Crafty little trick...

Having edited and processed this morning's images I check out the weather forecast and realise that the current high pressure is not going to last, and rain is expected mid-week. So it's back on the bike during mid afternoon to make the most of what's on offer.

I cycle to Christchurch harbour, Dorset, with something specific in mind: photographing the local priory from the top of the headland that forms the southern shore - Hengistbury Head. I make a number of images as the sun dips down, but it's not coming together for my taste and I give up on the idea and cycle along the seafront towards Boscombe, keeping an eye out for anything of interest.

The sun has been set some twenty five minutes before I come across the scene here. There is a good afterglow in the cloudless sky, and the sea has turned blue due to the high colour temperature. I decide to photograph the effect. This is the tricky bit.

Most camera meters will try their best to give you an overall balanced exposure under such conditions, but the end result is often too light and unrealistic. This is not what I'm actually seeing. To regain the tones of the scene before me I use a crafty little trick: set the exposure compensation to -2 stops; in other words, force the camera to underexpose by two full f/stops below what it wants to give me. This will produce an exposure far closer to what is actually in front of my lens. Now, this works with Nikon camera bodies in Matrix metering mode. Whether it works in the same way with other makes is unknown to me, but it is something worth considering when faced with pre-dawn or dusk scenes.


300mm f/2.8 AF-S VR Nikkor (VR on) with TC-14EII converter. 1/60 second at f/4. -2 stops EV compensation. ISO 800. Monopod