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Metering for birds in flight (1 Viewer)

RyanEustace

Ecology Student
Right i know roughly the settings

Fastest shutter speed you can get away with , shoot a a stop or 2 from being wide open to get the best results from the lens , and then fiddle about with iso.

But i keep coming across metering , people saying they meter off grass , sand , there hands , and then they add exposure compensation of 1/3 and what not .

What is this metering ?
 
Not an expert but
Its the cameras way of measuring the amount of light in the image your camera is framing. On full auto the camera will set the aperture and shutter speed for a given iso.
Cameras are easily fooled which is why you can override the meter by adding or removing the amount of light falling on the film / CCD by under or over exposing.

Shoot on full auto of a bird in flight against a sky and it'll normally be a silhouette so a photographer would increase the exposure by up to 2 to 3 stops (depending on conditions) or shoot in manual and dial in the required over exposure

Shoot a bird that has white flashes in strong sunlight and you may burn these out, you may need to under expose by reducing the amount of light hitting the film.

If I were you I'd google "camera metering explained" loads of tutorials for the novice.
 
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''or shoot in manual and dial in the required over exposure'' its that part i dont understand , i have a 50d and when i shoot manual the Exposure compensation seems to move automatically how do i get control over that. Also i was reading somewhere that this method should be used with evaluative metering , if i use spot metering there isnt really any need to compensate the exposure is there?
 
Ryan, if you shoot in manual adjusting either the aperture or shutter speed will effect the exposure.
If you point your camera at a subject in manual your meter will give you a reading, by changing the aperture or shutter you can get the meter to show the cameras ideal exposure normally you see a scale in the camera from -3 to +3, when its on zero its what the camera believes is the correct exposure. Each increment is a stop of exposure so +1 is one stop over and -1 is one stop under.
When you shoot a dark subject against a bright background such as a person in front of a window or a bird against the sky, unless you spot meter off the subject the camera will be fooled, in these cases you would normally add exposure by either slowing the shutter or opening the aperture or using exposure compensation. A person in front of a window is easy as as I said you could spot meter off the subject and the camera would ignore the bright background, with a bird in flight its not so easy so photographers use the ability to over expose the image to improve the subject at the expense of the background (depending on the background).
Its normally trial and error, you could try it by pointing the camera at a branch that has the sky as the background, set the camera to say aperture priority and full metering take a shot, then using the exposure compensation change the exposure to +1 and take another, then +2, then +3 look at the 4 images and see the difference, do not change the aperture.
Likewise if you take a picture of a swan against the water and the water relatively dark, you would need to either meter off the swan or under expose or the swan would be over exposed.
If you tell us what camera / lens combo you use it might help contributors to the thread assist in more detail.
I've no doubt the manual with the camera cover exposure compensation in more detail.
The attached image shows what is needed, the bird is relatively dark against a dark water but in strong sunlight to the right the white feathers would be burnt out, I had to shoot this at around 2 stops under exposed to save what I could of the highlights but sacrificing a little shadow detail, sometimes it works well and I like the feel of this shot.

Ahh I've just seen you state a 50D, never mind, you may want to pose the question in the canon section as to how to use exposure compensation on a 50D, being a Nikon man I can't help

Additional thought, your camera will be able to bracket, try a sequence of say 7 shots from -3 to +3, choose a subject and mount the camera, set it to say aperture priority and full metering and then shot the 7 shots, you will see the effect on each shot, you should be able to tell quite easily which one is -3 or +3
 

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By full metering do you mean evaluative ( i have the options evaluative , spot , partial , and center weighted avergae ) i know you use nikon so im not sure the terms are the same?
 
The problem with metering for BIF is that the bird is likely to fly through differing background which will influence the exposure - you could shoot in an auto mode like AV and dial in some Ev compensation which could be correct one second but wrong the next because of the BG influence.
To overcome this a lot of people shoot in Manual mode where you manually set the exposure to suit the prevailing light and the tone of the bird - now it does not matter what BG the bird is flying through, the exposure will be right providing the ambient light does not change.
For what it is worth I shoot in manual mode just about all of the time, including perched birds, made the switch over a year ago and I could never go back now.
I find shooting in manual a darn sight easier than keep changing the exposure compensation and also, for me, it is a lot more accurate.
 
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I think to summarise, go and play, try out different options and find the one you like best, there is no right answer it all depends on the subject, light, background etc etc.
 
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