Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dear Kevin, An approach that I have found helpful is such situations is to take an incident light reading, and then bracket around that. Many scenes have contrast ranges that are well beyond what the film can record. If you bracket you will be likely to a shot with good shadow rendering, and at the other end, one with good highlight rendering. And of course, the shot with the average reading. Take your pick. To me, this is one of the reasons that I prefer B&W. It allows--given proper exposure and development--the longest possible usable contrast range. We live in a world that has a long contrast range, and we are used to looking it through eyes that adapt to this long range quite nicely. However, our films aren't so good. Hence the problem of deciding on what to give up: highlight, or shadow. Sincerely, Joe Stephenson ++++++++++ Kevom wrpte: [cut] So the question is, what would you expose for? I decided I wanted very little if any detail in the boat hull so that started me off at EV 9. This also put the water at zone VI or more. Conversely, I suppose I could have decided that I wanted the water a little hot and put it at zone VI and arrived at pretty much the same exposure. So Ted (or anyone else), if you're reading, what do you mean by metering for the highlights? If the hottest reading in the scene is the water at EV 10, what exposure value do you shoot? PS. For whatever it's worth, I spot read a gray card at just under EV 9. Kevin Hoffberg