Wimpole Estate was shrouded in a thick mist when Carmen and Matt met one late-October morning. “You’ll need this,” said the pro as she handed her apprentice a head torch, “even Jarvis has one.” Matt watched as a blue light zoomed about in the darkness; the only indication of the spaniel’s whereabouts. As they set off into the parkland, Carmen explained she’d done a recce the day before: “Some of the trees look amazing, but there’s still a lot of green about, it’s not peak autumn yet. Still, golden hour will exaggerate the warm hues.”
TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT
MANUAL MADE EASY
Carmen says… I made sure Matt was using Manual today and he soon realized it wasn’t that different from Aperture Priority. Once he’d input his camera’s base ISO and settled on his preferred aperture (around f/9), he only needed to worry about the shutter speed to achieve the desired exposure.
ACCURATE EXPOSURE
Carmen says… I assigned the histogram overlay to Matt’s OK button. It’s an invaluable tool and while the Z cameras’ high-res EVFs and rear LCDs are useful for checking your exposure, they don’t tell the whole story. If you want to ensure your exposure is balanced, check your histogram.
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Carmen says… Spot metering takes a metering reading from the active focus point, instead of attempting to balance the entire frame via the more common Matrix metering. This helps you to maintain contrast between light and dark areas of a scene, which can draw the viewer’s gaze and add mood.
PRO KIT ND FILTERS
I’m a huge proponent of filters because I like to get as much right in-camera as possible. Today, we paired standard and reverse ND grads and a polarizer with my LEE100 Holder. We used the grads to darken – not just the
