Placement

So I'm reading Dunn & Wakefield's Exposure Manual and trying to digest some of the ideas.

One of the ideas is using the lowest possible exposure for the SBR, I know not so new, but the reason for doing it was at least new to me. The shadows are placed on the film toe to match them against the papers shoulder.

Printing strictly from the negatives straight line skews how the paper responds. It opens the shadows and blocks up the highlights.

The other idea that has been floating about my head is where to place certain subjects to improve the relationship to the rest of a photo.

My thought here is that we expect faces in full sun to be really bright, not so much in shaded situations. (This is where I think a lot of flash photography falls on it's face, the subject gets too bright and no longer fits the setting.)

So I had two thoughts;

1) It seems to me that at say street fairs and the like where there are shaded areas but lots of sun too placing all the exposures based on faces in shade a zone or two below normal should place all the faces to better match expectations.

2) In low light reducing exposure should also make things look more normal in a print.

I have only tested #2 and only a little but so far it seems to have merit. 400 speed film shot at 800 without any process change seem to place faces nicely on paper.

Anybody else see similar results?

markbarendt said:

2) In low light reducing exposure should also make things look more normal in a print.

Click to expand...

That's something I read about in Gene Nocon's Darkroom Printing book. The idea being that if you took a 'normal' light meter reading at night or a dark scene like a band on a stage, the meter will do what it always does and give the correct exposure for an 18% grey scene. A night or low light scene is significantly lower than 18% brightness so less exposure is needed than the meter suggests..


Steve.

My idea is that in a very contrasted situation the human eye "does not see the contrast", only the film does. The human vision reacts instantly to different light conditions in the spot it's observing at the moment. So the goal we have, as photographers, if we want to render a picture in a "natural" way, is to flat the contrast (be it done in printing, or after scanning, or whatever) so that the scene appears as our mind reminds it and not as it was for the film.

If the scene is entirely in the shade, it should be exposed normally, for no idea of "shade" (dark) to be given;
If the scene is part in sunlight and part in shade, and using a negative/print process, it should be exposed in a way that allows a sensation of contrast flattening (opening of shadows during printing) that means with most material exposing for the shadows and control highlights during printing;
If the scene is part in sunlight and part in shade, and using slide film for projection, I would preserve highlights from burning and let the rest fall where it may;
If situation as above, but the final product is a slide scan, I would open shadows and reduce global sensation of contrast as in case 2;
If we have a night scene in which there is a great contrast (nocturne scene with lit fountain, monument) when using slides I would expose so as not to burn highlights, and be "glad" that shadows fall into full black as this is a night scene.
If situation as above but using negatives I would aim for the "slide effect" and not try to flatten contrast, letting ample areas of the frame to go pure black if necessary;
If the subject is photographed at night but no "night" is to be seen in the frame I expose to give a "non night" atmosphera;
Example:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/balconies-of-st-peters-basilica-fabrizio-ruggeri.html

In this case, and IMO, for a nice and "correct" rendering of the subject on the film all tones must be reconducted inside the film curves "the normal way", without trying to convey the fact that it is a nocturne picture.

markbarendt said:

So I'm reading Dunn & Wakefield's Exposure Manual and trying to digest some of the ideas.

One of the ideas is using the lowest possible exposure for the SBR, I know not so new, but the reason for doing it was at least new to me. The shadows are placed on the film toe to match them against the papers shoulder.

Click to expand...

Placing anything on paper's shoulder just makes it (tonal separation) worse.

markbarendt said:

So I'm reading Dunn & Wakefield's Exposure Manual and trying to digest some of the ideas.

The shadows are placed on the film toe to match them against the papers shoulder.

Click to expand...

That's not exactly correct. The darkest point in determining the LER of a paper is 90% D-Max. The idea is that the average shadow value will look natural if placed on this point. Within reason, it doesn't matter where it falls on the film curve.

The idea of minimum exposure is to offer higher film speeds, reduce graininess, obtain maximum sharpness, and maintain reasonable printing times. There isn't anything intrinsic from a tone reproduction standpoint about it. See attachments. The reason why film speed is determined from the shadows is because it was determined shadow reproduction was critical to image quality.

If I understand the example of the art's fair correctly, it should be more about contrast than exposure placement. The effect you describe can just as easily be accomplished by exposing well and printing down.

Steve Smith said:

That's something I read about in Gene Nocon's Darkroom Printing book. The idea being that if you took a 'normal' light meter reading at night or a dark scene like a band on a stage, the meter will do what it always does and give the correct exposure for an 18% grey scene. A night or low light scene is significantly lower than 18% brightness so less exposure is needed than the meter suggests..


Steve.

Click to expand...

Yep.

ic-racer said:

Placing anything on paper's shoulder just makes it (tonal separation) worse.

Click to expand...

I should have said, in relation to the toe and shoulder.

One of their thoughts is that trying to get everything onto the straight line is futile anyway, they demonstrate a toeing effect where flare actually creates an effective toe that follows extra, unneeded, exposure up the curve.

Another part of Dunn & Wakefield's thought is that it makes very little sense to include shadows on the negative that aren't going to be used in the print.

Those examples appear to be more about exposure technique than exposure placement on the film curve. Adjustments to the meter’s recommended exposure need to be made in situations beyond what the meter was designed for. Some call it being smarter than the meter. Spot lighting has a small lit area surrounded by a large unimportant dark area. The meter is going to want to compensate for the dark area which will overexpose the lit area of the principle subject.

Another example is shooting a daylight scene where you want to include a large amount of sky. The light bright area will make the meter underexpose the land area. The solution is to either open up some or tilt the camera down to balance the two elements for the meter, then reframe.

Mark, I have Dunn’s fourth edition. Where did you read the part about low lighting and the thoughts about not including shadows?

Q

Stephen Benskin said:

That's not exactly correct. The darkest point in determining the LER of a paper is 90% D-Max. The idea is that the average shadow value will look natural if placed on this point. Within reason, it doesn't matter where it falls on the film curve.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction.

Stephen Benskin said:

The idea of minimum exposure is to offer higher film speeds, reduce graininess, obtain maximum sharpness, and maintain reasonable printing times. There isn't anything intrinsic from a tone reproduction standpoint about it. See attachments. The reason why film speed is determined from the shadows is because it was determined shadow reproduction was critical to image quality.

Click to expand...

Their suggestion was one of the range we might chose to place on film from a long scale scene.

Essentially choosing how much shadow is important in a given scene.

Where detail becomes acceptable on film is technically important, what tone we actually put there is subjective.

Stephen Benskin said:

If I understand the example of the art's fair correctly, it should be more about contrast than exposure placement. The effect you describe can just as easily be accomplished by exposing well and printing down.

Click to expand...

If by contrast you mean the faces in sun are brighter than the faces in the shadows, then yes.

My thought is that once I've pegged the shadow point I want, that the faces and other tones, will fall properly in relation to each other. Essentially one specific enlarger exposure would place the faces properly in relation to each other.

Shaded faces will look shaded, those in full sun wil look like they are in full sun.

Let's assume for a second that the fair is the setting for a portrait.

The setting/background could be made to fall in a very believable manner from shade to sun, the challenge in camera becomes how to fit/light/isolate the main portrait subject in that scene in such a way that looks natural.

Stephen Benskin said:

Mark, I have Dunn’s fourth edition. Where did you read the part about low lighting and the thoughts about not including shadows?

Click to expand...

Motion picture and color work section, third edition page 32.

They suggest there is no point in including shadows on the neg that will never be printed.

Stephen Benskin said:

Those examples appear to be more about exposure technique than exposure placement on the film curve.

Click to expand...

Ok so I chewed on this thought most of the morning and I don't see the point you are trying to make.

The technique doesn't really matter, spot, incident, sunny 16, all simply provide a reference point.

From whatever reference point we have, with an understanding what it has just told us, we need to decide where we want to place that tone or those tones on the curve.

markbarendt said:

Ok so I chewed on this thought most of the morning and I don't see the point you are trying to make.

The technique doesn't really matter, spot, incident, sunny 16, all simply provide a reference point.

From whatever reference point we have, with an understanding what it has just told us, we need to decide where we want to place that tone or those tones on the curve.

Click to expand...

In the case of spot lighting the exposure with the reflectance meter where the reading is taken and then the indicated exposure is reduced should produce the same exposure indication as a straight incident meter reading taken on stage. I was trying to point out that those examples aren't so much about a difference in exposure placement but simply interpreting the meter reading.

I've only had a chance to glance at page 32. My first impression is there are a few caveats that need to be address with Dunn's statement. Also, being in the motion picture and color section should raise a flag. There are differences in what defines acceptable conditions between motion picture, transparency, color negative, and black and white negative.

Also see in the monochrome section page 15, at least in the 3rd Ed. "exposure requirements"

I agree that there are caveats to consider. The caveats though seem to be based on the limits of the materials and what we decide is most important in a scene.

His thought seems not about tossing important detail, more about using a smaller safety factor and even using the curve of the toe to as he puts it, compensate. Precise exposure with little if any extra detail in the negative "below" what we plan to print when we drop the camera shutter.

What Dunn was discussing was a very specific set of circumstances and not a general concept. It was about how to handle a scene where the luminance range was greater than normal. He presented a number of approaches. Dunn’s argument for not reducing the development of the negative was that it compresses the tonal values too much causing the print to appear dull. He proposed normal development of the negative even for greater than normal luminance ranges.

This left a couple of options to control the higher negative density range printing when printing on a normal grade of paper. One was to use printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and masking. The other was to print for the highlights and midtones at the expense of the shadows. “…it is in such cases almost invariably at the expense of the shadows, especially when the latter are small.”

Personally, I use all three methods. While I agree that smaller areas can be printed without concern for detail, the question is always how small? It all depends on the intent of the photograph. Documentary and photojournalism are more concerned about the moment than detail in the shadows. With large format landscape photography, tone reproduction plays a greater role.

Then there is the creative intent. The parameters in the psychophysical judging that lead to the definition of an excellent print for tone reproduction theory was for the image to produce in the viewers mind the impression of how closely it portrays the original scene. This means that print quality is based on the literal impression of a scene. If a photographer decides to deviate for creative reasons from this, it is no longer applicable to apply those concepts in judging the quality of the print. As the psychophysical determination of print quality is the basis for film speed, this also applies to the concept of “correct” or appropriate film speed and exposure.

There is also the complex concept of the two aspects of tone reproduction: objective and subjective tone reproduction.

But where Dunn and I disagree is that I want the shadow detail on the negative to give me a choice to use it or not, where as Dunn feels that if it isn’t going to be used, “there is no point at all in exposing the negative for the shadows and thus forcing the required highlights far up into the very dense part of the negative characteristic.”

I’m not sure why the reference to page 10 as it is just an explanation of the basic concepts of exposure theory. You should check out Appendix B for a more detail explanation.

Don't let the examples of the affects of flare on the film curve fool you. Combining the film curve and the affects of flare on the same curve is more for convenience and can be conceptually misleading as to how flare works. Flare doesn't change the shape of the film curve. It just changes where the exposure will fall on the curve.

You have obviously put a lot of thought into this, thank you for taking the time to do this. Your thoughts are helping me.

Stephen Benskin said:

What Dunn was discussing was a very specific set of circumstances and not a general concept. It was about how to handle a scene where the luminance range was greater than normal. He presented a number of approaches. Dunn’s argument for not reducing the development of the negative was that it compresses the tonal values too much causing the print to appear dull. He proposed normal development of the negative even for greater than normal luminance ranges.

Click to expand...

The way I read his lead-in to this concept he is talking about everything except: "medium and low range subjects which are to be reproduced, via negatives, on to black and white paper prints or transparencies (lantern slides)".

To me that statement seems to define the special circumstance, rather than the norm, given that he goes on to say: "It has been found by experience, however, that while the shadow detail method is theoretically best for the particular type of work just mentioned, this is by no means the case for practically all other types of work."

I do agree that he is talking about a long scale subject specifically and I heartily agree with the thought that trying to straight print too long a scene scale results in dull prints.

Stephen Benskin said:

This left a couple of options to control the higher negative density range printing when printing on a normal grade of paper. One was to use printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and masking. The other was to print for the highlights and midtones at the expense of the shadows. “…it is in such cases almost invariably at the expense of the shadows, especially when the latter are small.”

Click to expand...

I apologize for focusing on the concept of letting the shadows go earlier in the thread, as I said I'm still trying to really wrap my head around this. I was describing the result rather than the reason.

Actually his statement "or (b), if - as is usually the case- the main interest is only at one end of the scale, to print for that end only and ignore the other end entirely." is the statement that most interests me. This idea can be applied regardless of where the interest may be on the exposure scale.

Placement of my main subject has always been my intuitive priority. In general though metering methods are not taught from that perspective.

For example with incident metering we are first taught to use the reading displayed, this is a dumbed down technical version of Dunn & Wakefield's concept, it works well for many, but it lacks the real thought that Dunn & Wakefield imply regarding the relative importance of different parts of the scene.

Stephen Benskin said:

Personally, I use all three methods. While I agree that smaller areas can be printed without concern for detail, the question is always how small? It all depends on the intent of the photograph. Documentary and photojournalism are more concerned about the moment than detail in the shadows. With large format landscape photography, tone reproduction plays a greater role.

Click to expand...

I agree completely and see no conflict with the book there.

Stephen Benskin said:

Then there is the creative intent. The parameters in the psychophysical judging that lead to the definition of an excellent print for tone reproduction theory was for the image to produce in the viewers mind the impression of how closely it portrays the original scene. This means that print quality is based on the literal impression of a scene. If a photographer decides to deviate for creative reasons from this, it is no longer applicable to apply those concepts in judging the quality of the print. As the psychophysical determination of print quality is the basis for film speed, this also applies to the concept of “correct” or appropriate film speed and exposure.

Click to expand...

One of the points made by Dunn & Wakefield really leapt out for me. It is about the time the viewer has to consider a given frame.

"But in viewing motion pictures the upper and middle tone areas - and particularly the human face - claim so much attention by virtue of motion (and sound where applicable) that the scene has normally changed before there is time for the shadows to be critically examined at all." page 33

If that "motion" doesn't describe the world we live in and the way photos are viewed today, I don't know what does.

Dunn & Wakefield seem here simply to concede to the norm of what people expect first.

My thought here actually falls at least partly outside the exposure question, in composition. If I catch the eye with the brightest spots where do I take them from there. Could be to smaller details rather than darker shadows.

In any case the shadows seem generally to hold only a supporting role

Stephen Benskin said:

There is also the complex concept of the two aspects of tone reproduction: objective and subjective tone reproduction.

Click to expand...

I do think that is part of what I'm trying to grapple with.

Stephen Benskin said:

But where Dunn and I disagree is that I want the shadow detail on the negative to give me a choice to use it or not, where as Dunn feels that if it isn’t going to be used, “there is no point at all in exposing the negative for the shadows and thus forcing the required highlights far up into the very dense part of the negative characteristic.”

Click to expand...

I see this as an artistic/technical style choice. Do I want to do that work with the camera or the enlarger?

Personally I'm with Dunn on this.

For me, I prefer making those decisions at the camera and I can't remember a single shot where I got the main interest right and said to myself, "darn it I wish there was more shadow detail."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to using the latitude of a film to get a shot, or to make shooting easier/faster, or to avoid underexposure where there is something in the shadows I want but I'm not fishing for more ways to interpret a scene in the darkroom.

Stephen Benskin said:

I’m not sure why the reference to page 10 as it is just an explanation of the basic concepts of exposure theory. You should check out Appendix B for a more detail explanation.

Click to expand...

Page 15 actually, and I'm working through the appendix.

I have made an observation about myself with regard to calibration of late.

As I gain experience and my darkroom skills grow the people at Ilford and Kodak and Fuji and Sekonic all look smarter and smarter.

Stephen Benskin said:

Don't let the examples of the affects of flare on the film curve fool you. Combining the film curve and the affects of flare on the same curve is more for convenience and can be conceptually misleading as to how flare works. Flare doesn't change the shape of the film curve. It just changes where the exposure will fall on the curve.

Click to expand...

The point I remember Dunn & Wakefield making was essentially that flare has the effect of extending the toe making it tough to run away from.

The windmill diagrams you provided earlier seem to bear this out too. The +1 diagram shows a more pronounced/longer curve toe in the reproduction quadrant.

markbarendt said:

The point I remember Dunn & Wakefield making was essentially that flare has the effect of extending the toe making it tough to run away from.

The windmill diagrams you provided earlier seem to bear this out too. The +1 diagram shows a more pronounced/longer curve toe in the reproduction quadrant.

Click to expand...

This might sound like nitpicking but I believe it presents an important conceptual distinction. Flare doesn't change the film curve. How can it? The illuminance range from the subject striking the film has the lower tones compressed by flare producing the equivalent effect of extending the toe. You can see how that works in Quadrant I, Camera Image / Flare Curve in the examples I attached (which are from a program I wrote).

That is a fair distinction.

So what have I learned so far.

Still muddling through Dunn & Wakefield's Exposure Manual.

The following are my impressions and extrapolations. It appears to me that there are three basic ways to peg an exposure to a film curve and by extension to a print; shadow point, main light key tone (highlight), and middle tone pegging.

-------

The shadow point method (normally measured via spot metering) appears to be a pure attempt to maximize the quality of the print by using a minimum but safe amount of exposure on film and quite regularly zone system ideas.

There is debate on how much buffer is important here to maintain a safe/workable exposure. This seems to me mostly a personal EI decision, a matter of calibrating the system to fit our own needs. This may be one reason we get such widely varying views on what EI is best for any given film.

This method in general protects shadow detail nicely, minimizes grain, keeps shutter speed faster, ..., and when combined with a contrast adjustment to film development or paper grade also protects highlight detail and with experience makes for easy printing.

On the downside, mid-tones though will typically "fall where they may" because both ends of the scale that surround them are fixed in separate decisions. Unless burning and dodging are also employed, the brightness of faces for example, may vary considerably from what we might prefer.

For landscape shots this method makes great sense, for portraits and other subjects, not so much, at least for me.

------------

The highlight key tone method picks the main light as the basis for exposure; typically a white card, a gray card, a piece of paper, the palm of a hand, anything that has a known off-set from white is measured in full frontal light. Flat face incident meter readings taken when pointed at the main source light provide essentially the same setting for the camera.

This is a measurement of incident light without regard to the camera's point of view.

This method has the advantages of placing subjects very specifically on the curve and of protecting highlight detail for the final print.

What struck me in Dunn & Wakefield was where this highlight pegging was important, color and movie work.

And why, because the highlights are what catches our attention first and because of the importance of the human face and with movies the speed at which each frame is viewed, there is simply not enough time to explore the shadows and faces constantly changing brightness is disconcerting.

I personally made a leap of logic here in relation to a series or tryptic that is meant to be hung/seen together. Continuity becomes quite important.

Shadow point exposure settings will render faces/scenes at very different brightness levels from frame to frame as the camera moves from full front lighting through random points in the gamut of possibilities to full back lighting. These images may stand very nicely alone but may clash when hung together.

For this key tone/main light method Dunn & Wakefield essentially postulate that the typical center of interest normally resides at the higher end of the scale so when a key tone is fixed from frame to frame it is typically only the expendable (my word) shadow detail that is lost.

Since my favorite subjects are people, this method struck a cord as I was reading.

This key tone method also, for me, has the huge advantage of "set it and forget it" for a given situation. Subjects simply fall normally in relation to the main light, whatever that may be. Those in full sun look like they are in full sun, those in open shade look like they are in open shade, etcetera...

The very real risk with this method is in the underexposure of something important.

This underexposure risk is another driver that I can see for people making personal EI choices especially with high latitude negative films for shooting at 1/2 box speed.

This is also very much the situation toy & disposable camera shooters find themselves in. Essentially toy camera shooters choose the film/camera/process based on the main light we expect and we let everything else just fall where it may.

This method is easy for camera work but may require some extra effort at the enlarger.

---------

The third method is based on mid-tone pegging. The middle way as Dunn & Wakefield call it.

It is a compensated key tone method that adds consideration for the view the camera has.

Readings for this method are normally made; using a flat face incident meter by duplexing, measuring pointed directly at the main source and measuring pointing toward the camera then finding the logarithmic average, or by using a single hemispherical incident meter reading.

This method gives precedence to the middle tones, "excess" low and high tones are simply left to fall where they may, even if that means they are lost.

This method of metering caught my attention because a) most of my important subjects are in the middle, and b) the decisions about where I want to place my main subject (compensation) are easy (normal, light, or dark), c) it is how I learned incident metering. I didn't really understand the difference between main light pegging/incident metering and compensated incident metering until studying this book.

This compensated method has the advantage of placing the main (key tone) subject very specifically and little risk of underexposure.

It also has, the very minor in my mind, disadvantage/necessity of having to set exposure for every shot and the slight risk of losing detail at both ends in a high contrast situation.

The extra effort at the camera is generally rewarded at the enlarger, prints from this compensated method should, if we use the technique consistently, require very little adjustment from the "normal" settings we might use. Theoretically we should be able to use standardized enlarger settings and get very predictable results.

"Readings for this method are normally made; using a flat face incident meter by duplexing, measuring pointed directly at the main source and measuring pointing toward the subject then finding the logarithmic average, or by using a single hemispherical incident meter reading."

Mark, could you expand on the technique? I think you are saying a flat face measurement of the source illumination is logarithmically averaged with a flat face measurement with the flat face pointed at the subject,
or,
a single hemispherical domed measurement with the dome pointed at the subject (opposite of the typical incident measurement with the dome pointed back at the camera). Do I understand you correctly?

Fred Aspen said:

"Readings for this method are normally made; using a flat face incident meter by duplexing, measuring pointed directly at the main source and measuring pointing toward the subject then finding the logarithmic average, or by using a single hemispherical incident meter reading."

Click to expand...

Mark, could you expand on the technique? I think you are saying a flat face measurement of the source illumination is logarithmically averaged with a flat face measurement with the flat face pointed at the subject,
or,
a single hemispherical domed measurement with the dome pointed at the subject (opposite of the typical incident measurement with the dome pointed back at the camera). Do I understand you correctly?

Click to expand...

Nope.

Oops, fixed.

Thanks for the proof read!

One reading pointed directly to the source light, one directly toward the camera, then logarithmic average.

markbarendt said:

The highlight key tone method picks the main light as the basis for exposure;
[...]
Flat face incident meter readings taken when pointed at the main source light provide essentially the same setting for the camera.

This is a measurement of incident light without regard to the camera's point of view.

[...]

This key tone method also, for me, has the huge advantage of "set it and forget it" for a given situation. Subjects simply fall normally in relation to the main light, whatever that may be. Those in full sun look like they are in full sun, those in open shade look like they are in open shade, etcetera...

Click to expand...

(my underlining)

Mark, I don't understand you here (I think I follow you in all the rest of your well-thought post).

If we are in a situation where we use incident light metering, and place the meter on the important high light, let's say the face, the exposure will be different when the subject is in full sun and in open shade, and the placement in the characteristic curve will be the same.

This "same" placement is also what we expect as viewers, IMO.

In Rio Bravo we expect the face of John Wayne in full sun to be placed on the same point where the face of Dean Martin is placed when he sings My Rifle, My Pony, and Me in candlelight. That's because in real life our eyes adapt to different lighting levels and "place" a face on the same "characteristic curve" of our mind so to speak. We don't get the idea that Dean Martin is in candlelight by a different placement on the curve, but by a different general quality of lighting, as in real life.

What am I missing?

Diapositivo said:

(my underlining)

Mark, I don't understand you here (I think I follow you in all the rest of your well-thought post).

If we are in a situation where we use incident light metering, and place the meter on the important high light, let's say the face, the exposure will be different when the subject is in full sun and in open shade, and the placement in the characteristic curve will be the same.

This "same" placement is also what we expect as viewers, IMO.

In Rio Bravo we expect the face of John Wayne in full sun to be placed on the same point where the face of Dean Martin is placed when he sings My Rifle, My Pony, and Me in candlelight. That's because in real life our eyes adapt to different lighting levels and "place" a face on the same "characteristic curve" of our mind so to speak. We don't get the idea that Dean Martin is in candlelight by a different placement on the curve, but by a different general quality of lighting, as in real life.

What am I missing?

Click to expand...

I don't think you are missing anything.

This is a tough idea to express well.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to express, not my shot but the idea is right.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20446524@N00/3759235528

The face falls at a point where it looks perfectly normal given the context.

If we were to simply add camera exposure to place the face in zone vi the rest of the scene would look wacked out.

In this particular example we might be able to add a touch of artificial light to get better detail on the face but the basic exposure placement is good, IMO.

Diapositivo said:

In Rio Bravo we expect the face of John Wayne in full sun to be placed on the same point where the face of Dean Martin is placed when he sings My Rifle, My Pony, and Me in candlelight. That's because in real life our eyes adapt to different lighting levels and "place" a face on the same "characteristic curve" of our mind so to speak. We don't get the idea that Dean Martin is in candlelight by a different placement on the curve, but by a different general quality of lighting, as in real life.

What am I missing?

Click to expand...

I do agree with you also that the placement of the faces should normally land very similarly on the curve.

For simplicity's sake, assuming no artificial light, the main light key tone measurements from the two scenes you describe would be many stops different.

A fresh key tone measurement is needed anytime the main light source changes or if we make a fresh decision about what's most important with regard to exposure.

Just for clarity, I know that Dean Martin was not really in "candlelight". The way I worded my text might have been read as if he actually was in candlelight. My point was that the "candlelight" idea was suggested through light quality not face placement and that face placement tends to be always the same.

The flickr images posted is I think one of those example where one has two choices (we exclude bracketing as we are discussing exposure and placement not exposure sweeping ):

-) Calm and careful metering: Spot measurement on the highlights. Spot measurement on the face. Figuring the final effect. Deciding whether to take the shot. This is my typical scenario with nocturne pictures of lit monuments, actually the light gap is normally much greater. Shot is nice IMO certainly a fill light might have made it more "normal" in any case.

-) Fast measuring: Incident light meter pointed the dome toward the light source (discussed ad nauseam in another thread). This gives certainty the highlight on the hat and bright beard is not burned and should fall "just right" on the upper part of the characteristic curve. The shadow is supposed to fall those possibly four EVs below highlight and should be in the acceptable range, although not where one would normally place the main point of interest of an image. This is my typical scenario in walk-around pictures with slides during central hours of the day. Marble buildings with the sun on their face, and plenty of seceded shadows in windows, porchs, etc. where one would hope to avoid blocking.

I have no idea what the above mentioned authors would do in this case as the three methods outlined would not seem indicated for such a situation (bracketing aside) IMO.

Diapositivo said:

Just for clarity, I know that Dean Martin was not really in "candlelight". My point was that the "candlelight" idea was suggested through light quality not face placement.

Click to expand...

I do fully understand that the scene was well and artificially lit.

In still photography though I can see using the main light key tone method regularly now for night shooting. For example in campfire scenes, streetlight scenes, and the like.