On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:41:13 -0700, SteveS <sgshiya@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote/replied to: >I have heard good things about this workshop. The main thing learned, >according to those I know who participated, seems to be how to underexpose >transparancy film, meter for the highlights. A contradictory method to >Ansel Adams Zone system. It would be interesting to know how they teach >with electronic cameras, now. I have a perfect example of why metering for the highlights just doesn't always work. It only works if you know how many stops the shadows are down from the highlight. In other words if the lighting is flat. I have an image of a flying heron (what else :-). It's in pretty strong but diffused sunlight from it's rear away from me. It's head is therefore in a bit of shade while parts of it's wings are fully sunlit. While it's nice to keep the whole bird showing details, the wing tends to be quite light in colour and really reflects at a low angle, in fact it looks white. In this image, it's totally blown out highlight. Good thing too, cause the head, the face is perfectly exposed. I can only imagine the effect of great highlight details in the wings, while the face is so dark you can't see it's eye. Photographing people is even harder because the lighting ratio on the human face must be much less. Therefore fill flash to the rescue. Bottom line is know your true subject 'area' in the image and meter for that. Think about where you want that subject to lie on the histogram too. I mean if the subject is dark it will lie further to the left, if it's above mid grey, it will lie to the right. Oh, you can think about what highlights you will lose and be blown out and what kind of shadow detail you'll get, but in the end, unless you expose the person's face perfectly, the image will fail. Not in all cases of course - you might want a low key face, a face in shadow, etc., in some types of images. If you want to photograph something in the shade, you don't want to expose it like it's fully sunlit either. You want it to look natural, like the person really is in the shade, but you want to show up their face nicely too. I'll repeat this in case anyone missed it - digital camera sensors have way more data on the right side of the histogram. It's a log scale, meaning on the left side, data gets really thin and you'll get noise. Use the right side of the histogram fully. Don't be afraid to lose a bit of highlight, you will gain greatly from the more important mid tones. -- Jim Davis, Nature Photography: http://jimdavis.oberro.com/ Motorcycle Relay Kits: http://www.easternbeaver.com/
