One of our readers asked how I metered "Hollywood Lighting - and the Oscar Goes To...". In the "Old Days - read film days - I always used an incident light meter and measured at the subject's position just how much light was falling on the subject. I always read the highlight side of the face. That way I knew I could add light to the shadow side to get my desired "contrast lighting ratio" - the ratio of the highlights to the shadows. Those days are gone - now I just use the LCD screen to look for the "blinkies" on diffuse whites, like the bridal gown. I adjust the exposure till I just see the "blinkies", then back it off till the "blinkies" go away - presto, no blown out highlights and a perfect exposure for the diffuse whites in the image. And, remember - I'm a JPEG shooter too. It just "ain't" rocket science if you think it through. I'll cover exposure more in future posts - questions like... "What happens if you have no diffuse highlights in the image? Check back for that one.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
One of our readers asked how I metered "Hollywood Lighting - and the Oscar Goes To...". In the "Old Days - read film days - I always used an incident light meter and measured at the subject's position just how much light was falling on the subject. I always read the highlight side of the face. That way I knew I could add light to the shadow side to get my desired "contrast lighting ratio" - the ratio of the highlights to the shadows. Those days are gone - now I just use the LCD screen to look for the "blinkies" on diffuse whites, like the bridal gown. I adjust the exposure till I just see the "blinkies", then back it off till the "blinkies" go away - presto, no blown out highlights and a perfect exposure for the diffuse whites in the image. And, remember - I'm a JPEG shooter too. It just "ain't" rocket science if you think it through. I'll cover exposure more in future posts - questions like... "What happens if you have no diffuse highlights in the image? Check back for that one.
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