Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Martin V. Howard wrote: > > Joseph Codispoti wrote: > > > > Incident meters are not panacea for all types of photos. In portraiture > > one has to consider that adjustments must be made for skin lighter or > > darker than 18% gray if the face is predominant in the photo. > > At the risk of starting a heated debate on the subject, isn't the statement > above a bit of a nonsense statement? > SNIP. > > It makes sense to expose according to the amount of light falling upon a > subject/scene, rather than the reflective properties of the subject/scene. > That way, dark subjects are reproduced as such, and light subjects are > reproduced as such. Provided that the film can hold the tonal range in > the scene, from shadow details to highlights, the exposure will be correct. In this case, no, at least in my experience. When I do group portrait with strobes I try to put the darker skinned personal closer and the lighter skinned farther away from the main light. It partly has to do with the latitude of the film. If I do as mentioned, the final image looks "normal.:" Of course this isn't possible with natural light. It is really a problem for the sports shooters using chrome and doing dark skinned football players (the American kind) in shadow-producing helmets and white uniforms. donal - -- Donal Philby San Diego http://www.donalphilby.com