Exposure Help...how about we learn this way?

wildviper

Hello All,

Like a lot of people, I am having a difficulty in getting exposures correct. While I understand the Zone system, in practice, I am being thrown off. My pictures almost always come out underexposed by a stop or stop and a half. In fact, it has become routine for me to process my Raw files by increasing the exposure first.

My problem is this...I do not know where to meter from many of the times. Take the picture attached as an example. I didn't want the whites to blow out but I also didn't want it to under-expose the people's faces too much. At the same time I wanted the sky to not blow out either.

Add to that the fast pace moving.

So, to fix my(and I am sure many many other people's) problems, can the experts tell me where they would have metered from in this picture? Use the Letters/Numbers to reference the areas.

On a side note, if you think this is a good way to learn, I can share the template of the lines/letters/numbers. We can discuss the different areas and then learn from it!

So...what do you all think? Reply via poll or here.

Art Scott

I do not see anything worth while looking at in the white tent roofs.....I would be metering for the faces of the people....but then I carry an incident exposure meter for these situations also..........either meter with an incident meter or BRACKET quite a few shots and study them to se which is the best for you.........

ziggy53

In the digital context, the "Zone System" needs to be adjusted somewhat for the dynamic range (DR) of the imager in use. That means you need to know the DR of your camera(s).

Looking at a scene in an uncontrolled environment you would need to determine what needs to remain within that dynamic range and what may be allowed to be clipped whites or squelched/plugged blacks.

Looking at your example image, if you assume that everything in the scene needs to be captured with detail and color, you need to adjust the tonalities to fit within the DR of your camera. Besides shooting in RAW you would do this by:

1) "Tenting" the entire scene to reduce the hard lighting from bright sunlight.
2) Using fill reflectors and/or fill flash to bring up the shadows.
3) Taking multiple exposures (if possible) and using HDR techniques to compress the expanded tonalities into the desired DR. Might not be possible in this scene unless you can stop the people from moving.
4) Enable any DR expansion available in the camera.
5) Choose a different imager and camera capable of capturing a wider DR.

You might need to do any and all of these things to achieve the goal of capturing every component of the given scene.

You also need to process the scene for the intended display or print or presentation method. This might include reducing contrast and adjusting curves to keep all tones within a particular system DR and gamut.

pathfinder

Shooting folks faces with their back to the sun is always challenging whether shooting digital or with film. Do you expose for faces and blow out the sky and the tent, or expose for the sky and under-expose for the faces?

The best way to solve this problem is as Ziggy says, add fill flash with an EOS system flash, shoot in ETTL and Av mode, and the camera will expose for the background, and the flash will expose your subjects faces properly. It works quite well. There are several links on fill flash here - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=70330

It is a good practice to have a pretty good idea what the exposure out of doors in sunlight or shade should be from the sunny 16 rule. In 1944, most folks did not have lightmeters - they were very expensive, and the best were not very good at all - not even close to the meter on a 20D these days. And slide film was very demanding for exposure, even more demanding than digital sensors. Folks use the sunny 16 rule which was printed inside every box of film you bought. It still works pretty good, and if your meter suggest different expsoures than the sunny 16, you need to look at it carefully, because your meter is probably leading you astray.

I would probably meter with Evaluative for the overall scene, and add at least one or two stop for the backlit faces. Depends on what is most important in the scene for you.

You can meter off your hand and add one stop and get pretty close. Or you could meter off an 18% grey card - but remember, the grey card will be sunlit on the side facing away from the camera. In the shade, you need about three stops more light than in the sunlit side.

momwac

My approach
Unless you're shooting evidence or products, I'm not sure it often matters what the "true" exposure of the scene is. Meter what's important to you in the scene, and decide what tone you want it to be.

In this case, although you mentioned the tents and the sky, I would assume the people's faces are most important to you. So you could spot-meter their faces, which would make the faces middle-toned. That's a bit dark for skin, so then you'd add a stop or so +EC.

That's how I'd approach it from a Zone-system perspective anyway... but in your example, I'd probably just look at the whole scene and say, yeah that looks about middle, so I'd set evaluative metering and fire away. Or dial in some EC if my subject looked significantly darker (or brighter) than the overall scene.