How do you get the best exposure in difficult lighting situations?

[jeena1]

How does one get good exposure when the subjects in the frame are mostly dark (like a dark scene or a very cloudy day)? Or really bright (like a sunny Summer day on the beach at noon)? What if the frame contains parts that are really bright and really dark (like taking a picture of a tree in the shade, with the background sunny)? Thanks!!!

 

[VictorM.]

I try to use an incident meter in most circumstances. It really helps in tricky conditions.

If I have to take a reflected reading, I will read the darkest shadow and then stop down 1 stop or the brightest area and open 1 stop. If the bright area is mostly white, I'll open 2 stops. This works with both b&w and colour neg film.

I learned this from David Vestal's book "The Craft of Photography."

 

[russianRF]

Read up on the Zone System. It helps immensely.

 

[pesphoto]

If working with a brightly backlit scene. Take a light reading off the palm of your hand or off the sidewalk if it is a gray color or even off the grass. Use this as a starting point.
Also, bracket exposures until you get used to it.

 

[wyk_penguin]

If I am using forgiving b&w negs, I use the trustworthy sunny-16 instead of trusting the meter because sunny-16 is basically incidence metering. I am evaluating the light source rather than the brightness of the subject.

Knowing the zone system allows you to know what you managed to keep and what you chose to let go of. For high dynamic range scenes, you always have to let some parts go white and some parts go black. The question is which ones.

For slides, I bracket.

 

[Merkin]

I tilt the palm of my hand until the brightness/darkness of the light reflecting off of it is about the same as the most important thing in the shot, and then i take a reflected meter reading of my palm and open up a stop from what it says.