----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 2:52 PM Subject: Re: exposure comp question
> i read a nice piece on metering light in a recent outdoor photography > magazine. the thurst of the article was that to fully rely upon light > meters, was to "average" the light to an acceptable 18% gray scale. A good, predictable light meter looks at everything, no matter what colour or intensity as 18% gray. Very few meters actually do this. The Zone VI modified Pentax Spot Meter (on topic content) is the only meter I am aware of that is actually reliably accurate. > > the suggestion was to use exposure compensation to move away from this > averaging effect of light meters & suggested that photographers make > decisions about the use of light rather than let their light meters make > those decisions. This is a good bit of advice. Blind faith in technology leads to bad experiences. > > using colors as an example, the author stated that white needed actually +2 > stops of light to get what we think of as white (rather than the "averaged" > 18% gray). he also suggested pink, yellow, lime, sky blue, lavendar and tan > needed +1 stop over the meter. Harrummmmm. Well, I suppose if all you shoot is slide film, +2 stops might work for white. It will certainly lead to a weak colour negative, and a definitely underexposed black and white negative; of this I am sure. What shade of pink, yellow, lime, sky blue, lavendar and tan was he referring to? I feel a rant coming on...... Might have to open another bottle of wine for this one.. OK, Here we go: If you don't know haw YOUR meter will react to various colours and intensities, you really have no idea about what sort of exposures you are getting. You don't know if you are optimizing the films abilities to record the subject. It is quite amusing, actually. We all meter carefully, that small spot that we have decided is the key element of our photograph, and if we are clever, we assign to it a "Zone". I am guilty of this myself, to be sure. The brightest part of a cloud that I can still barely see detail in is Zone VIII. That is what I base my meter reading on. Other people use Zone 2 or 3. Neither is right, or wrong. I find I can decide what is brightest easier than what is darkest is all. However, that is only part of it. That is called exposure range. Do you know if your meter is truly linear? It may read EV 6 correctly, but how does it do with EV 16? What about if the colour isn't actually a permutation of gray? What if it is green? Or blue? What if it is blue, and you want to use a red filter? And what does your film think of all this? Is it colour and exposure linear? Have you tested all this? No? Harrummm!!! Neither have I. Here is the thing: If you are shooting negative film, when in doubt, open up another stop. And learn from it. If you are shooting chrome, and you are unsure, stop down a third stop. And pray. Or. go out and see what your equipment, with the film you shoot, with the lab you use, and the way they like to print, does with a picture. If ypu shoot slides, it is easier, but harder as well. Easier to see what you have done wrong, harder to make it better. And if you shoot black and white, and process it yourself, well there is no hope for you at all. I don't know of any black and white guys who are satisfied that they are getting as much out of their film as they can. > > my question is: You had a question???????<VBG> > > how do i achieve these goals using my exposure compensation? Depends on the camera, some use a dial. > > my pentax zx-m has an exp comp ring. if i want white and desire +2 stops of > light, > > -do i turn the ring to +2 to add 2 stops? This seems logical. But do you truly want +2 stops? o you want more? Or less? And how have you determined this? Is it a guess? Or intuition (an educated guess)? Or is it based on a solid knowledge of how your film/meter/eye integrate? > > or > > -do i turn the ring to -2 to compensate for the metering and effectively add > 2 stops? Wrong. + adds light. - subtracts light. Light works just like numbers. This is why we speak of light in terms of numbers. Except like works like logarithms. Don't you wish you had paid more attention in school now? > > thanks in advance to any who care to share their thoughts, opinions or > experience. Are you sure about that? > > be well I'm fine now. I will surely not be in the morning though, William Robb - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
