 Katie |
Exposing correctly for outdoor wedding I will be photographing an outdoor wedding in October and will be using color and black/white film. I am not the main photographer. I am an amateur having taken a one photography class back in college. I have heard that you need to compensate your exposure when photographing dark and light subjects (groom in black and bride in white. My question is, what do you meter the wedding dress? the black tux? and what is the best way to calculate exposure when photographing with color film and black/white film? I have heard that it is ok to rely on your in camera meter when photographing in open shade when the subjects are front lit, is this true? Any help and advice would be highly appreciated. Thank you so much! Katie
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Autumn Hernandez |
To find out what compensation you need on your camera for white or black, I would suggest finding a subject for both, maybe an egg and a bowling ball, and then bracket both images separately a stop or two both ways. This way you can see what compensation gives you the most true to life color. Then, when you are shooting the pics of the wedding, you have something to go off of and won't be overexposing the wedding dress or other hugely white items. I would suggest spot metering off of the wedding dress and then opening up to however many stops you found worked in the exercise. (that's if you have a picture of the bride herself or the b&g) For pictures of the groom, spot meter on his tux. When you find the correct exposure for one color, all of the other ones will fall right into place. I hope that helps. :) Good luck! Autumn
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anonymous |
METER FOR THE FACES!!!! METER FOR THE FACES!!!!! Then the black and white should work themselves out. You definitely need well exposed faces, you can't have everything perfect, but at least if you expose for the faces, you'll have great shots. If you expose for the white dress, your dress well be perfect, but the rest of the photo will be underexposed, if you expose for the black suite, the suite will be perfect, but the rest of the photo will be overexposed. Weddings go way too quickly anyways, so you won't have time to meter for each photo. Check my wedding shots out, I used "Portrait" mode, "AV" mode and some I used "Manual". But don't forget - your metering system in your camera is far more clever than you think! Have fun at the wedding!
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Katie |
Natalie, if I meter for the faces won't the faces be middle grey? Do I spot meter the faces and then use that exposure? I just want to make sure I understand you correctly. By the way I checked out your gallery and your pictures are gorgeous! Thank you for the advice. Katie Autumn, I will try your exercise with a test roll to see what happens. Thanks for the help! Katie
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Kerry L. Walker |
Natalie is correct. Meter for the faces. Yes, your meter will read them as 18% gray. Remember, however, your meter doesn't know whether you are shooting in color or B&W and caucasian skin is close to 18% gray in reflectance (not in color, unless it's a horror movie, LOL). After all, the people are the most important part of the scene anyway.
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Katie |
Kerry, I read somewhere that if you don't have a spot meter you can fill the frame with the area you want to meter (in my case: the face) then recompose your photo and set the exposure to that setting. Do you know if this works? And one other question, what do you meter for when shooting color film? Thanks, Katie
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Kerry L. Walker |
It works just like a spot meter. You are metering the same thing as a spot meter reads. It works the same for B&W and color. After all, the camera doesn't know what type of film you are using.
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