Exposure Mastery in Photography: Perfect Shots Anytime & Anywhere

1. 01. Introduction: People wondered what kind of camera exposure setting should be used for your situation. Then again, sometimes, even if you try someone else's recommended settings, you still wouldn't get the image that you want anyway. The worst part is the fact that you may need to change settings on the fly, but struggle to cope because of exposure going up or down. Well, then, I welcome you to intermediate photography technique, perfect shots every time. Anytime. This class is crafted to elevate your photography skills to the next level, focusing on mastering exposure. You will learn to create your own settings anytime, anywhere, any time by gaining the ability to adjust and read your camera settings on the fly to ensure the perfect shots in any type of situation. In fact, there's a big misconception out there when it comes to metering and exposure. Now, after this class, you will be able to use your camera like you have some kind of camera hack or cheat code, two nail exposure on your first or second shot without even looking at the image preview. Whether you're an amateur looking to refine your skills or an aspiring photographer, aiming for perfection, this course will guide you through every step of the process. Ensuring that you can capture properly exposed image at any situation given, which will build up the fundamentals needed for you to understand and master, lighting, color, editing, and so on. Best of all, this knowledge can also be applied later on in video making with a bit of a different tools, of course. So without further ado, my name is Erin Afendi. Please enjoy this one of a kind course not available anywhere else, and I'll see you in class. 2. 02. Course Requirements: Now, this course is targeted for those who already know the basics of photography, which I already covered in my photography fundamentals course. So it is advisable for you to know the fundamentals first. It is also highly recommended for you to own any camera that is capable of using a manual exposure mode. Since a lot of the concepts covered in this course, mostly use manual exposure mode. In this course, I will be showing you a lot of theory and practical ways to use it. Therefore, I highly encourage you to practice it by yourself after watching each and every chapter. So without further you, thank you so much for your attention, and let's get started, Show. 3. 03. Recap on Manual Exposure: This lesson, we're going to do a recap first on the manual exposure and also the concept of take two and leave one to actually get the perfect setting for your exposure at any time and anywhere you want. Now, when it comes to manual exposure, you actually have to understand the concept of how a picture is actually made by actually understanding first that every exposure or every picture that you take will actually let light in through your lenses first, and then it will actually travel through a hole called the aperture. And then it will actually continue to travel through a door, which is called the shutter. And once it reaches the shutter, it will actually go finally into your censer, which is then captured by the camera. And it will be processed as a data, which can then be displayed as a picture on your camera, on your phone, or even your monitoring. Now, this is how most digital photography works in our digital world. So when it comes to photography, it is still pretty much the same when it comes to exposure. It still uses the same methodology as it is back then when photography was born. So no matter what camera you are using, a go pro, or even phone camera or even a drone, everything always goes down to this specific parameters, which is called the ISO. The shutter speed and also the aperture. But for most of you out there, this parameter is actually pretty hard to understand or grasp when we are trying to actually get the context right. Now, to do this correctly or easier, I've actually developed the concept to actually separate each effects first because three of these parameters are able to actually make your image bright or dark. Now, when it comes to the effects itself, it has its own unique effects, and starting with ISO, ISO actually has the effect of noise because when you actually amplify your image or the light from your picture, of course, you will actually get more noise on your picture. It's a bit similar to the sound that you are actually recording. So when you actually amplify the sound too much, you will get a very noisy sound. So it's very similar when it comes to image as well. You will actually get a very noisy image causing it to have a very kind of like grainy look, and it actually can be perceived as less sharp because there's actually less contrast because of the variations of color and also brightness from each pixel to one another, okay? Now, the next one will be shuto speed, and shuto speed actually has the unique effect, which is called the motion blur. Now, whether or not you actually need more or less motion blur, it really depends on your preference, and also the choice of your creatives when it comes to shooting. Now, you can actually have more when you actually put more duration to your shot, and you can actually have less and have a freezing motion when you actually make your shuto speed. A lot faster. So there's less duration in your shadow speed. Now, shadow speed in photography is very different when it comes to hideography, because in htography, it's a little bit different, and it actually has its own uses. But no matter what shadow speed you use, it will always be considered as creative, but you always need to know which one you need to use for each pacific use. Now, we're going to continue to our last parameter, which is called the aperture. Now, aperture has a unique effect, which is called the depo field. Although depo field is not just set by the aperture, but the main function of an aperture other than brightness is to actually set the amount of depo field inside our image. Now, if you actually have more and more opening, you will actually have a more blurry image like the one on the left. And if you actually close down your aperture, meaning you have less and less slide coming in, you will actually get more depth of field causing the image to have less blur. However, when it comes to the depth of field itself, you actually need to choose whether or not the background can be distracting or important. If it's important, you want it to be not so blurry, but if you think that it's too distracting, might want to make it a lot more blurrier than the subject causing the subject to pop out more rather than the background. So such as in this case, the background is a little bit more distracting, so I much prefer the picture on the left, which has more blur rather than the one on the right, which has less blurs. And then we come into the concept of take two and leave one. Now, this means you actually have to choose two of the parameters that you have already set, which is either IO, shuto speed, or aperture, you actually need to prioritize these two unique effects first because all of them can actually set your brightness. Now the last one that you leave will actually set the brightness or the exposure for your image. Now, you will actually get your exposure with the last parameter. Now, this is very important concept that you actually need to get firsthand before we move on with the lesson, because this will actually make your life a lot easier when it comes to exposing later on once you figure how to do stops and compensation and a lot more in this lesson. Okay? So I hope you get to practice that take two leave one first before you move on with this lesson. All right? That will be all. For this lesson, I'll see you in the next one. 4. 04. Manual Mode Mastery: So before we begin the next lesson, I want to tell you a little bit of a background story on how I found this out, and why did I actually started teaching these? Now, in my photography journey, when I started being able to actually manually expose, set my wet balance, et cetera, I was actually pretty confident on how to actually expose during any given time. However, whenever there's a setting that needs to be changed or an actual look and feel that needs to be changed, a changing line condition, different rooms, et cetera. You name it. I've always had trouble to actually regain my exposure. Now, that is because I was not aware of some of the tools and some of the theories that are available out there. And I've tried to look around, I've tried to ask for help, and I could not find it until I figured it out myself. I know there might be some people out there who actually know this, but some reason, this was not actually being taught in photography schools or any other books that relates to photography or videography back then. So it was actually hard for me to actually gain this knowledge. But when it comes to questions like, how do I change my settings? How many settings do I need to change? How much ISO do I need to put up and down, et cetera for the given light? How do I change my settings? I have to have the when I want to have the same exposure, life gets difficult. Okay? Because you are most of the time, you are actually on a time constraint, and you are in a hurry. And a lot of the time this actually makes us feel that, Hey, you know what? Let's just go with semi auto, it works, and yeah, let's just go with it, okay? But when it comes to lighting, lighting is very sensitive when it comes to changes. You actually want to change things manually. And sometimes you can work with automatic, of course, but lighting in essence or even photography and videography requires minimal changes that will actually be reflected upon your result. And even a small change can incur such a big difference to your imaging. Now, let's go outside and have a look what you can actually do once you start to know this and what can be applied in your photography. 5. 05. What is a Stop of Exposure: Now, in this lesson, we're going to talk about stops. Now, in general, when people talk about stops, usually they refer to Atops, which actually exists on your lens. But what I'm going to tell you is the fact that stops actually exist everywhere, including your lighting, including ISO, and also including your shut of speed. Now, first of all, we do need to understand that the fact that stops actually means a universal language for power ratio. It's a bit like 121, one, 22, 123, et cetera So this three fold, four fold, et cetera. Now, this understanding of stops lets you or allows you in measuring exposure ratio. When we talk about stop, it just simply means that you either double or cut your power by half. So it's either times two or half by two, right? So if you have an increase of one stop, it is actually the power times two. And if you have a decrease of a stop, it basically means you decreased your power by two or times it by half. Now, When it comes to stop, you actually have to understand it a bit like this. So one times two equals two, of course. Now, one minus one stop is 1/2, and it's equal half. Now, it gets pretty tricky when it comes to more than two stops or one stop, right? This time, it will actually be calculated such as p times four or p divided by four. But the mat itself is derived from one times in bracket two times two, which is four. Now, this can be quite exponential when we go to three stops, four stops, et cetera, right? So now, the question is, How about five stops? Let's calculate that in terms of how we actually calculated it back then. An increase of five stop simply means one times in bracket two times two times two times two times two, five times, right? So that kind of means times two is our first stop, right? And two times two is our second stop, which is four, four times two, which is eight times it by two again, 16 times it by two again, 32, and it goes towards the same as well when it comes to a decrease of five stops, which is half quarter, one eighth, one 16th, and then one 32nd, 1/32. Now, the problem with stops is that when it comes to actually calculating them, it's a little bit different when it comes to from ISO to shutter speed, and also when it comes to aperture. The speed, and ISO is pretty similar. Let's just say that you're over at ISO 100, and then you times it by two, you will actually have an equation of 100 times two, which is ISO 200. And then if you want to increase that again by another stop, it will actually be times more multiplied by two again, which is 200 times two equal. 400. Now, I know this is a little bit mathematical, but please bear with me because this is just primary school mathematics, okay? Now, if we actually are trying to decrease our stops in ISO using stop. So let's just say an IS of 1,000, and we're trying to decrease the stops by one stop. Now, if we have number, you will actually get an IO of 500. And then you decrease that again, you get an IO of 250. You decrease that again, you get 125. You can actually look at your camera, and these IOs actually exist. Now, with shadow speed is also very similar. However, because in shadow speed, when you are actually increasing exposure, right, you are actually adding more duration of capture. Now, because most of the time you are working in fractions already, you will actually get 1/1 over 50. That is because 1/100 times by two is equal to 2/100, which simply means 1/50, okay? This goes on and on and again to 1/25, 1/12, whatsoever, and it just keeps going on. Now, aperture is a little bit funky because it's It goes a bit of an upside down when it comes to calculating it. To actually have your exposure increased by one stop, you actually need to divide it. By a square root of two. Now, let's say you have a example of F 2.8, when you actually divide it by square root of two, you will actually get 1.9 something blah, blah, blah. It is f two. And then if you divide that again into square root of two, you will get 1.4, and this goes on and on and it has the similarities to your lens. Let's just say that you want to actually increase your stops, okay? Now, let's just say that you actually want to decrease your stops from 2.8 to F four. You actually need to multiply it by square root of two, and you would get a result similar to F four. And then you times it again by square root of two, you will get a run roughly is 5.6, right? And this is just the mats itself. It is both doubling and huffing. But with aperture, it is but with aperture, it is slightly different, and it is what it is, okay? Now, out in the field, it is actually pretty hard to actually calculate this on top of your heads. Now, that is easier because we actually have a calculator inside our camera, which is called the increments. And basically, increments is just the number of steps that you can actually take in your cameras per click. So the dials on your camera, whether it's ISO, shutter speed, or aperture are actually able to increase or decrease your stops by an increment of a third a half or even a full stop. Now, you actually have to have a look at your camera and see how it goes. Some cameras goes full stop on certain settings, some cameras actually goes a third, and some cameras can actually be set to half and so on, right? So basically, the number of clicks that we are actually doing inside our cameras will be varied and dependent upon the settings of the camera itself, but most modern cameras actually work in an increments of one third. Now, So let's just say that we actually have an analogy of one stop is equal to one level or one floor above or below to your basement, right? So going down one stop will actually go down a level, and going up a level will actually be an increase of stops. Now, most modern cameras have an increment of a third meaning you actually have three steps up to go one level, six steps up to go two levels, and then it goes the opposite as well. So three steps to go down one level and six steps to go down two levels. And you can actually start to calculate these clicks inside your cameras. Let's just say that we have a three clicks positive. It kind of means that we are actually working with an increase of one stop. And three clicks towards the negative means we've actually decreased our stops by one stop. And of course, this is if your camera is working on a third increment, so be careful if it's on a one stop basis, it is only one click, not three clicks, okay? So it's kind of a bit like this where you click three times, and then you have a negative and three clicks positive, you are actually going to be like plus one third, plus one third, plus one third. And then what about 16 clicks positive, that what kind of result would you get, okay? So because you are Actually 16 clicks. When you divided that by three, you actually are left out with a third. So you have five and one third positive or increase of exposure by five and one third of stops. Now, In this environment, you can actually increase or decrease your stops by combining the parameters from your ISO, shutter speed, and even your aperture. Now, if you actually have a five clicks positive in ISO, seven clicks positive, you would get the same result of a change in stops of five stops and a third positive meaning you are five and a third stop brighter compared to your previous settings. That's the formal mat or formal explanation of a stop. Let's go outside and see it in practice. 6. 06. Stops Increments: So now from the previous lesson, you've already learned about what stops is. Now we actually need to know how to actually use the calculator for stop, which is available inside a camera. But we need to know a thing about called stop increments. Okay? Stop increments is just basically steps of clicks inside our cameras that we actually need to do in order to be able to go a full stop or and beyond. Now, most modern cameras actually are set up in a third of a value by default. Now, it can actually be changed as well into a half, like in this one in the Sony A seven, and some cameras are actually in a full stop already when it comes to ISO and most of the hard dials in the Fuji, itself is already is a full stop, and it's not in half. We're going to here. So if we can actually see, we're going to change the ISO up and down. So it's going to 100-200, it's actually three clicks, and backward as well to 100, and we can actually set this up as well, ten, 15, 20, that's a full stop, and we go back down. That's three clicks. And then also with F, eight, nine, ten, 11, that's three clicks. Now, there are all three clicks. Now we're going to change the exposure steps into half, we've got into menu and then we're going to change it into half. Then we're going to see what's going to happen inside our settings. First of all, we're going to go 110, not F Edwin. We're going to go 15, 20. That's a full stop in just two clicks. We're going to put it back to ten again. Now we're going to go with our F this time 8-11. It's two clicks now instead of three clicks. We're going to go back to eight again. Now, we're going to see what happens in ISO. So surprisingly, surprisingly, In ISO, it does not change the exposure steps at all because although it is an exposure steps, but like we've mentioned before, ISO is just basically an amplification. It's not exactly exposure. Back in the last lesson or not back in my first class, that's why this is not affecting the ISO at all. It's only affecting the shutter and also the aperture itself. You have to make sure inside your cameras, whether or not how the ISO is changing and how about the shutter and also the aperture is being changed, and whether or not you actually have that setting to change from a third two half or a full stop. You just got to be sure on what happens. Besides, if you're actually own very beginner friendly type of cameras. Usually, the ISO, most of them are capped into a full stop. Now, we want to make sure that hey, we are okay when it comes to things, so we can shuffle around our settings, and one click is equal to third, so and The other click, the other side is also a third. But if you actually have cameras with differing kind of like exposure value when it comes to the exposure triangle itself. It can be a bit difficult, but you can still think inside your head. That's the difference between a third half and one stop of an increment. So just make sure you actually identify what is available inside the cameras. Most cameras like mobile phone don't actually have this kind of clicks, but sometimes they do, you just got to make sure what it is. So yes, that will be all for this lesson. I'll see you in the next chapter. 7. 07. Metering: All right, now we're actually at this stage. We're going to go and discover about metering modes. However, when we actually want to go through metering modes, we actually have to find out about a thing first called 18% gray or middle gray. Now what is 18% gray and what it is? Well, basically, it's an anchor point or it's the middle point where zero on your metering exists, right? And this is the middle point, or it's between black and white. You know what I mean? It's gray. It's just the middle. It has two name, 18% gray, and also middle gray, okay? And this is reference point where the camera actually uses it. And What kind of reference is it? Well, it's just basically reflects 18% light back from any kind of surface. So your camera uses this reference as zero. So if you actually have an 18% gray, 18% gray chart, okay, it will reflect 18% light back. And if you actually put your metering or light meter on zero on that specific target, you will actually get a perfectly exposed image. Now, that's very interesting because it is actually the midtone value. However, however, If you actually want to take a picture with that, you actually need to have everything with the same amount of light intensity or power, or otherwise, you know, you just don't get the same exact exposure anywhere. And with that in mind, with that in mind, we actually need to know about color because color is seen because it's actually just a reflected radiation by an object. So let's just say that we are actually looking at an object and sunlight goes through it, and if only blue is reflected, then the eye will only see blue. And if only red is reflected, and the rest, which is green and blue is absorbed, you will only see red. And if you see a combination of the two radiation, you would get a combination of colors. Let's just say for this example, it's purple. And once you actually get a full spectrum, which is everything gets reflected back at us, you'll get white. However, however, the opposite is also true. So let's just say that nothing gets reflected, everything gets absorbed, you will get a black object. And this basically is how our metering works and how we should claim on where zeros are at. Now, for those of you who are still confused, okay, what metering is, it's basically this bars, which has a zero minus one plus two, et cetera, in your camera, including your dashboard, okay? So it exists here and somewhere else in your IPs. And the problem with And the problem with the current explanation of what metering is, okay? You should be able to put it on zero, and everything should look fine, which is pretty good for most beginners, okay? I have no doubt about that. But for most professional use, this can be misleading when let's just say, someone's using an all white dress on an all white background or an all black dress or on all black background. It gets really confusing. I'm on zero, and tada, the image just doesn't look right. Okay? Now, This is what most people are telling you, zeros are, it's correct exposure. If it's on minus. Oh, it's underexposed, it's too dark. If it's plus Oh, it's over exposed, it's too bright, et cetera. Now, what I will tell you, though, what I will tell you is the fact that zero can be correct, okay? Minus three can also be correct, okay? And plus three can also be correct. But here's the catch. Here's the catch, okay? The problem with this type of mentality is the fact that you actually need to have an gray depending on your metering, on zero with that specific lighting to get a perfectly exposed image. And the same is also true. If you actually have white, on your metering, you will actually get a plus two or a plus three, and et cetera. Okay? You'll also get correctly exposed image if you are pointing it towards a very dark object. Let's just say a dark background or something like that, and put it on minus two minus two -2.23, whatsoever, however you like it. It will be correct. And the thing with that is that a very dark object will absorb a lot of light, so it doesn't reflect a lot of light, which means it actually has less lights compared to middle grade. Common sense. And also, when it comes to gray object or anything that is somewhere in between dark and light, okay? It actually reflect some light back, and it will be correct at zero. Now, a very bright object, let's just say a white shed, of course, will reflect plenty of light, and you will actually need to put your metering or metering in plus two or plus three, whatsoever, or any kind of other objects that are bright, will need to be on plus as well. So that's the thing. So, in essence, all cameras measures light with reflected metering, however, Put this in mind. Reflected metering will only be available to you in your camera if you are using full manual mode. It's not in semi auto mode. It's not in auto IO mode, it's not in auto shutter mode. It's not in auto aperture mode. It only exists when you go full manual. It is just simply that. Okay? So if you actually do exercise that, and you actually change your camera from Fu Manual into some one of the exposure triangle turned into an automatic one, it just doesn't work at all. So you need to be on full Manual to do this, okay? Now, when we get to metering modes, k, Metering modes is just variable when it comes to one brand to the other, and it really depends, but most of the behaviors are very, very closely related to one another. So let's just say for this example, mostly, some of these icons are actually coming from cannon, okay? And you actually have something like spot, partial, center wt matrix, and nowadays, you get a lot of the movable, small, metering, whatsoever, right? And basically, you can choose in between any of these, but in by default, you actually get a matrix because what they claim that their matrix or their algorithm is much better than the other brands, right? No, not really. So, the thing with metering is that you have to know what kind of areas are they're measuring it? Is it laser focus right in the middle, or is it the whole screen or whatsoever, right? This is a whole different algorithm. So let's just say we have a center, it will actually meter somewhere as a not a correct laser spot, but more like a very small circle or something like that, okay? And then you actually get something like a partial or an average and a matrix, which you know, it tries to calculate. But most of the, most of these will be returned as minus two when we go into the field. And if we actually go into semi auto mode, when you actually put your compensation on plus two plus three, you'll actually get a correctly exposed image. The problem with this type of mentality is the fact that we don't always take an overly bright image or an overly dark image throughout the whole image. We actually get images like this where Whoa, everything is just mumble jumble, right? There's so many dark colors, so many light colors, it's just everywhere. Now, and as you can see, if you shuffle through a lot of these modes, it's just I don't think it just helps you at all, and a lot of these settings are can be variable in terms of things, okay? But you got to remember, okay? Meter remote has its own uses. Okay? I don't use matrix a lot. I only use matrix when I use semi auto because it actually helps me a lot better in comparison with spots. It's just the way it is, but when I use manual exposure, I use spot most of the time. Okay? So just bear that in mind first. Let's continue on with our lessons, shall we? 8. 08. Exercise: Metering Modes: Now, in this chapter, we're going to talk about metering modes. And most manufacturers, unfortunately, seemingly how they're actually trying to support us is telling us that hey, their multi matrix algorithm is the best in the market. It can help you get the best kind of metering. Well, in my experience, yes and no, at the same time, because different scenes requires you to have different kind of metering modes. Now, by default, your camera is actually said to be a multi matrix setting, most of them, and that means it's actually trying to meter for you the best amount of light that is being reflected back to you, okay? And it will calculate for you the best amount available. But sometimes things like this, it can be quite difficult to measure because sometimes let's just say you want to capture the detail of that rock. Well, then maybe you cannot underexpose too much. Let's just say you want to capture the detail of the rock that is blown up with and overexposed. Well, then maybe you can't really have that, over exposed z. This can get difficult when it comes to selecting which one you want to capture. Now, for this scene itself, I want to capture the details in the river itself, the river bed, I want to be able to capture every single detail, but that means I need to actually meter it properly. Which one is my middle ground, which one is my highlight, and which one is my shadow. Now, I'm going to go over there and tell you exactly which one it is. So, we're going to shoot this scene. However, we actually have a varying degree of exposure and also the level of reflectance of an object. Now, if you can see here, this rock is actually pretty dark in comparison to 18% gray. That means it's actually reflecting back less light. But this rock right now is not receiving any light at the moment. In comparison, if we actually go here, this rock or that rock right there is actually receiving a lot of light from the sunlight. So this is a very very, very varying degree of amount of exposure when it comes to the light. Now, that bed as well is also receiving light, and this pd is not receiving light. So, we actually need to be really precise on what we want to capture. So we don't want to not capture the ones that are here and under expose our exposure. Let's just say right here. So let's say I want to take the detail of this stru and the river bed. Now, Of course, I don't want to actually meter other things. I want to be able to meter here. Now, the problem with this is the fact that since the camera is actually far away, and if you actually use a multi matrix, you're actually metering everything and you're not actually metering this surface right here, and it can get quite difficult when it comes to trying to get the perfect exposure. That's why when there's a lot of other meterings out there, Pretty much. I don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. I actually use multi matrix a lot of the time. But when I try to do manual exposure, I actually use something called the spot metering much more because you can be laser focused. You can just meter this service and not meter everything else. Okay. You can meter this, but it's going to be different. This one is going to be on the plus side, this one's going to be on the minus side. So It's going to be totally different way of doing it. Even though we're just metering the same rock, but since the rock has different exposure and different reflections, let's just say this one here. This one is much lighter. This one is darker, and this one is dark without light, dark with lights, lighter with lights. Okay? It's just going to be so dynamic. It's just going to be so different, and even the sun right now is changing, and we need to be able to cater ourself to meter as we go. Okay? So we're going to go back to our camera and get a perfect metering for this. Now, in our camera, since we actually wanted to meter that rock over there. We're going to actually change the metering first into a spot standard. Spot standard, not large. Now you can already see there's a ring inside the frame. Now, since we can't actually fit everything in there, we're going to zoom in fast. We're going to zoom in first, and we're going to put everything all that Circle inside the rock itself. Now, it's going to say minus one. But because we're shooting row, we actually have 14 stops. We can actually put this under a lot more in comparison to just shooting JPA. That rock over there. In my judgment, it's two stops or one stops darker than 18% gray. This one right now is actually currently saying minus one. But since the bedrock itself is a little bit over exposed. We're going to say this one, bedrock. Oh, the bedrock itself is on plus two. Even though it's brownish, it's on plus two. So we actually have a wiggle room of three stops. Now, we're going to put that rock over there and we're going to have to edit, of course, inside our editing and to actually bump up the shadow or even lower the high lights, et cetera, but we actually know how to capture things much more carefully now because of this metering itself. So we're going to put the rock on minus two, I guess, it's going to be three clicks when it comes to this. So we're going to use our shutter speed. One, two, sorry, we're in a half exposure stop right now because of our previous lesson, so it's only two clicks 110-1 tieth. So we're going to take this picture right here. All right we're going to actually put it on self time, and then we're going to bring this later into our editing. So we're going to capture this in 2 seconds. Then you'll get to see how we've actually captured this inside after we've edited inside our editing. Now, here's a bit of a tip from me because your camera can actually capture a more than what you can see inside inside your screen actually. This is why we're actually working with whatever we see instead of, you know, instead of using what we are looking right now on the screen, we're actually using data. That's why we're actually using metering itself. This is why when we are actually going up to the rock, it's minus two, but when we are actually going to the riverbed again, it's only on plus one. This means we actually can capture the most amount of details available. Let's just just in the grass as well. The grass itself is plus two, and the grass at the back is Oh, it's blinking plus two. So it's actually a lot brighter. But because we have this much gap, and we've actually included everything inside our dynamic range. We can actually edit this later, much, much better in comparison with JPA. This is why it is very crucial. When you do raw, you need to be able to do metering properly. Okay? 9. 09. Exercise: How Metering and Compensation Works: Now, metering can work with compensation as well. Now, of course, you actually need to be able to specify what kind of range you are looking at. Now, the problem with this when it comes to metering as well is the fact that you need to be able to see in black and white. At this scene right here, you need to be able to see only which one is the darkest area, which one is the most highlighted area and or brightest area, and which one is actually in the middle. This is why the concept 18% gray should be included in your mind, which later on we'll discuss in the studio about 18% gray. Now, first of all, I'm already accustomed to this 18% gray. I can guess around my surrounding, which one is actually a lot darker than 18% gray, and which one is actually? Brighter than 18% gray. Now because the scene actually has a ground at the bottom there over there, and it's also under lit, and we can actually meter from that, of course, it's going to be around roughly minus three. And in general, before it's lit itself, it can be said to be on minus two. Now because the one that are lit can be multiple times more brighter, Let's just say by three more stops. So you can actually put that ground three stops under. So it's just going to be like minus two minus three, which means minus y. So I'm going to point this to this ground here. I'm just going to go like this. The ground itself at my current metering, it says -1.5, and we'll just stick with that one first, and then we're going to put that into minus four. But because this is -0.5, and we're working with 0.5 eV at the moment or half e V, we actually need 3.5 d times by half is equals seven. So it's going to be seven clicks, towards the darker area. And this will allow us to capture the one that is more highlighted, and we can actually grab the sky as well and so on. So we're going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. That is under, and as you can see, the sky, we can actually grab those. But seems to be the ground is a little bit too dark on this monitor. Now the problem with monitors itself is that it is based on a seven stop dynamic range. Of course, JPAck is also the same. But when we're capturing row, when we actually have you know, read the text packs from the books and the manual books and even from the website itself, most rows can go up to 14 stops or even 12 stops, and so on and so on. If we actually capture this right now, we can still edit this later inside the photoshop to actually bring up the details back. But since we don't want it to be under exposed too much, we're going to actually over expose this a little bit more by one stop. So we're going to go back, 12. We're going to capture this using this setting, which is the ISO 108 1/1 25th, we're going to meter over here again. It's going to be blinking minus two, and then we're going to take the shot. Now, if you actually want to look around, we can actually compensate this. Now this itself, when I'm actually pointing towards the guy and the tree right there is actually saying minus five. Now, if I want to change that setting around, and I don't actually want to have a look, whichever setting that is right here on ISO et cetera whatsoever. I can pretty much just stay here, put my mering over there. And then I just need to shuffle around until it just hits -0.5 anyway. So I'm just going to not look around. Okay. Let's just say go like this, go like this, 227 F 27, h, k. There we go, minus five. He's minx shot with a shuffle of settings. There you go. Now, if we can see the result itself. Okay. Well, what do you know? The exposure is still the same because we're using the same metering. The light stay the same. We're going to shuffle again. Let's just say F 19, and then shutter speed of 1/500, and then we're going to go, this one more. Take another shot, bang, it's going to still stay the same. This is why it's important for you to know on where to meter, what is below 18% gray, what is above 18% gray. Basically, you can just sf around and just base your set based on this metering. There you go and ask you in the next lesson. 10. 10. Exercise: Manual Compensation: All right, in this exercise, we're going to do manual compensation when it comes to manual compensation itself, you want to always remember the fact that some cameras run on a ad, some cameras run on a half, some cameras run on a full stop basis. Now, the thing is, we actually need to remember the fact that in manual, the camera works as a reflective metering mode. And if we actually go into semi auto, which is like any type of exposure setting, which is in semi auto, we will get to use these dials right here. But as you can see, in here, when I'm actually in full menu mode, this dial just doesn't work at all, as you can see at the bottom here. It just keeps saying at minus street. Okay? Now, if we actually change the ISO to auto, k, this dial suddenly works. Now, you want to pair this in mind, and we don't want to use this compensation. It is something like a semi auto compensation, but we don't want to use this. Okay? We want to use the manual compensation mode, which is we're doing it manually, and we're going to read our metering manually. So let's just say if we actually want to change into Oh, I just want to change into an F 11, we can do that. And then we'll just move it. And we start counting on how many clicks we are getting, okay? 211. So it's two clicks down. So it means two clicks up. And still minus three. Now, that's what you need to do and just start practicing that. You start practicing the clicks, and if it's on a full stop basis, well, some of them needs to be three click. If your ISO is going 100-200, then you need three clicks on a three EV. Let's just say, your ISO only has one click and it goes all the way to 200. Well, then that's a full stop. Meaning you need a three click on a third stop basis, which is one, two, three. And that's what you need to do in this exercise. Okay. Let's continue on with the lesson. 11. 11. Histogram: Now, in this chapter, we're going to talk about histogram, and you need to grasp this a lot better than you think, because this is part of the ICD, and it may help you in the field when things are too bright or when things are too dark. And sometimes your LCD will just fool you when it comes to viewing your image, okay? So the thing with histogram is that it's not instantly viewable. You actually need to put it on display on most cameras, and you can actually display it on Photoshop, too. But however, on most histograms, okay, histogram looks a bit like this, okay? It is like a chart going like a mountain going from left to right, okay? And what you see here is actually a representation of the picture in terms of data, in colors, et cetera. So the amount of colors, the amount of pixels, et cetera, right? So this mountain right here will actually tell you a lot about the picture. However, this has something that you have to understand that this is actually based on an X and Y axis. So the data is represented with a horizontal data, and also a vertical data. When we actually look at this way, the vertical data is just basically the amount of pixels per zones or the amount of pixel that is available on that zone, okay? Now, there's a lot of zones from going from black to obviously bright. But we can actually break this down into five big major categories, just like our editing suites, okay? And we can actually break it down into five zones. So the first zone being black at the very left, and then become shadow, and it also becomes midtone, and then highlight, and then whites. Now, this is available in terms of editing sliders, too in your photoshop and also all of the editing suites out there. You just have to understand that some pixels get affected when wherever they reside, okay? And you have to know which one gets affected depending on their zones on also whether they exist on the histogram. Okay? So let's just go to photoshop first, okay? So now we're actually in photoshop, and we're actually going to see this one called the histogram. It's actually available as well. Now, because we actually have nothing here, just white background. It's actually not showing. Now, I'm going to draw a very simple line with a color on it. So let's just say this one. We're going to draw something in between the middle. So it's going to be green obviously in the middle somewhere. And as you can see this histogram. And as you can see the histogram, k, you will actually be able to see a peak once I started drawing. Not Clone Stem, and Nut C Stem. We want brush, Here's my layers. Right. There you go. So we've actually got a layer. And we started seeing a peak here. So this is basically a combination of green and blue and red together with three different channels to create this specific picture. Okay? Now, let's just say if we actually want to create something else. Let's just say that we want the true red and red only, but it's only the dark one. Let's just draw it something like this. Let's see the peak. Okay. Oh, see. Something interesting is happening, okay? We just want to delete this first. All right. So, as you can see, we started getting something else. And let's just say, we want to add something else like this, as well, well, let's just say blue sometimes, like this, maybe. And then this. And as you can see, the histogram changes as you add more and more data into the picture. This shows that a histogram is just basically a collection of pixels in each of its own zones. Okay? Now, we're going to do something else. Okay? We're going to do something else. Okay. So we're going to do a gradient this time. We're going to do a gradient, okay? Let's just put this away, and we're going to do a gradient from black to white, and then we're going to have that. Okay. So this one here is actually a gradient of black and white. Now, because it actually has no color, as you can see, It's pretty much just has this rigid kind of like mountain. It has no red or green going up and down. It's just rigid, okay? And there's a lot of how to say, mountains and gray areas as well. So let's just say, let's just say that theoretically speaking, okay, if we actually going to do this histogram, okay? Sorry. Correctly like this. So we're going to have this filled with black, okay? Now, this has almost no histogram value because it's all black, okay? Now, okay, with something like this, okay? So we're going to make a shape, okay, rectangle. The fill has to be a black, let's just go ahead like this, okay. All right. This one has zero pixels in case, no strokes. So, now we're going to fill in most of it. A. There you go. You see the white stroke there? Okay? We're going to keep going until we see something else. Okay? We're going to go even further, middle gray, okay? And then we're going to create something like this. Okay? So we see a bit of a difference, but this time it's not really exactly showing any difference, so we're going to use a different color, something a bit lighter. Oh, actually changed that. So I don't want to change that. I want to put this on there. All right. And then I'm going to fill it in with a lighter color. See, there's another peak right there. Now, because the pixel on the darker gray has been reduced. You see the peak going down a bit because the amount of pixel has actually gone down. So there's a lot of a large pixel on this lighter one at the moment. So we're going to make another one. We're going to make another marquee, and we're going to use an even more lighter color, somewhere towards the light. So we're going to reduce this box again. Ah, S. Now the peak on the lighter one has been reduced as well. But so it's kind of like going up and down dynamically in a sense, okay? So, histogram works a bit like this. Now, what about if we actually have something like pictures, okay? So let's just say that we actually go into a pictures again, okay? All right. So let's just say we go into a picture again. We're gonna copy and paste this, okay. Oops. So we're going to have a look at this picture again. Now, the histogram itself is showing a lot of dark areas because there's a lot of dark shirt and also a lot of dark pixels like the hair and the background, as well. And if we actually go here, we actually go into filter, and then we go camera filters, okay? All right? As you can see, you also have a histogram here. Now, you have the black, you have the shadow, you have the exposure, the mid, the highlight, and the whites, okay? So let's just say we want to crush the blacks a bit. Okay? We're going to reduce that. So you see the black is going to true black, okay? That's one. And then let's just say we want to increase the highlight into so it peaks, okay? Enough, okay? And we want to increase the exposure a bit and then the highlights. So we're actually working in zones, and we actually want to fit those in our image. I know this is not an editing lesson, but as you can see, you can actually learn a lot from this because there's actually a lot going on. And histogram itself is going to be affected with exposure and contrast. So the thing with contrast as the word itself, contrast, right? The more contrast, the more different between the lighter and the darker of an image. So let's just say if you actually reduce the contrast, you're actually compressing the histogram inwards. And if you're actually creating contrast, you're actually going to decompress the histogram, and you're actually making it more wider. Let's just go here on this slighter here, right? So reducing contrast, increasing contrast, reducing contrast, increasing contrast. So If we actually read the histogram properly. Okay? We can actually read what kind of data is existing in our picture itself without even actually looking at a very good monitor, I guess, and you can actually see data just like how I've explained to you when it comes to the philosophy of in camera dashboard. So get to know around it and play around it. And most of the editing suites out there have it, and also in your camera, you also have some of these tools, ok? I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. 12. Exercise: Finding Your Histogram and Warning: So in our arsenal of in camera dashboard, we actually have another thing called the histogram, and also the warnings, okay? Warnings can also be in highlights. It can also be in shadow as well or under exposed. Now, you can actually set your camera to actually do this. However, when it comes to histogram, some cameras are able to show it to you on your dashboard by itself, when you actually press display here. Okay. Sometimes you can actually have your histogram displayed, okay? But the warnings just wouldn't show up unless you press your play button. Okay. And you actually shuffle your display. So you can actually shuffle between display with no display at all or any kind of, like, status is showing. You can actually have a status of the exposure, the date, the time. And then once you shuffle it again, you can actually see the warnings and also when it comes this one actually shows you histogram as well, in RGB and CMY, okay? So it's all in. So it's in the red channel, in the green channel, blue channel, and all channels throughout the whole picture. Now as you can see, there's a blinking area at the top and on the left and right. This actually shows which area is actually under exposed and over exposed. Now, because we actually want to capture the scene of the force itself. We have actually captured it quite perfectly because none of these, none of the areas here are actually blinking, and this will tell you exactly which one, the camera is not actually capturing properly, and which one is actually being captured by the camera. Now, you got to be mindful about this as well, because the histogram itself is based on the JPEG. It's not based on the row. So it's actually based on a seven stop basis. Now, with that in mind, you can actually capture a lot more range of the darker areas and also more of a highlight area when you're actually using row because you actually are in a 14 stop dynamic range. And of course, you can do bracketing as well in the future to do high dynamic range kind of picture, but let's keep that in the future lessons, okay. For now, let's move on to the next lesson. 13. 13. ICD in Camera Dashboard: Now, I've promised you something that can actually make you be able to see without actually seeing it first, which is called the in camera dashboard in my own terminology, anyway. It does not exist anywhere else. And what I need you to know is the fact that in camera dashboard requires you to have many different tools that you have in mind and also inside your camera. So you need to know the tools and the knowledge required. First of all, Ashley need to know a little bit about exposure value and also Sonny 16 rule. And then also ISO referencing, which I will briefly explain soon. And then you will need to Ashley be able to know about exposure compensation, take two and kill one, which we have already previously mentioned as well in the previous lesson, and also in my first class. Now, Then you need to actually combine these three different combinations of tools or knowledge to actually get the perfect referencing anywhere you go. First of all, you need to know about 18% grade, which we have already discovered in our previous lesson, and also metering. You need to combine these together, so you need to know which one deserves to be in the minus, which one has to be in the plus side, whatsoever, right? Then, you need to be able to use your metering actually need to be able to kind of, like, make sense, whether or not the metering that you've metered makes sense in combination with your histogram. And then you actually need to combine your histogram with your warnings, too. This will allow you to actually cross check between different tools to actually make sure that you get the correct exposure at any given time. It does not matter whether your screen is let, your screen has the highest brightness. It does not matter as long as the data that is shown inside the camera is shown to be perfect. You will get your most perfect shot. Anytime you want. Now, the thing with this in camera dashboard is the fact that a lot of the terminology is because it's a bit like when you're driving, okay? So, when you're driving, you actually have a speedometer with you. And this speedometer actually tells you a lot about your speed, about your RPM, about where which gear you're in, and whether you're in reverse or you're in park. So it's basically a status of how you're going to drive this car, right? But Most people, when it comes to camera, they tend to see this speedometer a bit like this with out actually having any kind of numbers, not any kind of status, this is just nothing. It's just a blank slate. They don't actually, you know, put any relevance to whatsoever they see in front of this. So most of the time, we actually only see this dashboard, just to see whether or not we are on a certain value of the exposure, let's say, what we're trying to check what shutter speed are we in, what ISO are we in, et cetera. But we don't actually see what the actual thing that the camera is trying to tell us about the situation that is given to us in front of the camera. So it's a bit more like a ruler without a number, so it's pretty much the same analogy, right? You cannot measure anything if the ruler itself does not have inches or centimeters on it or millimeters. You just cannot measure. This is not a measurement. This is just plain guessing, okay? So With that G side, is it really okay if you don't actually read this? So, you know, at best, you know, at best, right? Most of us guess our way around when it comes to measurement of exposure and also when it comes to how we set our cameras outside in the field, okay? So, bear that in mind first, right? Because we're going to go outside to the field, and we're going to use our in camera dashboard to actually figure out our settings and how we can actually figure out the perfect settings for any kind of settings in the exercise, okay? 14. 14. Real Life Application of ICD: ICD, which stands for in camera dashboard can be applied anywhere using any camera, most cameras anywhere, but especially with professional cameras like this. Now, you don't need this recorder, of course, but most of what you can see will be recorded here just for you to show, okay? Now, The thing with ICD is the fact that it is like your dashboard inside, your vehicle, and it tells you a lot about the current status of the camera, it tells you about the settings of the camera itself. And most importantly, when it comes to real life applications, what you need to know is first, which settings are you on? Now, you're going to want to be able to know what charter speed you're on, what ISO you're on, and what aperture are you on? And this will give you a slight idea on the unique effects or the kind of image that you will produce when you actually use this type of settings. Now, the second one will be your white balance. And of course, some of these statuses here with the light display is already displayed inside the camera itself. And for white balance, it says 5,600, okay? But some of these ones don't actually tell you a lot. It actually has an auto auto focus single. And the most important for me is actually the metering part. Okay? Of course, you can actually set this up into other ones as well, such as histogram or warnings as well. But warnings usually are in the playback itself. And most of the time when you're on a DSLR, you will be seeing this. If you are not looking through the eyepiece, this is what you see at the back. Now, this is what I learned since back then, since DSLR age, okay, not the mirrors age, okay? Now, a lot of the things that they tell you here is something like how the camera is balanced, the histogram as well, and also your settings, and also your metering. And you have to also remember at the fact that when we are doing manual, the metering will change into reflected metering, not on exposure compensation. So if you actually go to anything else like the shattered priority, right, we can actually move the dial back and forth. And this will be your exposure compensation. It will move back and forth accordingly to what you want and based on your metering as well. Now, I'm going to go back to manual, and this will go back into metering mode. Okay okay? It's going to go back into that reflected metering mode when it comes to this metering by. This is pretty much like telling us, Okay, so let's just say, for this type of scene, I want to be able to capture more depo field. So I'm on F 5.4 right now, and I kind of disagree when it comes to the depo field. So I want more sharpness, I want more depo field, right? So I'm going to dial it in and say F. 11, Let's just say F 11, okay? That's my first one. And my camera dashboard says, I'm on ISO 100, k. And I actually have a shadow speed of 1/98, okay? But my reflected metering so far has told me that hey, you are under by way way under. But of course, I cannot see anything here right now, so I don't even know what I'm metering at. And I am actually metering against that bush over there or the tree, okay? So, if you can see, I'm actually metering that t over there, which is pretty much backlit. Okay. So we're going to go towards minus three for the back lit area, a? And we're just going to do that by using the shutter. Until we reach 1.5 go one actually. It's like the bark itself, the tree itself is this one is minus one. We're going to go to -2.5. One, two, three. It's going to be -2.5. Now I'm going to take a picture like this. This picture, and I'm going to be able to capture everything using this metering. And of course, the in camera dashboard tells me all about it, what I'm going to capture, my depo field, my shutter speed so because my shuto speed is quite low, I'm going to need to be on a tripod. And if my shuto speed is not enough, maybe I need to raise my ISO. And it just tells you a lot on what kind of actionables you need to do when it comes to taking any kind of pictures given this any kind of situation no matter where you're at and anyt anywhere, okay So Get used to it. See you in the next lesson. 15. 15. Project: Putting Everything Into Practise: In this project, it's going to be quite simple when it comes to the practice itself. I'm going to require you to actually take ten back to back shots with all different settings from aperture to shutter to ISO of your own settings, but I need you to keep the exposure the same. Now, your task is to actually not being over reliant on life display. However, I need you to rely on metering, histograms and warning. So whatever you see inside the live display, do not trust it. Trust your histogram, trust your metering, and trust your warning. After you've taken them all, please select and review all of your shots. Make sure that everything from back to back shots. All of them has the same exposure. And also, you're very, much more than welcome to actually post it up in this course. Choose the best picture and then post it up in the course. It's a pretty simple project just to get you going with how ICD works, and how my workflow works when it comes to getting very consistent shot back to back anywhere any time. Now, to do this project, you're going to need to actually take a picture back to back. But first, what you need to do is to actually set the camera from using the multi matrix into the spot metering first. Okay? So we're going to go into our camera and then we're going to change our metering mode. Into standard. And as you can see in the camera here with my device, which is the A seven. It actually starts to have this round circle thing, which can help us determine where the metering exists. Now, first of all, we have this scene, with, of course, different colors, and, of course, also different types of lighting. But as you can see, there is a white gates. Now, as you can see, there's actually a white fence over there where we can actually meter. It's slightly back lit. However, we can actually start to meter from there because most of our scene is back lit anyway. We're just going to point it here. We're just going to point it towards that white fence, And then as you can see, it says plus 1.5, which is actually quite okay in my opinion. And as you can see, we actually also have a histogram. In my opinion, we actually have a lot of dark areas and also a lot of different highlights as well. So there's pixels in the highlight zone, there's actually also pixel in the non highlight zone, of course, dark as well, but not a lot of dark. So we're actually quite good in terms of the histogram and also the metering itself. But we can always change it around if you don't like it, okay? But now we're going to take a picture back to back with all different kinds setting and just remember your increments, okay? So I think this one is also on EV half as well. So we want to change that as well. EB. Yeah. There you go, exposure steps into third. So it's already on a third, which is fine for me because I like the third, and it's much more useful for me as well. So we're on plus 1.7 right now, and we're actually meeting if you see inside the circle. It's actually a lot of, like, very high lighty and a lot of, like, very, very bright areas. So we're actually okay with 1.7. But we're not okay with charter speed. So let's just say from 1/20 fifth to 1/100, and we'll see from there. I'm also not okay with the F. I think it's just way too Did the depo field is too big, so we're just going to play around with it and see how we can go. Okay? So let's just say we want to go from shutter speed to 1/20 fifth to 1/100. We're gonna go like this, okay? So we're going to go from 25. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six. Okay? So those are six clicks. Now, we're going to change the F, okay? T F 11, one, two, three, four, five, six. Ooh, that's the other way around. Edwin. That's the other way around because we went to dark. Okay. So we go again. One, two, three, four, five, six. All right, just got it. Then we're going to take the shot. Okay? That's the first shot. I'm actually going to turn off the my timer so I can do this all the time. So I'm going to keep going. And this time, I'm actually going to have to actually change my ISO. So let's just say shut a speed of 200. I one, two, three, take the shot. I'm going to change the f again, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, take the shot. Okay and then I'm going to go one, two, three, and then it goes one, two, three, take the shot. Is that. That's all how do you defer fourth shot. I'm going to change one, two, three, one, two, three, That's my fifth shot. I'm going to change my ASO, one, two, two. Two. And then get way around, one and two. Okay, take the shot. Okay, now we're going to go again, change the F, one, two, three, four, five, six, change six. I'm going to change the ISO to one, one, two, three, four, five, six, then we're going to keep changing it again, one, two, three, one, two, three, and just keep changing it around from 18, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, one, two, one. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, how many, sorry. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11. That should be 11. Let's just see, it's still 1.7. So we actually have the metering as well to keep us in check. And we can just keep going and going and going and going. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, Sorry, I knocked it over, but as you can see, right, we actually have even the histogram is fairly similar from back to back shots, okay? From all of the shots. Now, what you're going to need to do is to actually select one of these settings, or even if you have something that has a slightly shallower depo field. You can actually also use that object as your sort of inspiration. C change around the depo field, change around the noise, et cetera. And you can always keep playing around with it. Until you're satisfied with it, you can always post it up on the project, see how it goes, right? And please please please please please please always practice the stuff that I teach you in this course, so you get to master it, and you can use your camera as confidently as much as possible, okay? All right. So I guess the final message for me is the fact that the camera is only a tool, and sh we should not be burdened by the camera, but the camera should be able to help us in our creative vision and we should never ever be burdened by the thing called exposure. And we also should not be burdened by the fact that we are communicating in different terms, and it's going to be really hard for us to speak to one another because I've worked in teams, and for me, it was so hard to speak to another photographer, to the other photographer on to the other photographer, which is why I'm actually teaching this. So we all can communicate better with one photographer or one videographer to another videographer, filmmaker, photographer, whoever is using any type of camera, hopefully, will be able to speak better with one another and achieve results in a very teamwork basis, okay? So Hope you've enjoyed the lesson so far. Please do the project that I've given to you. Start practicing this as soon as possible, so you can master it right here and right now. All right. I'll see you again. Maybe in the future lessons, I'll still have a lot more to teach. Okay? Bye bye. 16. 16. Course Ending: So, we have reached the end of a course, and I hope you've learned a lot on how to handle your camera so you can actually work with it and just like any type of calculators or even any type of measuring device without actually using your head and guessing around to get the most perfect balanced picture using any camera anywhere any time. Of course, in the future, I'll be releasing more and more courses, not just about photography, videography, business, and more. You may also follow me on social media. My handles are always at Edwin FN D. And of course, I do hope to see you again in my next course. My name is Edwin Fendi and see you next time.