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Archive 2017 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?

  
 
butlerkid
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


If so, when and for what subjects? Birding, cityscapes, wildlife or ?


Nov 17, 2017 at 10:56 AM
CanadaMark
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


It's useful for anything you don't want overexposed. It looks at the whole scene, and exposes for the highlights to ensure the brightest areas aren't blown. It's useful just about anywhere depending on the situation and your goals, but more specifically you might use it for a spot-lit performer, a bride in white, or any challenging scene where you want to avoid blowing highlights such as a white or light colored subject surrounded by darker areas (matrix metering would likely over expose that). Especially with the incredible dynamic range and shadow recovery on recent cameras, highlight priority can provide you with a bit of an exposure safety net with very little effort or user input. It even works with colored lights. Just another tool that's nice to have.

Where you would not want to use it is if there was a bright light source as an unimportant part of the scene that was not your subject (eg. a bright light in the distance of a landscape scene) - in that case the camera would expose for that light source and underexpose the rest of the scene and your subject.



Nov 17, 2017 at 05:13 PM
charles.K
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


I absolutely love this highlight weighted metering. Try on it on portraits and adjust the lighting to suit, street photography where you have beams of light coming through late afternoon. This often takes a mundane portrait or scene in streets to something very interesting. You can always lift the shadows later to suit as Mark mentioned.

Why do you use it? It is because often it is hard to visualize scenes for compositions exposing solely for highlights. Of course you can compensate exposure to suit or use manual but the highlight metering works so well.

I use it where I wish to isolate the subject that is well lit from the background. Of course if the background has a lot of highlights this will not work well.



Nov 17, 2017 at 05:22 PM
ross attix
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


Context?

If you are talking about ETTR, this explains it well
https://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right/



Nov 17, 2017 at 05:23 PM
butlerkid
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


ross attix wrote:
Context?

If you are talking about ETTR, this explains it well
https://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right/


This is not about ETTR.

Highlight weighted metering is a choice of metering on D180, D850, D5 and probably other Nikon camera - in addition to Matrix, Spot and Center weighted metering.



Nov 17, 2017 at 05:56 PM
darrellc
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


I'm new to D810 but am using highlight weighted metering more and more as I find a lot of situations call for it... I find the D810 often overexposes sunlit subjects and I need to dial in underexposure to preserve highlights. Seems like the matrix metering is skewed to protect shadows when the D810 really should bias highlight preservation... I'm probably wrong, just my take a few hundred exposures into the D810 (just picked one up and struggling after shooting with an EVF for years).


Nov 17, 2017 at 06:25 PM
charles.K
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


darrellc wrote:
I'm new to D810 but am using highlight weighted metering more and more as I find a lot of situations call for it... I find the D810 often overexposes sunlit subjects and I need to dial in underexposure to preserve highlights. Seems like the matrix metering is skewed to protect shadows when the D810 really should bias highlight preservation... I'm probably wrong, just my take a few hundred exposures into the D810 (just picked one up and struggling after shooting with an EVF for years).


Hi Darrell. The D810 has great latitude for highlights and when you post process the RAW's you still capture all the subtleties in the highlights.



Nov 17, 2017 at 06:34 PM
trenchmonkey
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


Been using it for rodeo for the last 2 years on my D810.
Thrilled the D500 also has the spot* feature. Great for
BIF in tricky lighting. Nails the exposure 99% of the time.
This is a godsend for SOOC shooters. Time is money.



Nov 17, 2017 at 06:35 PM
Photozack81
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


I'm also a fan of highlight weighted metering. It works well on its own, but if you give it a bit of + EC, it also does a nice job of ettr in most conditions. As mentioned above, a dark subject with a highlights or point lights in the background will confuse it.


Nov 17, 2017 at 08:14 PM
butlerkid
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


I've read that a subject with strong backlighting is not a good situation to use Highlighted weighted metering. But in mixed lighting with filtered light (i.e. bright lights in forested shade) it is very effective.




Nov 17, 2017 at 08:28 PM
charles.K
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


butlerkid wrote:
I've read that a subject with strong backlighting is not a good situation to use Highlighted weighted metering. But in mixed lighting with filtered light (i.e. bright lights in forested shade) it is very effective.



Of course strong back lighting will be metered on the back lighting so this is not a situation where you use highlight metering




Nov 17, 2017 at 08:42 PM
agrumpyoldsod
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


butlerkid wrote:
This is not about ETTR.

Highlight weighted metering is a choice of metering on D180, D850, D5 and probably other Nikon camera - in addition to Matrix, Spot and Center weighted metering.


Nikon's top camera bodies tend to be iso invariant and as a result you can shoot under exposed raw 14-bit and easily recover exposure/detail without the noise and colour cast you get with Canon bodies. ETTR is something that canon shooters tend to do / tend to have to do -- I worked with a Nikon ambassador who regularly shoots ETTL (often -1ev) to allow him to shoot wildlife at 1 stop lower ISO or 1 stop faster shutter speed.

Highlight Weighted does effectively the same thing - it shifts the exposure to the left to ensure that whites are not clipped.




Nov 17, 2017 at 11:39 PM
agrumpyoldsod
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


butlerkid wrote:
I've read that a subject with strong backlighting is not a good situation to use Highlighted weighted metering. But in mixed lighting with filtered light (i.e. bright lights in forested shade) it is very effective.



You should always adjust exposure compensation 1-2-3 EV in this situation when using matrix or highlight weighted or move to spot metering. Similarly for a bright subject against a dark back ground -- 1-2-3 EV or spot metering again.

All highlight metering does is protect the whites/highlights from clipping - so it is the same as matrix if they are not clipping with your settings, but if they are it will lower exposure until there is no clipping.

My understanding is the Highlight Weighed uses the same metering approach as Matrix Metering it "just"
reduces exposure to protect white/highlights from clipping. See: NPS guidance

With any matrix metering remember the camera seeks to achieve roughly 20% grey across the matrix - so pure white comes out grey as does pure black -- if you have a small white subject on a large dark background the subject will under expose, so add compensation. etc..

"Dark subject, bright background: Exposure will be adjusted for the background, throwing the main subject into shadow. Highlight-weighted metering can be used for silhouettes, but matrix metering is a better choice if you want exposure optimized for the main subject.
Bright light in frame: The camera may treat the light as a highlight, leaving the main subject underexposed. Compose the shot with the light out of frame or use matrix metering."



Nov 17, 2017 at 11:56 PM
butlerkid
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


Thanks for the responses. I understand what Highlight weighted metering does.

I was wanting to know whether or not folks had tried it. If they liked it enough to use it. And what situations they found best for it.

Yes, adjusting exposure comp and bracketing can cover multiple exposures, however, for me that is not feasible when shooting wildlife and birds, unless they are being very still and cooperative.






Nov 18, 2017 at 08:28 AM
Photozack81
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


butlerkid wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I understand what Highlight weighted metering does.

I was wanting to know whether or not folks had tried it. If they liked it enough to use it. And what situations they found best for it.

Yes, adjusting exposure comp and bracketing can cover multiple exposures, however, for me that is not feasible when shooting wildlife and birds, unless they are being very still and cooperative.



I use a D500 so your situation may be different.

I am a hardcore practitioner of ETTR. It helps to reduce noise, even on high end cameras. Because of this, I generally have a + EV dialed in on my camera all the time. Sometimes it's +1, +2 or situation depending. I do this to bias the meter when I'm using manual settings but when shooting wildlife I often flick on the auto ISO so I can get the shutter and aperture I want, and use ISO to compensate for varying conditions. Get the shots back on the computer, dial back the exposure and then process accordingly.

You may wish to give that a shot.



Nov 18, 2017 at 09:11 AM
agrumpyoldsod
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


butlerkid wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I understand what Highlight weighted metering does.

I was wanting to know whether or not folks had tried it. If they liked it enough to use it. And what situations they found best for it.

Yes, adjusting exposure comp and bracketing can cover multiple exposures, however, for me that is not feasible when shooting wildlife and birds, unless they are being very still and cooperative.


I used it in on Safari Africa for shots around Sunrise - sometimes the whites blow out easily - this image needed +1.55EV in LR to give the subject the right exposure - the bright reflection on the water drove down exposure and Highlight Weighted kept these whites from clipping





EXIF Metering Mode comes up as other







Here is the unadjusted original




Nov 18, 2017 at 11:10 AM
saaber1
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


It's primarily for front-lit subjects with a dark background such as stage spotlight-lit subjects. It works well for that but manual exposure is what I use for pretty much everything.

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/products-and-innovation/using-the-highlight-weighted-metering-mode.html



Nov 20, 2017 at 07:47 PM
Banongading
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


It's definitely a useful mode of metering, I'm great at blowing highlights really easily for some reason, so I use it whenever I can!


Nov 21, 2017 at 07:07 AM
akul
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


It is supposed to be good for theater. I tried it once with shooting dance. I did not find it to be useful. Went back to manual and take the blame for not perfect exposure. I would need to really understand its behavior to be able to feel comfortable letting the camera decide, which I have not done that homework.


Nov 21, 2017 at 07:19 AM
charles.K
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Highlight weighted metering - Tried it? Use it?


Highlight weighted metering is only just one mode. I use them all from spot, to center weight, matrix and highlight weighted all of which are excellent. For street shots at night I tend to use manual and keep to exposure settings that I know that work. This way I can reduce ISO to a minimum and still maintain relative noise free shots without being fooled by stray lighting.


Nov 21, 2017 at 08:30 AM
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