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Exposure (compensation) Tips

Sirius Glass said:
  • Use box speed, there is no reason to change that if you follow through.
  • Meter without the sky. [You are most of the way there at this point.]
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Use _REAL_ box speed. (Attention if you are using other manufacturer films other than Ilford, Fuji or Kodak)

I would maybe add: increase exposure by one stop (when using negative film) - but I guess metering without sky does the job, mostly.

Develop by manufacturer instructions and times only.
 

Metering without the sky gets rid of the need for a lot of wasted time testing and brings out some of the shadow detail in one step. For slide film, it can somewhat slightly saturate the colors naturally without making them garish.
 
Hi Radiant
"I guess metering without sky does the job" What you mean by that? Sorry if i ask too basic questions.
 
lieven2323 said:
Hi Radiant
"I guess metering without sky does the job" What you mean by that? Sorry if i ask too basic questions.
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Read that to mean "Yields a reasonable exposure that will include sufficient shadow detail, generally". But that applies more to averaging meters than center-weighted meters like your A1. The weighting of the A1 meter takes care of most of that. And if you are especially concerned about getting more shadow detail, you can always meter the dark area in the center part of the metering area and lock that exposure value before taking the image. See page 21 of the manual.
 
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lieven2323 said:
Hi Radiant
"I guess metering without sky does the job" What you mean by that? Sorry if i ask too basic questions.
Click to expand...


By eliminating the bias from the bright sky, the meter is reading the subject matter more exactly. That means the box speed measurements of the subject matter are more exactly what is needed for proper exposure.
 
Sirius Glass said:
I have had the best results teaching someone exposure by starting simple and building a step at a time. Jumping into testing is a good way to scare people to search for new approaches.
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We did this too when teaching beginning photo. We'd use basic rules and have them expose +1 and -1 to understand what happened. After that, we did testing.
 
Interesting how basing your exposure on a shadow value for negative film, or an important highlight value for transparency film completely eliminates any bias from including the sky in the field being metered and any guesswork about if there's enough latitude in the metering technique and film response to adequately render the shadows or highlights. Just sayin...

Doremus
 
lieven2323 said:
Do you know or use other tricks to get a good exposure?
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I used to think I did know some stuff on this. Then I sold the best exposing camera that I owned, a Nikon w/ AE, AE lock, spot meter, etc. That left a Pentax MV w/ AE and no exposure control at all other than an ISO adjustment that took too much time to reset, and a Nikon EM w/ AE and a 1.5 stop button for extra exposure as needed.

After developing the negs, it turned out that the MV gave me great exposures w/ absolutely no exposure adjustments necessary (even in tricky light). The EM's AE also gave the same great exposures except, of course, for the times when I gave the shots that extra 1.5 exposure. I was convinced that those shots needed that extra exposure too. Thankfully, the camera knew that was pure BS.

So my answer to that question now would be....just buy a camera that has good AE and be done w/ it.
 
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My axioms...
  1. Use of an 18% gray card as a target that largely fills the priority metering zone (areas) of a camera's meter, at the subject position, with largely eliminate the need for using Exposure Compensation to bias a reading due to deviation of the subject brightness from the 'mid-tone' assumption behind reflected light meter calibration adjustment.
  2. Use of the sky as the target of the priority metering area of the camera will expose the sky to what most would consider to be optimal color saturation of the sky/sunset colors...brighter exposure causes loss of color saturation.
  3. Shooting color neg is very forgiving of a fairly wide deviation from 'ideal exposure', and the printing of that neg can often very strongly hide errors in exposure
 

That is why I keep posting and telling people to take the reflectance light reading without the sky in the light meter's field of view.
 
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