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Master metering for landscapes
Techniques
24 October 2007 12:24
The warm, raking light of sunrise and sunset is among the most dramatic lighting you can capture in your landscapes. But with the sun low in the sky, this amazing light is also one of the most difficult to capture successfully.
Point any camera towards bright sun and you’re guaranteed to get underexposed results. This is because the camera’s meter is calibrated to give a reading based on an average, or midtone subject and will assume you want the sun to record as a midtone, not the shining bright highlight it deserves to be.
Every sunrise and sunset will pose a different exposure challenge, but there are some basic techniques for overcoming them:
• Get to know how your camera’s meter reacts to the sun. This comes with practise, so if you’re new to shooting sunsets, shoot a range of photos at different exposures and assess your results.
• Once you’ve framed up, use the exposure compensation function to vary the exposure (+1, +2, etc) above the exposure indicated by the camera’s lightmeter. If you’re shooting on colour slide film try a similar technique, but use half-stop steps. This technique, known as bracketing. When you get your shots back, or review them on the computer, find out which exposure gave the best results so you’ll know which settings to use next time.
• If you don’t have time to use loads of different settings, and the sun is very low in the sky and in the frame, try +1 stop exposure compensation. This will work best with multi-segment or centre-weighted metering.
• Try using neutral density or grey grad filters. These help to reduce the exposure difference between the sky and the foreground, allowing you to capture both.
To try out different metering techniques, we used a Nikon D2x on multi-segment and centre-weighted metering at a sunset scene. And we also tried using spot metering from some grass in the foreground. Our best result was to use centre weighted then dial in + 1 1/3 stops exposure compensation.