Vivitar agrees with you. The Vivitar 45 instruction booklet was very brief, but ended the instructions with this paragraph (the italics are theirs):
The most important thing to remember is that your meter is a creative tool. By analyzing and modifying basic readings, according to lighting condition and film characteristics, you can creatively control results. It all depends on the effect you want to create. There is a wealth of information available on metering. check with you local photo dealer, bookstore or library for books on specific techniques.
That is a variant of my statements about not including the sky. One could include a little as you stated, but using a meter is always a judgement call. May people to tell me that they are not getting well exposed photographs had a marked improvement after I suggested that they avoid taking readings of the sky.
My experience is that if I don't include the sky a little, the exposure is too high and the sky is too bright. Maybe we're aiming differently.
...which is exactly Ethe REASON why I suggested aiming all meters at a UNFORMLY ILLUMINATED and FEATURELESS target area (e.g. painted wall in a home) because no matter if you use a 60 degree reflected hand-held meter or a SLR with 50mm FL or one-degree spot meter, ALL will measure the identical thing, and you can directly compare readings...and ALL should have near-identical readings when properly calibrated.I was referring to your post #182 where you acknowledged different reflective readings because of different angles of view. I agree with those points. We weren't talking about the color of dogs or incident readings. So which reflective meter is right? A little move this way or that gives you a different reading.
You're confusing me. I thought we agreed on this. Of course, if you're measuring a blank wall to compare accuracy, the readings should be the same. However, different meters with different angles of measurement will provide different results looking at a normal scene. They're measuring different angles of view.
My experience is that if I don't include the sky a little, the exposure is too high and the sky is too bright. Maybe we're aiming differently.
You simply want the sky to be to your level of expectation, regardless of the brightness difference between sky and ground...here in Sunny CA midwinter (cursed with a shortage of rain) Sunny 16 exposure would work outside, but the sky is between 0.9EV - 3.5EV bright than Sunny 16,depending on the angle of the shot relative to sun position.
Many of us simply want the brightness of things in the scene (not the sky) to fall at their inherent brightness (18% gray card = mid-tone gray) and the sky will fall wherever it will ...between 0.9EV - 3.5EV brighter than subject lighting.
You simply want the sky to be to your level of expectation, regardless of the brightness difference between sky and ground...here in Sunny CA midwinter (cursed with a shortage of rain) Sunny 16 exposure would work outside, but the sky is between 0.9EV - 3.5EV bright than Sunny 16,depending on the angle of the shot relative to sun position.
Many of us simply want the brightness of things in the scene (not the sky) to fall at their inherent brightness (18% gray card = mid-tone gray) and the sky will fall wherever it will ...between 0.9EV - 3.5EV brighter than subject lighting.
Is that for BW film? I shoot chromes mainly.
The physics are the same for color slide, color negative and black & white negative film and all will expose properly. Your expectation level is unrealistic because the sky falls where it is supposed to and the way it is supposed to.
Is that for BW film? I shoot chromes mainly.
In your shot with sky colors, you have 'suppressed' any detail in the landscape and put them in the detailless shadows. For that shot, the detail in the landscape was totally secondary to getting the sky (and its reflection in the lake surface) represented as a highly saturated set of colors.
Had your scene contained your wife, you would have failed to capture her portrait adequately...if you had exposed for your wife's face, the sky's brightness would fall wherever it inherent brightness in the scene happens to be, and not a saturated set of colors when shooting a portrait....you would NOT be metering the shadows, per se...you would be metering ambient light to record things at their 'inherent brightness' (metering a gray card, or using an incident meter would both suggest the same exposure)
...you would NOT be metering the shadows, per se...you would be metering ambient light to record things at their 'inherent brightness' (metering a gray card, or using an incident meter would both suggest the same exposure
It does not matter, shooting for inherent brightness means mid-tone color or mid-tone gray are Middle of the tonal scale, regardless of the presence or absence of a specific hue other than gray. This pair shows things at their inherent brightness (midtone gray for 4th patch in bottom row) and the presence or absence of color, as reflected in the type of film for the shot.
In your shot with sky colors, you have 'suppressed' any detail in the landscape and put them in the detailless shadows. For that shot, the detail in the landscape was totally secondary to getting the sky (and its reflection in the lake surface) represented as a highly saturated set of colors.
Had your scene contained your wife, you would have failed to capture her portrait adequately...if you had exposed for your wife's face, the sky's brightness would fall wherever it inherent brightness in the scene happens to be, and not a saturated set of colors when shooting a portrait....you would NOT be metering the shadows, per se...you would be metering ambient light to record things at their 'inherent brightness' (metering a gray card, or using an incident meter would both suggest the same exposure)
But if his wife was in the foreground, then metering for her would have blown out the sky, unless he used a GND to compress the range of the scene (this is slide film after all). It's almost like you're claiming that the only thing relevant is the midtones, which isn't true.
But that wouldn't be appropriate for the scene. Using portraiture rules for a landscape scene is daft.
NOT 'damning' anything...the goals are entirely different and the shot is dictated by the desires of the photographer!
Maybe if you're shooting chromes with side light and the ground is brightly lit, but even then you could overexpose the sky. Letting the sky fall where it does by metering a shadow area is for negative film, mainly BW. Even then, you wnt to know how far different the sky is as you might need a GND for BW negative film as well.
In a more severe situation as pictured below (Velvia 50 a chrome), if I exposed to capture the ground and tree details, the sky would have blown out. I had to expose for the sky and let the shadow areas fall where they may, the opposite of what you suggest.
In scenes with chromes, you often need a GND because the EV difference between the sky and ground are too many stops beyond the film's capability to capture both ends. Also keep in mind that chromes have fewer stops than negative film. So chromes are easier to "clip". Chromes are like digital cameras. You have to be careful not to clip the highlights because once they're clipped (overexposed), all you get is nothing there and the shot is ruined.
No matter what Alan writes, it’s obvious that he really knows how to meter. His photo proves that. I seriously doubt that image was dumb luck. All the rest is about fine-tuning that understanding.
With over 100,000 slides I have never had the light clipped nor used a GND. Do you own stock in an GND manufacturer?
Are you shooting chromes? When are you shooting? At what? What time during the day? Show us samples?
I think I underexposed the shot somewhat, maybe 1/2 to one stop (for the sky). But that kept the blue colors. There was no way I was going to recover the trees and ground so I just left them be black silhouettes. I was actually shooting after sundown during blue hour but facing East away from the setting sun. I entered the shot in a local community contest. The judge liked the shot but thought I should have caught more orange in the shot.
What do judges know?
This is a good example of what I'm talking about. It's a Velvia 50,4x5. The lighting in the sky and in the bright areas are close enough that you don't need a GND. They're in range of the DR of the film for shadows and whites; the stops are close enough.
However, look at the trees on the right. Notice how the shadow areas are dark almost black. I tried to bring them out a little by raising the Shadow slider. But all I got was noise there. So I had to leave them as they were. Had I metered for the ground to show detail in those shadow areas, I would have overexposed the other brighter ground areas and certainly blown out the sky. The shot would have been unrecoverable.
Lake Topanemus by Alan Klein, on Flickr
Sometimes the picture IS the sky…
Like yours (which is not underexposed at all) this is all by about the sky and silhouette is fine. Unlike yours, this is a cell phone snappy of a framed print, now faded, that’s been on the wall since 1982. Somewhere I have the original Ektachrome. Lahaina Maui not long after an eruption of Kilauea Volcano. No filter.
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