I have a problem with exposure when using the F5.
Facts:
Cameras used: Two F5's
Metering mode: RGB matrix in Aperture Priority
Films used: Provia, E100S, E200
Lenses used: 400 AF-S, with/without TC14 & TC20
Filters used: Variously, A2, and polarizer, but not together.
On a recent Florida trip, I shot literally hundreds of pictures in
which there were white birds, and birds with some white areas on
otherwise darker bodies.
The backgrounds were consistently well exposed, but the whites were
consistently overexposed by a stop or so.
The lighting was bright sun, and the bulk of the meter measuring area
was either bright blue sky or mid-toned foliage, or a combination.
Metering the sky or the foliage under that lighting should have
produced
exposures identical to the Sunny Sixteen rule, and apparently did so
because the skies and foliage backgrounds were perfect.
Yes, you say . . . a normal result . . . everybody knows that one needs
to stop down where a Sunny 16 exposure is made on a picture with white
areas in it!
BUT! What about the vaunted F5 metering system? Why did it not "see"
the white birds when comparing the picture to the 30,000 in its
database,
then say to itself "This jerk is trying to shoot a white bird in a
mid-toned setting, so I'll help him out by stopping down a bit?"
Arthur Morris writes that my results were quite predictable with the F5,
that the F5 WILL overexpose the whites in such pictures. I, however,
sort of "wrote him off" on the basis that as a Canon user he might
not be fully conversent with the intracacies of the F5, and so I
ignored his advice. I was wrong, and Mr. Morris is correct!
Moose Peterson, when asked the question, verbally shrugged his shoulders
and replied that when HE shoots under identical circumstances, he gets
perfect exposures.
As a result of all this, I'm confused.
Why did the F5 not properly compensate for the presence of the white
birds in the metered mid-toned backgrounds?
What is the benefit of the F5's acclaimed RGB metering, if the user is
left to compensate exposures just as with "any old camera?"
I don't know where in the Nikon organization to get an authoritative
reply to the question, and so I'm hoping that this group has some
Nikon experts with an answer.
Al Hart
