Question about exposing for the shadows pls..

[markbarendt]

I meter in .... the shadow of my body, and open up one stop.

OMU provides a perfect example of exposing for the shadows.

I do this too with my FM2 by crouching down or bending over so that the camera/meter only sees my shadow. From that exposure setting I generally open the camera up two stops.

For me that gets the detail I want in the shadows (like around someones eyes) and places the mid-tones nicely and typically retains nice details at the high end.

But, and that is an important experience to me, before I found my own E.I, my negatives was often too thin. So, to establish one’s own E.I. is important. (Sorry for my English)

OMU is right here too. You need to figure out what works for your shooting/developing style.

 

[DJGainer]

It's about realizing that the lower values (shadows and blacks) are more affected by exposure; the higher values (highlights and whites) are more affected by development.

 

[naeroscatu]

I think there are few distinctions to be made:
- What kind of pictures you usually take; using M6 I assume mostly street photography and environmental portraits. For that it is helpful to understand the zone system but almost impossible to use it by the book. Metering the back of your hand and opening up a stop it actually puts your shadows on Zone VI (caucasian skin) so your faces will be OK which covers your area of interest. Even if some highlights will be blown out by normal development, that will not be a big problem.
- If you shoot landscapes (I doubt you will use M6 for that) then I suggest you follow the advice given by 2F/2F or buy the books suggested above and try to understand and apply ZS because in landscapes and even architecture shadows and highlights are important and must be kept under control through correct exposure (personal EI) and customized development.

 

[markbarendt]

Metering the back of your hand and opening up a stop it actually puts your shadows on Zone VI (caucasian skin) so your faces will be OK which covers your area of interest.

Did you mean "skin in zone VI" instead of "shadows on zone VI"?

 

[naeroscatu]

Did you mean "skin in zone VI" instead of "shadows on zone VI"?

Yes, sorry for the typo.

 

[markbarendt]

Okay I'll bite but just because it can show the advantages of exposing for the shadows.

35mm is the best choice for fast shooting - many frames in short time intervals - that's how you get more keepers.

The scientific name for this type of shooting is "spray and pray" which is in the same illness family as "digital diarrhea". It is actually an illness where you helplessly watch time, money, film, and the like all "go down the toilet" in a huge vortex and sooner or later it just makes you want to puke because they all look the same.

The cure is typically good prep, good planning, and good composition combined with watching one of your buddies shoot 72 frames of Velvia one weekend where you shot 483 of whatever and he got just as many keepers.

Concerning yourself with exact exposure technique defeats the purpose of using that format. By the time you decide on the correct exposure the best shots are sometimes missed. It's better to fire of a few frames while bracketing the exposure, in 3 or 4 seconds, instead of fiddling while the shot is missed.

The first thing I do when I walk into any situation is manually set the exposure and look for the backgrounds that are workable.

Since I'm shooting negatives and generally exposing for the shadows there is little if any reason for me to change my settings or bracket. As far as exposure goes I'm ready for every shot and all the negatives will be very printable.

When I see a good composition I just point, focus, and shoot once. If I shoot again quickly it's because I want a diptych or triptych.

When I move to the next lighting situation I set my camera as I walk in and I'm ready again.

 

[2F/2F]

Thank you to each of you but could someone please walk me thru an example of doing this? It's becoming a bit confusing. Here's what I've got thus far, if indeed I'm correct....

The meter in my Leica M6 is designed for zone V, so if that is in fact a netural gray, why would I not meter off of a Med. gray and then recompose and shoot. This is my disconnect but if you can just walk me thru an example it would help a great deal. Thank you so much again.
Tom

Hi,

First off, a minor terminology nit: "Neutral" is generally used to refer to hue in photography, not tone. A grey card is both "middle grey" and "neutral grey", but for black and white, only the "middle grey" part of it is important.

As for your question, taking a reflected reading off of a grey card is, IMO, perhaps the best way to meter a scene with an in-camera meter, short of moving in close and using your center patch as a "spot" meter (more like "blot" meter, but if you get close enough, it works perfectly fine).

Reading a grey card is effectively the same thing as taking a reading with an incident light meter; just slightly less convenient in practice, IMO. Exposing to make middle grey appear as middle grey makes everything else fall into place roughly where it "should" be for "normal" tonal relationships.

Of course, you must learn to tweak the reading if the luminance range of the scene does not match the desired tonal range of the print, OR if you want something other than "normal" tonal relationships that are where they "should" be.

For instance, in a contrasty situation that you know has a wider luminance range than you can squeeze onto your prints, you would overexpose the grey card reading, and underdevelop (unless you *want* to lose the edges of the grey scale on the print). In a flat situation that you know has a more narrow luminance range than you can print on your paper, you would underexpose the grey card, and overdevelop (unless you *want* that flat look on the print).

Even when I use the zone system, I always take incident readings as well. It helps me learn to judge the luminance range of various situations, both as a double check, and as a curiosity and learning tool; so I get practice learning how to tweak incident meter readings for future occasions in which the incident meter is all I am using. Surprisingly enough, it is pretty obvious what you need to do after using a spot meter combined with an incident meter for a while, and I find myself using the incident meter combined with educated judgment of luminance range more and more. It is fast easy, and usually close enough to get the print how I want it. Most of all, it is very fast.