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Question about exposure
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i was told to do this but im stuck. Basicly you do the test with the grey card at different shutter speeds and it gives you the cameras tonal range which i did and its fine but part 2 is
Find a high contrast scene that exceeds the tonal range of your camera and take the following three images
(a) an image with the best exposure for the whole scene
(b) an image with the exposure setting biased towards achieveing maximum detail in the shadow areas without overexposing
(c) an image with the exposure setting biased towards achieving maximum detail in highlight areas?What would be the best place to get shots like this?
Maybe a wooded area at midday when the sun is high and there is
maximum shadows/highlights, or even somewhere with tall buildings
in a narrow street with the sun coming at an angle, or placing someone
with their back to a window so the highlighted area would be the window
and sky outside and the shadows would be the face of the subject? Basically
anywhere there is high contrasty areas.I echo what Jenny says. Take an image that contains both shade, as well as the sunny sky. An example of this would be outdoors during a sunny day, find an area of shade with the sun high in the sky and in front of you, and capture both in the frame.
Good luck and have fun & remember to do plenty of shooting when you’re done testing! :)
A church or similar building with light coming in the windows. There should be a lot of tonal range between
the light coming through the window and the walls around the window.Hi Marty,
Meant to also add, if in doubt find a scene with something very bright and very dark in it, and use the spot meter in your camera to meter both areas. If there’s a difference of 8/ 9+ stops, you’re in business.
Damien
here is my little test that i did . I found from the grey card test that my camera can shoot 3 stops in the difference without losing detail.
correct
Overexposed
under
Always a good thing to know how much exposure latitude you have. I find shooting RAW can be beneficial with regard to giving you a little bit of extra dynamic range to recover burnt out highlights. It’s no magic bullet, but until digital sensors can capture what a film negative is capable of capturing, it’s another tool in the arsenal.
With regard to capturing as much detail as possible, many pro’s say to expose as far right to the histogram as possible without blowing major highlights, as this will give you to the most information to work with, even if you have to dial the exposure back down when processing the images.
Digital sensors seem to be becoming gradually better all the time, and dynamic range slowly and inevitably increasing, and we seem to be in a better position that we were with slide film, where with the limited dynamic range, common exposure advice would go along the lines of ‘expose for the highlights, and let the shadows go to hell’ :)
If you’re concerned about exposure, I found Michael Freemans book ‘Perfect Exposure’ a good read. For the most part though when shooting digitally, I’m inclined to leave it set to matrix metering and take what the camera gives me, unless I’m pretty unhappy with the resulting exposure. Unfortunately with digital and the inherent limited dynamic range, most of my exposure technique with a dslr revolves around avoiding burnt out highlights. I always thought Fuji had a good idea with their S-range dslrs, which with their dual set of pixels, were capable of giving an image with the dynamic range of negative film.
Thanks for the reply damien, do you think the 3 photos above answer the 3 questions in my orignal post?
Hi Marty,
I suspect so, although there do appear to be some burnt highlights in the bush in your ‘correctly’ exposed image. I’m not sure what the purpose of the exercise was though, and perhaps you might elaborate on it. These days, I tend to check the histogram and clipped highlights warning, and base my exposure on that, knowing I’m shooting raw and can pull additional detail out of the file.
The only solution to scenes that exceed the dynamic range of your cameras sensor, in my mind are the use of fill flash to light the part of your subject in shadow, or else to blend several exposures. As I say though, it really depends on what the purpose of the original exercise was..
Hi..
Even in your correct exposure photo you would need a little Flash Flicker(Fill Flash) to brighten the face.
Cos if your selling your services to your client they may not be happy with so much underexposure on the face.One thing to remember for certain when your engaged (Paid) to produce quality photos you MUST get them Sharp,Clear,Proper Exposure.NUJMAN
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