Understanding Exposure

[Jason Hermann]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

This is wayyyy more complicated than I ever imagined. It shouldn't be that difficult to get a decent picture.

No gray cards, GMB color charts, or handheld meters were harmed making the following pictures:


I generally use partial metering and use the thumbnail and histogram to verify my interpretation of the camera metering.

Thanks for chiming in!! Thats exactly how I meter as well

I did have the perfect natural light though, so it was pretty easy. The bright Sun is what seems to make it so tuff. Also this is a totally polished photo I'm sharing.


Jay

[heartseye]

OK........12 pages already!! It's not that complicated!!!!

Here's my neighbour's cat:

** Point and Shoot Sony P200
** Full Auto Everything setting
** Point At Cat... Push Button!!!!!

OK?

[expensive_hobby]

Well do you know what book I happened to stumble across today in lovely, ill-fated collection of "Sure, I guess I'll read it"? Photography, Fifth Edition by Barbara Langdon/London/something or other and John Upton. (I'm feeling lazy; otherwise I'd go look.)

And guess what was in there!?!? A nice chapter on exposure, including the zone system. I made it to a chapter before sometime ago, never finishing the book.

And guess what I've done today? Yep, I played around with my camera all afternoon. I think I'm starting to get it.

There is a wealth of info here, and tons.. okay maybe everyone... talking over my head. I must be a visual learner. Once I clearly saw diagrams, labels, graphs, various images with only different exposures, etc. all pieced together, placed neatly infront of me it started clicking. Ha! And I think I'm getting.

Not totally yet though... I need to do more trialing and testing, but I really think I'm getting it. And I also really think Canon's 350D sensor is worthless, but I also haven't been doing any "average" scenes (and really how often is a scene *average*?). Only once today has the settings it said been pretty accurate.

[cyclohexane]

OK........12 pages already!! It's not that complicated!!!!

Here's my neighbour's cat:

** Point and Shoot Sony P200
** Full Auto Everything setting
** Point At Cat... Push Button!!!!!

Heheheheheh. Well said. =)

I was looking through some very old work of mine, mostly done exactly as you described (full auto everything, with subjects other than cats), and most of it looked just fine.

[Brooks]

EH,

That Zone System stuff is pretty cool, don't you think? Sometimes when you're taking photos a shot just comes out really well. The shadows look rich with detail and the highlights just happen to sparkle and the whole thing looks better than it did when you were taking the shot. Every once and a while that would happen to me. It wasn't all the time but just occasionally.

Then I learned the Zone System and applied it to my BW photography and I found that I could increase the number of times that my exposure and development were just right. Then, with some practice at seeing and recognizing tones, I found out I could control those things pretty much all the time, even depart from reality to emphasize or minimize certain areas of the scene. It was an epiphany for me.

Here's a Large Format BW shot done a couple of years ago using the Zone System. The premise of the Zone System in BW (as you are reading) is that you exposue for the shadows, N-2 or Zone III and then develop the textured highlights up or down to N+2 or Zone VII. N or Zone V being the mid-tone. You create a negative to fit the scene luminances to the BW paper.

Anyway this was shot at an abandoned movie set called Contrabando Canyon, along the River Road within sight of the Rio Grande River, in West Texas. The colors of the building stucco ranged from light tan to pink and the wood was a dark brown. I was surprised when I read the dark shadow wood area and the bright tan highlight areas and they were exactly a five stop range. Turns out the film crew painted the tones in these building to be a precise 5 stop range from shadow to highlight. They also scaled the sizes of the buildings to make the town look larger by making the building farther from the center of town just a bit smaller than normal. BTW, the rocks on the bottom left were fiberglass.

Clever movie people !

Here's the shot.......

[Brooks]

On the other hand, here's a snapshot from an Olympus 5mp point and shoot, auto everything and it looks OK.

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by Brooks

EH,

That Zone System stuff is pretty cool, don't you think? Sometimes when you're taking photos a shot just comes out really well. The shadows look rich with detail and the highlights just happen to sparkle and the whole thing looks better than it did when you were taking the shot. Every once and a while that would happen to me. It wasn't all the time but just occasionally.

Then I learned the Zone System and applied it to my BW photography and I found that I could increase the number of times that my exposure and development were just right. Then, with some practice at seeing and recognizing tones, I found out I could control those things pretty much all the time, even depart from reality to emphasize or minimize certain areas of the scene. It was an epiphany for me.

Here's a Large Format BW shot done a couple of years ago using the Zone System. The premise of the Zone System in BW (as you are reading) is that you exposue for the shadows, N-2 or Zone III and then develop the textured highlights up or down to N+2 or Zone VII. N or Zone V being the mid-tone. You create a negative to fit the scene luminances to the BW paper.

Anyway this was shot at an abandoned movie set called Contrabando Canyon, along the River Road within sight of the Rio Grande River, in West Texas. The colors of the building stucco ranged from light tan to pink and the wood was a dark brown. I was surprised when I read the dark shadow wood area and the bright tan highlight areas and they turned out to be exactly a five stop range. Turns out the film crew painted the tones in these building to be a precise 5 stop range from shadow to highlight. They also scaled the sizes of the buildings to make the town look larger by making the building farther from the center of town just a bit smaller than normal.

Clever movie people !

Here's the shot.......

It actually is very cool! I just can't believe how well pieces started fitting together when I had visuals on top of what I had already been reading here. The nice part was it included a section for those like myself, who do not have a meter, on how to adapt it to your camera's meter.

Those movie people are very crafty! I must say I'm rather impressed! Great shot too!

[Wes]

[quote=KellyL;221030]This is the same target used by Dean Johnson he references in his article. Any suggestion on the size needed? I am considering either the 14" or the 24".
I like the 14".

[KellyL]

Oh my word I haven't been here for so long because I have been working on a wedding album, I have to get some engagement pictures processed and posted, and I have to get a photo montage DVD completed.

I think what frustrates me the most, is that exposure isn't that complicated...and yet...my photos don't come out the way JFracho, or Bob, or Jay, or..or..or.. has posted. So I began to explore...what am I doing wrong? Twelve pages later and a lot of advice from a lot of different angles has given me a lot to think about.

Thanks for posting everybody.

[kgphoto]

Heartseye,

That picture is kind of a cheat!

Soft open sky illumination evenly hitting all points including the back ground foliage? Heck, that is the definition of an average scene with all points in the dynamic range.

Shoot some band camps in bright sun on auto and have them come out perfect. Then, we would be impressed.

[KellyL]

My mistake. Shouldn't let my emotions control me.

[Jason Hermann]

Yeah, I think the last few examples were in pretty easy to control light conditions. Thats why a put the disclaimer in with my image. If that was blinding sun my peoples heads would be totally blown out. To compensate for that I would have to underexpose the skin to maintain the highlight detail, then fix in post. Thats what I would do to solve the problem Knowing what I know if I could not control the conditions otherwise.

I think Kelly was looking for the more advanced beyond AUTO settings for the other so-called 10% where the camera seems to struggle.

Kelly, Sorry if my example came across like a slap in the face that It's easy or something. That was not my intention at all. I'm in total agreement with you on how complicated this can be!!! I guess I just got excited when Jfrancho said he uses the same tactic I seem to use

Best,
Jay

[KellyL]

Jay, the picture you posted has an exposure that is visually stunning, to me. I just get frustrated because it seems I can't get that. Did I mention frustrating?

[brice]

Originally Posted by KellyL

Here we go. Camera on auto, point and shoot. No problem.

Kelly,

I only comment because it may help find the solution. The EXIF data I see tells me your camera is on manual, not auto. Manual isn't necessarily the wrong choice here, but if you do that you need to know more than if you just put it on full Auto and fire away.

My suggestion is have a mental check list before you start. Check camera mode (Auto, Manual, Tv priority) Check ISO. Check card installed and formatted. Battery. Flash setting. So you know what you are getting into before you start. Seems like you could be doing what I sometimes fall victim to and that's not checking your settings before you start.

Can someone else double check the EXIF data to make sure I'm not wrong about this?

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ADMINI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG]

[kgphoto]

Originally Posted by KellyL

Here we go. Camera on auto, point and shoot. No problem.

Kelly,

I am guessing you're being tongue in cheek with the above comment about your image? This is a prime example when the exposures fall out of the range of ability to capture. I would normally shoot this at f: 8 1/500 of second on ASA 100 FILM, with a Norman 200 B set to 200 Watt Seconds, then print down as I made the print. I would be standing 15 feet away as I took the shot.

In digital, I would do mostly the same except shoot at f:16 @ 1/250 which should take care of the ratio the flash syn limitation with these cameras. I would have to meter that to be sure and may need to adjust the flash down 1/2 stop.

[JohnC]

Yes, those photos are kind of a "cheat." But yet they aren't. Part of the craft is sometimes knowing when to photograph and when not to. Or maybe which direction to photograph in at different parts of the day if you have to photograph then. Or knowing when to add a pop of fill flash or some other kind of fill.

[Max@Home]

Originally Posted by brice

Can someone else double check the EXIF data to make sure I'm not wrong about this?

sure!

File: IMG_0023 camel.jpg
File size: 116KB
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Camera serial number: 1520905026
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Owner: unknown
Date/Time: 2007:07:07 16:24:13
Shutter speed: 1/40 sec
Aperture: 9
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Partial
ISO: 100
Focal length: 47mm
Image size: 800 x 545
Rotation: none
Color space: sRGB
Color profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1

...Manual and Partial: not your everyday AUTO setting ...

...and this is an owned-by-no-one camera...??

KellyL, please do take the 2 seconds to hook up your camera to your computer and fill in the owner's field, from that moment it will also be in the EXIF of all your images, instant © 'copyright'

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

[expensive_hobby]

Originally Posted by Max@Home

KellyL, please do take the 2 seconds to hook up your camera to your computer and fill in the owner's field, from that moment it will also be in the EXIF of all your images, instant © 'copyright'

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

Thanks for that Max! I've been wanting to do that, but wasn't totally sure how to go about it.

[KellyL]

Sorry ladies and gents. I could have sworn I had that photo in auto, because I knew I shouldn't be shooting in those conditions, but it was a request. I switched to auto for some shots away from the limo.

Max...I'll have to figure that out.

[expensive_hobby]

Okay ladies and gentlemen... here's my summed up version of exposure. Please feel free to jump in to correct anything I've gone astray on keeping in mind there's sooooo much I've gained in these past few days, I'm trying to keep this short. But I wouldn't doubt if I've mixed a few things up.

Exposure-- Hobby's Quick Summary
Exposure is definitely a multi-facted aspect of photography. It seems to be THE MOST multi-facted thing by far. (If not, just shoot me now!) Exposure is derived from a combination of the following: light, film speed, shutter speed and aperture. All of these will control the brightness of an image.

Film:

• Film records different densities depending on the lightness and darkness of the subject or scene. This is tonal separation?
• If the image is underexposed details are quite sketchy and only the light/bright areas of the image are clearly seen.
• If the image is overexposed only the dark/shadowed areas are detailed.
• The higher the film speed/iso the less light is needed for correct exposure, but the more grainy the image will be.

Aperture:

• Similar to the iris of the eye, the aperture allows in light. Think of it like this: the more light, the smaller the opening needs to be (more light= higher f/stops) and the less light, the larger the f/stop (no light= small f/stops).

Shutter Speed:

• These figures will determine how much light continues to enter while the image is being recorded.

Meters:

• Most hand-held and camera meters read "reflected" light, typically at a 30-50 degree angle of the view.
• Spot meters decrease the angle greatly narrowing down the amount of the area to be read giving greater accuracy (only if used precisely).
• Incident meters will read the light "falling" onto the subject; therefore, they should be pointed from the subject to the camera. They read an area ~180 degrees.
• Built-in camera meters read "reflected" light; most are aquired from an average or center-weighted reading; some cameras allow spot readings.

Metering for correct exposure:

• A reading from the lightest and darkest areas of the scene is needed.
• Note the f/stops and shutter speed for each reading.
• Most in-camera meters will take the scene and average it out to make it a "middle gray". Therefore if there is obvious contrast between light and dark, changes will have to be made in order to gain the best exposure. For example: snow or a bright sky will underexpose because the camera is trying to render it a middle gray; whereas something dark will overexpose trying to lighten it up.
• Count the f/stops/shutter speed between each and adjust your settings accordingly.*

*Each f/stop or shutter speed count as "one".