focal length: 70 mm
shutter speed: 1/800
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 200
flash: none
I was out doing some shooting for my Aperture and Depth of Field article and saw this lonely pine cone wasting away on our lawn. I was still in manual mode so I metered for the dark part on the cone, adjusted my shutter speed and took some shots. Looking back, I see that I didn’t switch to spot metering. Oops! And without a flash, the inner crevices of the cone were still not visible, so I boosted the fill light slider in Lightroom to recover some of the lost detail in the shadows. I wish I could’ve gotten in closer but there is a limit to how close you can get and still be able to focus with every lens. Macro lenses allow you to get even closer, which is why I keep talking about them!
Poor lonely pine cone drying up with the rest of our lawn. Can you tell we’re not gardeners?
Laura is a Vancouver wedding and portrait photographer. Visit laurahana.com.
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Amie
Jun 20, 2008 at 6:01 am
Hello -
First I want to say - great blog. I am pretty new here but your blog is awesome!! Your post yesterday made me realize a ton of things!! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us all. You take great photos.
My question for you - I have been trying to understand metering!! When you say you metered off of the dark part of the cone, what exactly do you mean? Do you focus on that part and see what the SS is and then step back and adjust your SS to match what it was when you were focused on the dark spot??? I have no idea - Im totally confused. And, how did you know to meter off of the dark spot on the cone, why not the grass or the sky? Just curious on how all this works.
Thanks again in advance!!
Amie
laura
Jun 20, 2008 at 11:26 pm
One article on metering coming right up! Err… this one might take a while. There’s just so much information to go over!
Thanks for the comment Amie!