie. It will always tell you if your too hot, under exposed or even if your white balance is off. Spend time getting familiar with the histogram and you shouldn't have problems.

Then there is practice. The more time you spend shooting in various environments the better you will become. Consistency comes from experience.

Just look at the histogram

Using the histogram is a good practice for sure but it is not always accurate since it is processing against the jpeg image (and any settings you have set for jpeg processing) and not the raw file. If you camera supports it you should look for clipping in all colour channels, especially the red since it tends to clip more than the others. The other tip I can offer is to determine the minimum shutter speed you are comfortable with (dependant on your camera, lens and camera technique) without introducing camera shake blurriness and compensate for that.

I just looked up "what does a perfect histogram look like?" on google, and then I found the histogram in the menu of my camera...and a light went on : )
Thanks guys!

James

It's not always perfect though, it also depends on the look yo want to achieve, conditions, processing. If you're really serious about getting the most out of your photography you should also learn about raw format and developing (processing). You'll be surprised how much more you can extract out of a dull image from the camera

While I'm on the topic of knowing if you have enough light...when I take photos at night, I nearly always arrive at an uneasy compromise about drawing in enough light to expose the photo, and drawing in so much that my night photo ends up looking like dusk! Is this just a part of the art, or is there a trick or tip I should know?

partly a trick, partly art. If you want it to look like night, then underexpose it. At the same time, if you know post-processing you can expose it so it looks like dusk and then tweak the image to look like you want it.

And you can then do this:


Ha'ena Beach Park, Kauai, HI by Scapevision, on Flickr

I see.
By the way, nice photo - did you take that with a tripod, or with a steady hand?

I wish my hands were steady enough to hold a camera for 10 sec without moving

: )

if you can see it, the light's just fine. modes-shmodes, been eyeballing it for 30 years. shoot, it'll come