Exposure conundrum?

I believe I read in one of Roger Hicks' books that when one determines exposure using a simple incident measurement of the primary light this is called the "artificial highlight method."

I also recall reading, I believe on this site, that Sandy King said simple incident readings, to paraphrase, were about a stop overexposed in the shadows and a stop underexposed in bright sunlight.

Keeping these two bits of information in mind, wouldn't the simple incident exposure method be a hybrid of the techniques espoused by Picker/Mortensen - read the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may?

Judging from the exposure meter offerings these days I would guess a lot of folks use the above method, perhaps a lot more folks than those who take time to measure the shadows and close a couple of stops.

Comments?

Fred

Or you can use the BTZS method of measuring both the shadows and full light with an incident meter and basing exposure on the shadow and development on the full sun reading. Incident readings measure a range of zones, so to speak.

I tried Fred's highlight method years ago and it never worked for me. Fred also said he never made a minus development, and I make them all the time. I think the light in Vermont must be very different from the light in Florida. I regularly have SBR 8 or 9 or above scenes. Fred's highlight method would bury the shadows in the places I shoot.
juan

Juan,

I have the same situation with SBR in the 8-9 range with my base altitude at 5K feet and super clear skies here in the Utah desert. If I head up into the ski areas or Park City where the air really gets thin my sunny 16 rule almost becomes sunny 22!

Fred

Dear Fred,

Can't speak for Sandy, but yes, incident light reading does indeed rely on an artificial highlight.

For landscapes, in glaring sun with clear air, 1 or at most 2 extra stops over a full-sun reading should give adequate shadow detail: guessing how much extra exposure to give is a matter of experience.

Now consider 'double lighting': sun streaming through the window of a church, where you also want detail in the dark wood beams in the hammer-beam roof 20 feet above your head.

An incident reading somewhere in the church, a reasonable distance from the window, would probably (though far from certainly) give adequate detail in the beam. This is essentially BTZS and is a good fudge, but it's still a fudge.

A much better idea is to take a shadow spot reading, to determine how much exposure you need, and a highlight spot reading to determing the actual SBR (not the SBR inferred from incident readings) and therefore the gamma you need. Then a gamma/time curve (ever harder to find nowadays) will give you your dev time...

Cheers,

R.