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Make up
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Valentia wrote:
Thorsten wrote:
Valentia wrote:
Equally spot metering can be done with an incident meter. Spot metering has nothing to do with whether it is incident or reflective.
I’ve always understood spot metering to be reflective. In my 20 odd years doing photography I’ve not yet come across incident spot metering, but I’d be keen to learn!
Well it seems to me if you take a light reading from a particular spot with an incident meter, it is spot metering. In fact a reading of a spot smaller than most reflective or camera meters would manage It usually refers to a metering mode in-camera. But naturally incident reading is, by its very nature spot metering. Surely? That’s what I mean.
Well, hmm, not really – although I do see where you’re coming from now. An incident reading is in fact an integrated reading of all of the light (and shadow) incident on the subject from all directions. So I suppose in one sense you could call an incident reading a multi-spot reading, although that’s not strictly true either. True spot meters in fact have a viewing angle no greater than 1?
I’m with you :) If you take off or move the diffuser isn’t the reading from only the light that is striking the meter? That way you can take an accurate reading from something, say, like a narrow beam from a torch. Talking incident here BTW.
Ali, I am not portrait expert but I think that the lighting is not ideal in these shot.
Torsten I would like to know more about this WhiBal. I ‘moved’ the question to the Digital section.
Thanks.Valentia wrote:
As far as the most accurate goes, incident is nearly always the most accutate as it measures the light falling on the subject. The only sure way of duplicating this in camera is to take a reflective reading from an 18% grey card (or your hand believe it or not). The camera will always try to recreate 18% grey.
With emphasis on the word “nearly”. There is no foolproof metering method, not even a grey card. Just try photographing white on white or black on black and blindly following the reading you get from an incident meter or a grey card! Any meter will give you perfect results once you know and understand how to use it and what it’s limitations are.
Photographing the palm of your hand is a good tip and one that I’ve often used – but do try and remember to open up about 1 – 1? stops from the reading you get.
Sorry Ali for hijacking your thread. Should really have asked elsewhere. I’ll shut up now. Thorsten, I wouldn’t mind continuing this in “General Questions” if you wouldn’t mind.
Valentia wrote:
I’m with you :) If you take off or move the diffuser isn’t the reading from only the light that is striking the meter? That way you can take an accurate reading from something, say, like a narrow beam from a torch. Talking incident here BTW.
That will give you an inaccurate reading as the meter is calibrated to work in incident mode with a diffuser over it. I don’t know under what circumstances you would want to do that. In any ase it still would not be a spot reading as the sensor would have a reasonably large acceptance angle.
Valentia wrote:
In camera metering can be spot metering if the camera has that facility.
I think if you re-read my post, you’ll see I say the same thing
Valentia wrote:
Equally spot metering can be done with an incident meter. Spot metering has nothing to do with whether it is incident or reflective.
I’m with Thorsten on this. I have never come across a case where spot metering has been combined with an incident light meter and again like Thorsten, I’d be keen to learn if there is one and how it could be used?
Valentia wrote:
As far as the most accurate goes, incident is nearly always the most accutate as it measures the light falling on the subject. The only sure way of duplicating this in camera is to take a reflective reading from an 18% grey card (or your hand believe it or not). The camera will always try to recreate 18% grey.
Just because a reflective light meter tries to turn everything to middle grey where as an incident light meter renders everything as it’s own true tone, does not make it more accurate. In fact sometimes, due to lens extension etc TTL metering can be more accurate. The important thing is to be aware of both (as I said), know the advantages and disadvantages of each and when to use either or. If you are interested in picking holes in my theory, please feel free to read the tutorial I did in the Portraits section, which is also duplicated on my website (http://www.thewonderoflight.com/tutorial_exposure.htm)
THanks Ciaran. :? You have a lovely way with words.
I have moved my questions to General Photography Q&A.
Valentia wrote:
I want to apologise for not commenting on your work Ali but I know feck all about fashion photography and am loath to put my foot in it. Technically they are excellent and you have your own style which is really important.
Ali, I’m afraid I am in the same boat as Valentia. I’m a complete eejit when it comes to portrait photography let alone fashion! :oops:
carl wrote:
I’m afraid I am in the same boat as Valentia. I’m a complete eejit
Careful now!! :) :D :shock:
Valentia wrote:
carl wrote:
I’m afraid I am in the same boat as Valentia. I’m a complete eejit
Careful now!! :) :D :shock:
Careful indeed oops! :oops: I should have put a whole load of spaces between the two sentences.
Ok, here is a re-edit….. ehem……
Valentia knows feck all about fashion AND I am a complete eejit when it comes to portrait and fashion.
How about that. :wink:
No offence intended Valentia!
Well, clearly I don’t agree with everyone, but I still stand over my liking of the image as posted. The model looks good, the exposure is fine and the overall viewer experience is pleasant.
Well All, firstly thanks a million for the comments and critique.
Just to clarify a few points before i move on. :)1. Shot RAW
2. Light metre was was used and
3. No colour cards were used.No colour correction took place as:
1. I don’t have a colour card/gray card
2. I don’t trust software to do it for me
3. My eye told me it looked pretty ok.That said, it’s definitely something i have to invest in.
The colour balance in my shots will never
e 100% until i invest (unless it’s one of my wacky
fashion shots, in which case it will always be off :D).Before i start, I’ve noticed in a couple of threads in the forum that people
have given critique without giving the photographer
possible means of overcoming the problem. Giving critique
without suggesting methods of improving the shot is as useless
as tits on a bull :).Ken. Thanks a mil for the comments. The look i am going for is what you see unfortunately :)
jlang. Thanks for the comments, i’m particularly interested in
comments from people that don’t really delve into this type
of photography..and yep, this would indeed be a triptych :)Thor. Thanks a mil for comments Thor, i didnt think the colour
balance was way off myself, but that’s probably inexperience
on my behalf. Can you tell me what method you used to check
the colour balance on this shot?Ciaran. Definitely agree with you. There are shots i will
have to pay particular attention to colour balance, and this
just so happens to be one of them. I think you’ve been suggesting
a gray card to me for a long time now. About time i got my arse into gear :)Ben. Thanks a mil for the info and i appreciate the advice
on the lighting and the information on the Expo-Disc. I wasn’t
really interested in even distribution of light to the face
as her face was quite broad and i thought that flat
lighting would make her face even broader.John. Thanks for the comments. I only took about 15 shots
on each set, it was a shame to just keep one and ditch the
rest so i thought i would just create a series of three.
It seems to have worked out.Roberto. Thanks for the critique. What lighting would you suggest?
Carl. It’s only a Fashion forum. Come in and have a cup of tea :) We
don’t bite. I think ill have to get you and Valentia and jlang into the studio
to shoot some models. I’m sure the three of you would do excellent.
Appreciate the comments.Valentia. I’m going to give you the nick of “Puffin Man” :).
Thanks a mil for comments. I’m very interested in the metering
debate. Im sure i’ll join you in that thread shortly.Ali wrote:
Thor. Thanks a mil for comments Thor, i didnt think the colour
balance was way off myself, but that’s probably inexperience
on my behalf. Can you tell me what method you used to check
the colour balance on this shot?I didn’t make any measurements to determine that the colour balance was off. It just looked off on my profiled monitor. A closer visual inspection of the whites of the teeth and eyes seemed to confirm this to me. If you’re not using a properly profiled and calibrated monitor you may not see any clour balance issues. However, it is possible to check if the colour balance is off even if your monitor is not calibrated by taking the image in to Photoshop and looking at the RGB and CMYK values of various parts of the image in the Info tab as you hover your pointer over the image.
The Professional Imagemaker magazine (which anyone who is a member of the SWPP gets) ran an article on The Accurate Reproduction of Skin Tones, which makes for interesting reading. Note, however, that the article is about accurate skin tones, not about pleasing skin tones. It’s quite possible to have accurate skin tones but they may not look very pleasing! For a short piece on pleasing skin tones, take a look at this piece on SmugMug – it relates to skin tones on prints, but nevertheless has some useful info there with a few things worth trying.
Ali, I can’t encourage you enough to invest in a decent monitor profiling solution – I’d recomend one of the Monaco Optix X-Rite based solutions available at ColourConfidence. It will make an amazing difference to what you see on your screen. Once your monitor is correct, you have a reference point to work from.
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