 BetterPhoto Member |
light meters What kind of metering system would eb best to use for a outdoor fashion shoot? Would I need a different metering system if I was shooting in broad sunshine as opposed to shooting in the shade?
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Alan N. Marcus |
Hi Joanne, Using a light meter takes study and practice. Fist I think your camera’s built-in-light meter and chip logic will best most hand-held meters. However: A hand-held light meter is calibrated to read a middle gray target that reflects 18% of the ambient light and absorbs 82%. This value is about battleship gray. It stems from research at the Kodak labs in the early 1940’s which was an extension of the works of Hurter and Driffield, the founders of the science of exposure determination, who in the early 1900’s made sense out of exposure measurement. The Kodak method was to place a yellow Kodak box in the scene and meter this tone with a new fandangle GE and/or Weston light meters. We set our cameras as indicated, heretofore we used tables and charts. Shortly thereafter Ansel Adams and Fred Archer (his pal) jointly published the Zone System which allowed precisely adjusted exposure by means of an 18% placard. We placed the placard (you need to procure one) in the scene, illumined just as the principle subject is illuminated. We meter this card using a reflection light meter and we set our camera as indicated by the meter. The theory goes like this: If the gray card is suitably illumined and measured with a reflection light meter and the camera is set to this reading, the gray card will be correctly exposed. When the image of the gray card are viewed they will exactly match the original card as to color and shade. This being the case, all other colors and hues will be rendered correct by law (law of reciprocity). This method has pitfalls but space for this narrative won’t allow a proper exploitation. Elaborate spot reflection meters are available. They are meters built-inside a small telescope. Such equipment allows close-up reading from afar. An alternate method evolved know as incident light reading. This method solves many pitfalls. An incident meter is pointed back at the camera from the subject’s position. The meter design utilizes a sensor covered by a white translucent sphere. The readings obtained will be exactly the same as a reflected meter reading from a properly positioned gray card however with this method, one need not carry a gray card. This is the preferred method used by Hollywood movie photographers (however they too have now embraced the in-camera-meter). Modern cameras utilize a built-in-light meter that employs chip logic and mode settings. Such a system will win hands down against all but the most skilled meter readers. Alan Marcus (dispenser of marginal technical gobbledygook)
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Christopher A. Walrath |
An added note to the remarks of my esteemed colleague might be to meter the skin of your subject. The meter will read it as middle gray (Exposure Zone V). White/caucasian skin is generally best represented in Zone VI so take your meter's reading and increase exposure by one stop to get a good skin rendering. Dark skin is generally best rendered on Zone IV so decrease your meter's reading by one stop to get an acceptable rendering. But Alan is right. Using a light meter is simple in practise but practise is the key word. Study and practise so that using a meter, whether on-camera or hand-held, becomes second hat and does not interfere with your creative folw. Thank you
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Christopher A. Walrath |
Oops. Flow. Stoopidd burben. >hic<
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