metering in a Church

thebaz

took a bunch of photos with my Nikon of a concert in a Church tonight .
The lighting seemed ok , was at iso 1600 , pushed it to 2000 , and metered at matrix as usual, most came out out of focus, or soft , on the singers face .

Very puzzled ? any ideas - is it me , or the camera being dodgy , or how do others meter for indoor events , I though matrix would be correct.
b

eas

Hi baz,

matrix is as correct indoors as it is outdoors. You'll always need to compensate for funny situations. If the light is particularly tough in a church I switch to spot or CW metering using one of the function buttons.

If you post an example with exif people may be able to give you more accurate advice on the focus issue. It could be down to so many things it's hard to say.

Borderfox

Spot metering for me, I only want one face in a church to come out well. A lot of churches I have shot in have all been iso 3200 and some up to 6400

alb

One thing that would help to tell would be the shutter speeds you were getting, for me anything slower than 1/100 of a second tends to suffer camera shake, but many have a steadier hand than me.

It could also be a case of the camera autofocus having trouble in in the low light.

nilhg

I've no much experience in those situations, but at any events I've tried to shoot at I found the setup that worked best for me was to use spot hi metering, meter from the brightest part of the scene and recompose before shooting, you have to be quick and the keeper rate probably suffers but I got some shots that I was happy with.

thebaz

I salvaged a few , but even those are a bit soft - I had shutter speed at 200, using the 50 mm lens , at f1.6 , find at 1.4 its too sensitive (shuffling between mode A(p) and S - not manual) - i'll post the results up later - not a complete disaster - but maybe i need to using spot metering in future in these ambient settings - thanks all
b

thebaz

theres the 6 best with the Nikon

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebaz/

I like the images , but a little soft except first 2 in my mind .

p.s. its Moya from Clannad

Borderfox

Hard to tell from the small sizes on Flickr but they look grand, f1.6 on an f1.4 lens will still be a bit soft but spot metering would have brought her (Moya) out of the picture (if you spot meter off the brightest. Still though good job.

eas

There doesn't seem to be much wrong with the exposures on those. I'd say the metering system + you did a fine job.

As well as what Borderfox says above about using a fast lens wide open, it's also down to the ISO. D300 isn't bad at those ISOs, but if your expecting the files to look sharp at 100% at iso +1600, it just won't happen in a situation like that.

smelltheglove

I like , I went similar at a recent wedding with candle in foreground but the focus on candle. Lovely shot.

I almost always use spot metering, never anything else when there is changing light.

thebaz

Just to clarify if you were photographing a couple in a Church would you use spot metering ?

Same goes for an indoor concert where you will mostly be photographing the lead singer - spot metering again ?

Confused b

Borderfox

I would, all of my stuff from the Horse show up in Belfast is spot metered. Other metering methods take in too much of the ambient light when I just want the subject properly exposed.

melekalikimaka

yeah i'd spot meter for most situations with people tbh, gets the best skin tones in the end compared to matrix or to a lesser extent cw

smelltheglove

Pretty much always spot metering. Even boxing, I choose my spot, sometimes it's a bit off with boxing as it is so very fast but churches and low light are hard to judge, if you are going by one select area you are safer light wise.

Even in a church when shooting the couple, often I am shooting a glance or a smile of one to the other, so the moment is made by one partof the couple and that is the one I focus on.

thebaz

Thanks all - I might try Centre'd metering as well , I suppose thats in between , and will retain some of the ambience