I kinda disagree
The eye has a complex mechanism for compensating for changes in colour temp. so that we tend to see a rather neutral image with our eyes. We do not see strongly blue shadows; we do not see green faces illuminated by fluorescents, etc. Indeed, we see colours as
roughly warm or cool but we don't see the shifts in colour balance with nearly as much accuracy as film sees them. We simply do not see blue shadows, not at all. Vaguely cool, maybe, but not nearly as blue as one can get with some films or with some print methods like ilfochrome.
Soo.....
why should our photographs have blue shadows? Without colour metering or at least some intuition about the colour temp, the colour rendition for the film can be way off.... why [rhetorical question] do we let that happen if we know full well that the viewer of the photograph will perceive an unnatural colour cast? I think it is an interesting question at the core of the effectiveness of colour photography.
Well, yes and no.
We do see that artifical light is decidely 'warmer' than daylight. We do see that fluorescent lights are greener (which is why there is such an uproar against the silly EU directive prohibiting the sale of incandescent lights. The general consensus is that the fluorescent lights we are supposed to use instead produces terrible colour). We do indeed see that shadows in the snow are not just darker, but clearly blue.
We may not always be conscious of that. But that is not entirely because we compensate in our brains. It is for a large part because we do not expect it to be different. Shadows are supposed to be cooler, because that's is how we know them to be.
But it is true, both that we 'compensate' (we explain away), and that we cannot discern small differences.
It is also true that in photos, the effect can be stronger than we expect. That is in large part for the same reason why we object to converging verticals in prints, while we never ever would think them strange when we look up at a building: the context is wrong. We cannot reconcile the viewing conditions with what we are seeing.
So yes, there is a case for metering and filtering.
But just like you can over do a 'correction' of converging verticals (we can't reconcile parallel verticals with the overall perspective of the print, and our knowledge that we are looking at a tall building, So a 'correction' should leave a degree of convergence), you can over correct colour too.
Colour in a print too still has to be in accordance with what we would expect to encounter in real life. And that (real life) is full of 'wrong' colour.
(Despite our compensating eyes, and what have you.)
Bottom line, colour metering can and does make a big difference. Not always of course, but people who take colour balance seriously do typically colour meter, and that technology has been around as long as colour photography.
And the importance of colour metering and correction can be overstressed. Correction can be overdone.
We need (!) to see blue shadows in snow, in prints too. (Again, just like we need to see convergence in a tall building.) Quite simply because we do know the world as a place of ever changing, not always neutral colours.
I'd also like to point out, as I mentioned in a recent blog, that there is some clear similarity in the way we see under low light (i.e. with scotopic vision) and the dehued black & white image we capture on b&w film. So I would even go so far as to question the 'unreality' of the b&w image as well. Okay, a bit off topic...
I agree completely. (Except about the off topic bit.
)
Join the colour group!!! :rolleyes:
I eventually found it (you have to use the search box).
But also saw that it (still?) is a small version of the general forums.
In this thread alone there is more said about colour than in the colour group. Am i right?
P.S. Colour meters are quite cheap, actually. Just get a digital camera...
You get full colour histograms, white balance functions, colour temp measurement etc.... and scene metering. And a 'proof' shot that can be useful for the film shot. I use a dslr quite routinely to meter for LF colour slide. But of course there are lots of film cameras with colour matrix metering; you don't have to buy the pricey colour meter to get good results.
I already have colour meters. Had them before colour matrix metering and before digital cameras were both anywhere near affordable and advanced enough to show histograms and all that.