Excellent.
Thanks again for all the help everyone's offered. It's been the
photography 101 class I never got to take.
I'll just have to burn through some film and make notes as I go. I can
already tell that the $40 I spent on that K1000 will probably be the
best investment I'll ever make in photographic equipment.
-- Walt
On 2/9/2011 10:29 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote:
Most older SLR meters are center weighted, so something in the middle of the
frame influences the meter reading more than on the edges. But generally
speaking, you need a balance of dark and light to achieve the reflectivity of
gray. The newest matrix meters compare what the camera sees to some
preprogrammed situational data, and try to make a decision based on that.
Generally, they don't require as much compensation for subjects that are not
overly dominated by one extreme of reflectivity. For example, the meter in one
of my old spotmatics requires about two stops of exposure compensation in a
snow scene, but one stop is usually enough to get the K-5 in the ballpark. You
have to work with your camera and learn how it reacts to different situations.
Rules and guidelines are good, but there's no substitute for experience. Again
when it comes to nailing exposures in difficult situations, the gray card or
incident meter is the easy way out.
Paul
On Feb 9, 2011, at 11:19 PM, Walter Gilbert wrote:
Thanks, David/Collin/Paul.
I think I understand, now.
I was thinking that since the snow was so glaringly bright that it would throw
the meter off irrespective of the actual subject -- assuming the subject isn't
the snow itself.
But, as I understand you all now, as long as there's a dark enough counterpoint
to the snow within the frame, the metering will average out. My question in
that case is, does the ratio of dark to light matter? Say, if you have a snowy
field and a small black dog in that field, taking a photo of a distant grey
object, is that enough to get the correct averaging? Or do I need to
compensate for the dominance of the snowy field within the frame?
In other words, does the meter average the difference between the darkest and
the brightest objects in the frame, or the total amount of darkness and
brightness in the frame?
Thanks again, y'all. I do appreciate your patience.
-- Walt
On 2/9/2011 9:18 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote:
On Feb 9, 2011, at 10:05 PM, Walter Gilbert wrote:
Thanks for the explanation, Collin.
When Paul said to overexpose, I was actually thinking it sounded counter-intuitive --
that you'd want to under-expose in a snowy situation. But, it makes sense now that you
explained that the meter "assumes" a neutral grey.
So, I'm assuming that in extra-low-light situations, I'd want to under-expose
by a couple of stops in that case.
No. It's not amount the amount of light. The reason you overexpose snow or
anything else that fills your frame with white is simply because it's white and
very reflective. Like Collin said, the meter assumes everything is 18% gray and
reflects the amount of light that an 18% gray surface would reflect. So
shooting a white subject in low light, you would still overexpose. Shooting
something totally black, you would want to underexpose by about one stop, since
black doesn't reflect much light.. Again, using the gray card and exposing to
the meter reading is usually better in really tricky lighting situations.
Another alternative is an incident meter, which measures the light source
rather than the scene. As with the gray card, you don't have to correct for the
reflectivity of the subject when shooting with an incident meter.
Paul
Glad I found this out before getting too deep into the roll!
-- Walt
On 2/9/2011 8:40 PM, Collin Brendemuehl wrote:
No!!! Always overexpose snow by 2 stops.
Why?
Because an averaging meter expects a mid-gray tone.
The result will be gray snow unless you open it up,
either with the shutter, aperture, or both.
You can also change to iso32.
Sincerely,
Collin Brendemuehl
http://kerygmainstitute.org
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose"
-- Jim Elliott
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