lhunt

I have finally been using my Nikon D300S regularly after buying it several years ago. My problem is with metering, particularly for landscapes during the day. I am traveling and take photos out the passenger window of the car or while on the move hiking or whatever. I rarely have minutes to set up a shot. I shoot in manual and mostly use the single focus window so I can choose what is in focus. Most of the time using the camera meter, my photos are 1-4 stops over exposed. I try to check the exposure using the photo playback on the camera, but it is difficult to see in the sunshine. If I have time take several exposures of the same shot.
Any suggestions?
Thank you

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I have that camera. It's a great nature shooting body. But hardly anyone would shoot in manual for what you are doing. And your focusing mode is wrong too. You need to be in Continuous focus not Single. Sounds like you also need to read the manual and maybe take a course in basics.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Welcome to the forum.

Most of us will suggest you submit a few of the bad photos so we can take a look. Be sure to click on the Download box so the EXIF data will show up.

May I respectfully suggest trying either aperture or shutter speed priority rather than manual which you are using now. On a sunny day you should be able to set your ISO at 200 and then in aperture priority be able to set the aperture at f8 or F11 for a good photo.

I wish you well,

Dennis

Quixdraw Loc: x

Shoot in another mode than manual?

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

This is my take on this. 4 stops overexposure is a lot of overexposure. Do you get similar results using ANY metering modality? If you meter from a gray card in daylight do your meter gives the basic exposure? An example, if you set your camera to ISO 200, set the lens to f16 and the shutter speed to 1/200 and with the card in sunlight when metering from it the camera should record the right exposure., that is f16-1/200 sec. If not the meter is off.

Never look at the rear monitor for an accurate exposure and instead look at the color histogram which is very accurate. Use other lenses with your camera and see if they all have the same behaviour. If they do your meter is off.

For landscape photography aperture priority is a popular choice to control depth of field.

lhunt

I also use continuous focus on the move. Not sure about the terminology, but the 3 selector on the back between one square and several is where I am selecting the one square.
I did try using aperture and shutter priority but was disappointed in the exposures. I know I could also set it up for over and underexposing, but I am often without power for 7 to 10 days, so I am careful about running out of battery. Of course I suppose that doesn’t matter if my photos suck anyway.
I’d love a course in the basics. Is there a course you recommend?

maxlieberman Loc: 19027

Sounds like a lens problem. I once had a lens that had a sticky whatever it is that sets the apertiure, and all the pic were over exposed. I had it repaired, and it has been fine ever since.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Shooting manual doesn't always ensure great results if you are not as clear as you have to be to leverage that workflow.

At the most basic level, the Sunny 16 Rule is pretty reliable. If you ever shot film, the little sheet included with each roll suggested exposures for sunny, overcast etc scenes. Sunny 16 is based on an EV of 15 and is based on reading the luminance of a typical sunlit scene that would yield a shutter speed of 1/125, aperture of F16, @ISO 100 - or any combination of these three factors that would yield the same exposure value.

I suggest you turn on highlight warning on playback. It's not ideal, but if you have highlight areas that are blinking, there is a chance the image will be overexposed.

Another tool is the camera's histogram. It is a graph that will show the distribution of exposures across all tonal values, and if an image is overexposed, these values will be bunched up and crawling up the right side of the graph.

You do not mention how you are using the cameras meter. If you want to be somewhat precise, set it to spot meter and measure the brightest part of the image in which you want to retain detail, then add up to 2 stops additional exposure to that reading. In some cases you can actually go a little higher. This approach will ensure that important highlights will not be overexposed.

Cameras are beginning to offer "highlight protected spot metering" which limits exposure to avoid overexposing the highlights. It's not perfect, but it does help.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

There are two elements to your focusing system on that camera. Focus mode and focus area. These are distinct and different aspects of focus.

If you really want to grab and shoot quickly study the focusing system, always keep it on Continuous focus mode. As far as Focus Area, that is dependent on your specific subject needs. But try using Auto ISO on manual, that's my recommendation for you to research.

lhunt

Thank you for all of your comments! I had used the highlight before but forgot about it and have histogram enabled but didn’t really know how to use it for exposure, thank you Gene for simplifying it so I can use as a tool.
And maybe this is an excuse to buy a new lens as well. I’m excited to get out there today!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You're welcome!

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I'm going to try to slow us down a little bit here. First...you don't mention being unhappy with focus results, so I'm going to put that on the back burner for now. Second...you mention that you are shooting out the window of the car. I'm going to guess that means you are shooting while the car is underway. We'll come back and address challenges related to that in a minute. Third...you imply that that ALL of your images are overexposed. So let's start there. I can't deduce how experienced you are, so I'm going to try to say what follows pretty plainly. If it doesn't match your experience, I apologize in advance and will adjust our future communication accordingly.

The first step is to determine whether your camera is overexposing everything, or just those taken from the car. Go out in the back yard and experiment. Are those photographs overexposed? Take some that do not include any sky. Are they overexposed?

I would actually expect, when shooting from a car window, that any wrong exposures would be underexposed...as a result of accidentally metering on the sky, causing the landscape to be recorded too dark. This suggests to me that something may be dialed into Exposure Compensation that is causing the camera to give you a meter indication that leads you to overexposing your images. Fortunately, this is easy to check. Simply press the Exposure Compensation button (the one marked "+/-" immediately next to the shutter button). If you see any number other than "0" shown in the top display window, then you have exposure compensation dialed in. It can be easily removed by turning the main command dial (the one on the back of the camera).

Ordinarily I agree with more than 98% of what Gene says. But I disagree in this case. There is really no time when shooting from a moving car to deal with spot metering and making mental adjustments, even though that is quite a good way to meter under normal circumstances. Instead, I would use center-weighted metering to set exposure. It's the top of the three choices on the metering switch next to the viewfinder. As you learn, you can use the AE-L/AF-L button inside that selector switch ring to meter on one part of a scene, then recompose. Or with Exposure Compensation (+2 stops) and Spot Metering (the bottom choice) to quickly and easily do what Gene has suggested.

The last big questions you need to deal with are sensitivity (ISO) and shooting mode. If your car is moving, or even if you are stopped shooting through the window at what is almost always an awkward angle, you are going to need to use as fast a shutter speed as possible to control the movement of the camera (or the car). The D300 & D300s were quite a bit better than the cameras that came before them at using higher ISOs, but are a bit limited compared to today's cameras. Even so, you should be able to get pretty nice results at ISOs of 640 or even 800, and you might even be able to go a little bit higher. This will allow you to use higher shutter speeds to reduce the effects of motion. I would not use auto ISO with this camera. The range over which it can act is too limited to be of much real use.

So once you have the higher ISO dialed in, you need to establish your exposure. You don't tell us what lenses you have, so you are going to have to take this next material as guidance...you will have to adjust it based on the capability of your lens. The higher the shutter speed you can use (and where the lens has aperture available to respond), the better the results you are likely to get. With your camera your target is probably going to be somewhere around 1/400 or 1/800, depending on your lens. If it were me, I'd start with Program mode and look to see what kinds of exposures the camera is available to put together. Then I might switch to Shutter priority mode and see how fast I can go and still provide proper exposure (or I might just stay in Program mode).

Above all, don't get frustrated. What you are trying to do is difficult. Work to solve the basic problem first, then go on from there.

lhunt

The bigger frustration for me is landscapes where I am stopped and would like the confidence that my exposure is correct. I have been out on hikes thinking I have a good exposure, only to download the pictures and find they are generally over exposed. I’d prefer them to be underexposed. I have used the +\- compensation also, but I think since I use the one focus point, it is not reliable so I’ve taken it back to 0.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Understood. In that case, I'm not sure what's going on. But keep in mind...there is no connection between the autofocus system and the metering system, so we have to look elsewhere for the problem. I would start by putting the camera in one of the automatic exposure modes and see what happens then. If the exposure is OK that way, then it will be necessary to look at how you are applying your manual settings. Remember that the idea in manual is to set aperture and shutter speed, using the two command dials (control wheels) so that the meter indication is centered in the graduated scale. If you are expecting the autofocus system to help you with exposure, that is not going to work.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Which 'Metering Mode' are you using, Spot, Centre Weighted or Matrix?

The 'Matrix Metering' mode (which averages the entire framing scene) is very good on the D300 for general landscape work. As a rough guide, if you have a scene of 50% trees/greenery and 50% sky the exposure result will be good. As you change the ratio of trees/greenery to sky, exposure compensation will be required.

As an example, if you have 75% trees/greenery and 25% sky the averaging will be biased towards the darker trees making them brighter and likely overexposing the sky. In this case you would apply some (-) negative EC.

If you wish to continue working in 'Manual' it is then a simple matter of rather than using EC (where we often forget to set it back to zero) to just adjusting settings to place the meter needle say at 1 stop on the negative side of the scale (for the above example).

Clarification of results can then be confirmed with the histogram if wanted.