HK> Don't worry, I don't believe you will have offended anybody (unless HK> they're very sensitive)! :) HK> My hypothesis as to why (spot) metering of darker faces doesn't work is HK> as follows. The lightmeter assumes 18% gray reflectance. However, in HK> this case, the reflectance will be much lower. In an attempt to turn HK> the image into an 18% gray image, the lightmeter will overexpose. HK> Therefore you need to underexpose by maybe a stop or two, but I'm HK> guessing. The opposite is true if you try photographing something HK> really white eg snow or possibly sand at midday. (I hope I've got this HK> the right way round...)
But I am already figuring this into my exposure! I wrote in my post "spotmetering faces and placing them at Zone 6" - that means because usual caucassian faces are about 1 stop brighter than medium gray (18% gray) for which meters are calibrated. So I need to open up one stop from the spotmeter reading. I use a simplified zone scale with the spotmeter, otherwise, it's almost useless. The problem is, I haven't figured yet how much the reflectivity of faces of dark skinned people (especially of certain ethnics, from middle Africa) differs from 18% gray. I know that for the caucassians, it's Zone 6. But what zone for them? Zone 4? 4.5? If it was normal portraits, I would be using incident metering. Best regards, Frantisek - 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 .