Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
In my Introduction To Handheld Meters Tutorial, I explained that reflected light meters do not know if your subject is a light colored scene, a dark colored scene, or a middle-toned scene. Because the meter cannot know what it is being pointed at, the manufacturers calibrate them to assume that anything you point them at is a middle gray tone.
A whitewashed brick wall that I photographed using the exposure recommended by a reflected light meter. Because the meter assumes that anything it measures should reproduce as a middle gray, the white wall has been rendered a middle gray.
As the example above shows, anything that is lighter than middle gray in tone will be underexposed by a reflected light meter's readings. Conversely, anything darker than middle gray will be overexposed. Because we often photograph things that are predominately light toned or dark toned, it would seem that the reflected light meter is useless by comparison to the incident light meter. Incident meters ignore the subject; reading instead the light that falls on the subject. This means the meter cannot be fooled by very light or dark scenes into giving incorrect exposure.
The incident meter has its own set of limitations. It does not work for backlit scenes or for photographing trans-illuminated or self-illuminated subjects, such as stained glass windows or neon signs. A reflected light meter can be used for those types of scenes, and it can be used successfully for any type of subject so long as you understand how it works and how to interpret its readings to make a subject render with the correct tonal values.
Spotmeters
The secret to effective use of a reflected light meter is to read individual parts of the scene and then use those readings to decide on an exposure setting for your camera that will place your subject on the correct tonal values for it.
A standard reflected light meter reads a fairly wide view, typically a 30-40 degree angle of view. If you want to measure individual parts of the scene, you'll have to walk close to the subject and carefully point the meter so that you don't cast a shadow from the meter or your body on the area being read. This is a pain to do, and can be difficult or impossible if the subject is located far away, or in an unsafe place (example: inside a lion cage at the zoo).
Some meters from my collection.
The Gossen Ultra-Pro at the top left is a wide-area reflected meter with Gossen's 7.5/15 degree spot attachment mounted.
The Pentax Spotmeter V at the top right is a true one degree spotmeter. An older model, it is large and heavy compared to modern meters and it does not have a digital readout.
The Sekonic L-758DR is a modern combo meter that has both a true one degree spotmeter and an incident light meter all built in to one unit. The most convenient meter you can get.
The Minolta Flash Meter IV in the middle is primarily an incident meter; but offers a large system of accessories to expand its capabilities, including the 5 degree spot attachment shown.
The solution is a spotmeter. A spotmeter is a reflected light meter that has a lens and viewfinder so that you can look through it and aim it precisely at the subject area you want to measure. Most have a narrow one degree angle of view for the light sensor, which is marked in the viewfinder by a circle.
The viewfinder of a typical one degree spotmeter. In the center is a circle that marks the area that the meter actually sees when you take a reading.
Most modern spotmeters have a digital display in the finder that shows you the ISO setting, shutter speed, and aperture.
Dedicated one degree spotmeters are no longer being made. Today, they're built into high-end combo meters that offer both a one degree spot meter and an incident light meter all in one. This is very convenient, since you can carry both types of light meter in a single unit.
Some incident meters and some regular reflected light meters offer a spot viewfinder accessory, like the ones shown above with the Minolta Flash Meter IV and Gossen Ultra Spot.
These work, but have some serious disadvantages. They are not really small enough spots, and so can still require you to walk up close to your subject; they reduce the meter's low-light measuring ability; they do not have a readout in the viewfinder like a true spotmeter; and they're less precise because the meter cell and the viewfinder have separate lenses.
One degree spotmeters, including those built into incident/spot combo meters, are like an SLR. The viewfinder and meter cell see through the same lens.
In the next post, I'll show you how you can control how light or dark your subject will be rendered by changing the readings that your spotmeter gives you.
A whitewashed brick wall that I photographed using the exposure recommended by a reflected light meter. Because the meter assumes that anything it measures should reproduce as a middle gray, the white wall has been rendered a middle gray.
As the example above shows, anything that is lighter than middle gray in tone will be underexposed by a reflected light meter's readings. Conversely, anything darker than middle gray will be overexposed. Because we often photograph things that are predominately light toned or dark toned, it would seem that the reflected light meter is useless by comparison to the incident light meter. Incident meters ignore the subject; reading instead the light that falls on the subject. This means the meter cannot be fooled by very light or dark scenes into giving incorrect exposure.
The incident meter has its own set of limitations. It does not work for backlit scenes or for photographing trans-illuminated or self-illuminated subjects, such as stained glass windows or neon signs. A reflected light meter can be used for those types of scenes, and it can be used successfully for any type of subject so long as you understand how it works and how to interpret its readings to make a subject render with the correct tonal values.
Spotmeters
The secret to effective use of a reflected light meter is to read individual parts of the scene and then use those readings to decide on an exposure setting for your camera that will place your subject on the correct tonal values for it.
A standard reflected light meter reads a fairly wide view, typically a 30-40 degree angle of view. If you want to measure individual parts of the scene, you'll have to walk close to the subject and carefully point the meter so that you don't cast a shadow from the meter or your body on the area being read. This is a pain to do, and can be difficult or impossible if the subject is located far away, or in an unsafe place (example: inside a lion cage at the zoo).
Some meters from my collection.
The Gossen Ultra-Pro at the top left is a wide-area reflected meter with Gossen's 7.5/15 degree spot attachment mounted.
The Pentax Spotmeter V at the top right is a true one degree spotmeter. An older model, it is large and heavy compared to modern meters and it does not have a digital readout.
The Sekonic L-758DR is a modern combo meter that has both a true one degree spotmeter and an incident light meter all built in to one unit. The most convenient meter you can get.
The Minolta Flash Meter IV in the middle is primarily an incident meter; but offers a large system of accessories to expand its capabilities, including the 5 degree spot attachment shown.
The solution is a spotmeter. A spotmeter is a reflected light meter that has a lens and viewfinder so that you can look through it and aim it precisely at the subject area you want to measure. Most have a narrow one degree angle of view for the light sensor, which is marked in the viewfinder by a circle.
The viewfinder of a typical one degree spotmeter. In the center is a circle that marks the area that the meter actually sees when you take a reading.
Most modern spotmeters have a digital display in the finder that shows you the ISO setting, shutter speed, and aperture.
Dedicated one degree spotmeters are no longer being made. Today, they're built into high-end combo meters that offer both a one degree spot meter and an incident light meter all in one. This is very convenient, since you can carry both types of light meter in a single unit.
Some incident meters and some regular reflected light meters offer a spot viewfinder accessory, like the ones shown above with the Minolta Flash Meter IV and Gossen Ultra Spot.
These work, but have some serious disadvantages. They are not really small enough spots, and so can still require you to walk up close to your subject; they reduce the meter's low-light measuring ability; they do not have a readout in the viewfinder like a true spotmeter; and they're less precise because the meter cell and the viewfinder have separate lenses.
One degree spotmeters, including those built into incident/spot combo meters, are like an SLR. The viewfinder and meter cell see through the same lens.
In the next post, I'll show you how you can control how light or dark your subject will be rendered by changing the readings that your spotmeter gives you.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
In the first part of this tutorial, I showed you that a reflected light meter's readings are calibrated to render the subject as a middle tone, regardless of the actual tonality of the subject. You can use this mid-tone reading as a basis for calculating the actual exposure settings you'll use; because if you give more exposure or less exposure than the meter indicates, your subject will be rendered lighter (more exposure) or darker (less exposure).
Increasing Exposure
The series of example photos below shows you the effects of giving more exposure than the meter indicates, starting with the middle tone you get using the meter's reading directly.
The Base Exposure recommended by a reflected light meter
Because the meter assumes that anything it measures should reproduce as a middle gray, the white wall has been rendered a middle gray.
Some real world things that usually render well with the standard exposure include: Green grass and green foliage, gray tree bark, weathered wood (old barns, etc.). Brown-skinned people's skin tones often render well at this exposure level.
+1 Stop over the meter's reading
Light gray objects, yellow objects, and dark concrete usually render well with this exposure. White people's skin tones should be exposed at one to one and a half stops over the meter reading, depending on how pale the person is.
+2 Stops over the meter's reading
Good for light concrete and white objects where you need full texture to be visible. A really bright, clean white object can be given a little more exposure, maybe two and a half stops over the meter reading.
+3 Stops over the meter's reading
Texture and detail are beginning to be lost here. Use for very brightly lit parts of a white object where you still want some texture visible. The brightest parts of clouds will often render well at this exposure level.
+4 Stops over the meter's reading
White with little or no texture visible. The dark spots you see in my example are deeply shadowed cracks in the bricks. There is no texture visible in the flatter parts of the brick faces.
Bright highlights will often fall here. This level of exposure still has some tone to it; it be completely blown out.
+5 Stops over the meter's reading
No detail visible and virtually no tone; almost completely blown out to pure 'paper white.' Very bright specular highlights on white or shiny metal objects may fall this high on the exposure scale.
Decreasing Exposure
Giving less exposure than the meter indicates will render your subject darker. Again, we'll look at examples from the brick wall. I'll begin again at the mid-tone rendering from using the meter's reading directly:
The base exposure: A middle gray
-1 Stop under the meter's reading
Use for dark objects that are not black, but are darker than middle gray. Good for the skin tones of African-Americans to ensure that they have full detail and texture in their skin tones. Black people are not really 'black.' If you expose them as though they were, you'll have poor detail in their skin and hair.
-2 Stops under the meter's reading
Use for very dark objects, and dark shadows of middle-toned objects. Black objects can be exposed between two and two and a half stops less then the meter reading while retaining full detail.
-3 Stops under the meter's reading
At this point, you won't have full detail, but some texture is still visible. Good for dark shadows where you want some texture.
-4 Stops under the meter's reading
Some cameras will render this as a solid black with no texture visible, but there will be some tone; it won't be the darkest black possible.
-5 Stops under the meter's reading
With most cameras, solid black, no texture. My Canon 5DmkII still shows a bit of texture even at this low exposure level!
What These Examples Show Us
In my Intro To Handheld Meters Tutorial, I wrote that digital cameras have very little overexposure lattitude, but can handle some underexposure. For that reason, the most important thing when setting exposure is to ensure that any white or light-toned objects in the photograph that you want rendered with full detail are exposed correctly so that they are not pushed too high on the exposure scale and lose detail and texture.
In high contrast light, this can result in dark tones being rendered too dark. As these examples show, the dark tones retain some detail and texture quite low on to the tonal scale, while light tones quickly lose texture and detail at high exposure levels. If you shoot RAW, you can often recover detail in dark tones that have been exposed too low. You can recover overexposed light tones a little, but not nearly as well as you can recover dark tones.
Disclaimer
These examples were all made with a Canon 5DmkII, shooting RAW, with the files processed in Adobe Lightroom CC. I did no editing aside from sharpening and white balance. Everything else was left at default.
You should test your own camera to see how it renders. Some cameras have more dynamic range than others, and the results will also be affected by whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, what JPEG settings you have chosen on your camera if you shoot JPEG, and what RAW converter and settings you use if you shoot RAW.
In the next post, I'll show you real-world examples of photographs exposed using a spotmeter, with notes on how I set exposure for them.
Increasing Exposure
The series of example photos below shows you the effects of giving more exposure than the meter indicates, starting with the middle tone you get using the meter's reading directly.
The Base Exposure recommended by a reflected light meter
Because the meter assumes that anything it measures should reproduce as a middle gray, the white wall has been rendered a middle gray.
Some real world things that usually render well with the standard exposure include: Green grass and green foliage, gray tree bark, weathered wood (old barns, etc.). Brown-skinned people's skin tones often render well at this exposure level.
+1 Stop over the meter's reading
Light gray objects, yellow objects, and dark concrete usually render well with this exposure. White people's skin tones should be exposed at one to one and a half stops over the meter reading, depending on how pale the person is.
+2 Stops over the meter's reading
Good for light concrete and white objects where you need full texture to be visible. A really bright, clean white object can be given a little more exposure, maybe two and a half stops over the meter reading.
+3 Stops over the meter's reading
Texture and detail are beginning to be lost here. Use for very brightly lit parts of a white object where you still want some texture visible. The brightest parts of clouds will often render well at this exposure level.
+4 Stops over the meter's reading
White with little or no texture visible. The dark spots you see in my example are deeply shadowed cracks in the bricks. There is no texture visible in the flatter parts of the brick faces.
Bright highlights will often fall here. This level of exposure still has some tone to it; it be completely blown out.
+5 Stops over the meter's reading
No detail visible and virtually no tone; almost completely blown out to pure 'paper white.' Very bright specular highlights on white or shiny metal objects may fall this high on the exposure scale.
Decreasing Exposure
Giving less exposure than the meter indicates will render your subject darker. Again, we'll look at examples from the brick wall. I'll begin again at the mid-tone rendering from using the meter's reading directly:
The base exposure: A middle gray
-1 Stop under the meter's reading
Use for dark objects that are not black, but are darker than middle gray. Good for the skin tones of African-Americans to ensure that they have full detail and texture in their skin tones. Black people are not really 'black.' If you expose them as though they were, you'll have poor detail in their skin and hair.
-2 Stops under the meter's reading
Use for very dark objects, and dark shadows of middle-toned objects. Black objects can be exposed between two and two and a half stops less then the meter reading while retaining full detail.
-3 Stops under the meter's reading
At this point, you won't have full detail, but some texture is still visible. Good for dark shadows where you want some texture.
-4 Stops under the meter's reading
Some cameras will render this as a solid black with no texture visible, but there will be some tone; it won't be the darkest black possible.
-5 Stops under the meter's reading
With most cameras, solid black, no texture. My Canon 5DmkII still shows a bit of texture even at this low exposure level!
What These Examples Show Us
In my Intro To Handheld Meters Tutorial, I wrote that digital cameras have very little overexposure lattitude, but can handle some underexposure. For that reason, the most important thing when setting exposure is to ensure that any white or light-toned objects in the photograph that you want rendered with full detail are exposed correctly so that they are not pushed too high on the exposure scale and lose detail and texture.
In high contrast light, this can result in dark tones being rendered too dark. As these examples show, the dark tones retain some detail and texture quite low on to the tonal scale, while light tones quickly lose texture and detail at high exposure levels. If you shoot RAW, you can often recover detail in dark tones that have been exposed too low. You can recover overexposed light tones a little, but not nearly as well as you can recover dark tones.
Disclaimer
These examples were all made with a Canon 5DmkII, shooting RAW, with the files processed in Adobe Lightroom CC. I did no editing aside from sharpening and white balance. Everything else was left at default.
You should test your own camera to see how it renders. Some cameras have more dynamic range than others, and the results will also be affected by whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, what JPEG settings you have chosen on your camera if you shoot JPEG, and what RAW converter and settings you use if you shoot RAW.
In the next post, I'll show you real-world examples of photographs exposed using a spotmeter, with notes on how I set exposure for them.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Now, I will show you some photographs that I made using a spotmeter to determine the exposure, along with an explanation of how I did it. You'll see what areas of the scene I metered, what exposure correction I applied to the readings, and why.
1958 Chevrolet Viking Truck
This photograph was made very early in the morning, soon after sunrise. The top parts of the picture were lit much more brightly than the lower areas, because the sun was partly blocked by the trees and buildings across the street until the sun had risen high enough in the sky to clear those obstructions and light the areas shadowed by them.
The bumper and grille of this classic truck are white, and normally I would take a spotmeter reading of the grille and calculate an exposure that would make it white with full detail, as the "Chevrolet" name is embossed in the grille and would be lost if it were given too much exposure. Normally, I'd read the grille and give +2 stops exposure.
The problem in this scene is that there are other things much brighter due to the unusual light. I have photographed this truck, which belongs to a neighbor, many times over the years in different lighting conditions. On a sunny day, the sky would usually be darker than the truck's grille, and the white garage siding would be about the same brightness as the grille.
Scanning the scene with my spotmeter, I found that the sky and the garage were both much brighter than the truck's grille in this light. The sky is less important, as it doesn't need to show any detail; but the siding on the garage needed to have its texture preserved. I found the lightest part of the siding and metered it. I then set my camera to an exposure that was 2.3 stops over that reading. On my Canon 5DmkII, I can expose a white surface up to 2.3 stops over the meter reading and still have full detail rendering. Any more, and detail begins to be lost.
There are some things in the photo that are much brighter than the garage siding, such as the specular highlights on the hood emblem and in the headlights. The highlights in the headlights are blown out to pure white, and those on the chrome hood emblem are almost that light. That's ok. It is impossible to preserve tonality in such small specular highlights without severely underexposing the rest of the image, and out eyes are used to seeing such highlights this way.
The image above is the un-manipulated result of that exposure. The garage has full texture (hard to see in the web-size image, but it is there). The shadows are too dark, and the front of the truck is a little darker than I like. Those are personal judgements, though. Some might prefer the darker shadows, as they make the truck stand out; and the slightly dark rendering of the front of the truck preserves the feeling of it being partly in shade.
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom.
Although the shadowed areas were quite underexposed in the original image, there is a lot of underexposure lattitude in a digital RAW image that can be exploited to bring back dark tones that are pushed too far down the tonal scale by the need to avoid overexposing light tones.
As I noted, some may actually like the version without the shadow recovery. This version shows you what is possible if you want full shadow detail without losing the brightly-lit areas.
White House
This photograph was a fairly typical sunny-day scene. The sunlit areas are much brighter than the shadowed areas; a problem compounded by the fact that the sunlit area includes part of the white aluminum siding on the house, while the shadows include an asphalt driveway and dark colored car.
Because the most important thing is to ensure that the light tones do not end up overexposed and blown out, I used the spotmeter to find the brightest areas where I still wanted to preserve tone and texture. The white siding is the lightest toned thing in the photo, but it is not evenly illuminated. One side of the house directly faces the sun, while the side facing forward is less brightly lit because the sun hits it from an angle. In addition, both sides of the house are crisscrossed with shadows cast by the branches of trees in the yard.
The area of siding near the peak on the right side of the house was the brightest, and was somewhat like a specular highlight since it was a relatively small area much brighter than the rest of that side of the house. I didn't want it to be completely blown out, but it did not need full detail, as the siding is flat aluminum with no texture visible from this distance.
I gave +3 stops more exposure than the meter indicated, which would render the siding as white with tone visible (that is, not blown out) but without texture visible. I then checked the brightly lit siding lower on the house, on the same side, to see where it fell on the tone scale. Though directly lit by the sun, the spot indicated on the photo above was not as bright as the area near the peak. It fell 2.3 stops above the reading I made of the area near the peak, meaning it would be just about the brightest it could be and still retain full detail.
The brightest parts of the siding on the front of the house would be a little darker still, since the front of the house was not as brightly lit by the sun as the right side of the house was.
The shadows were very dark, but that's OK. They could be recovered when I processed the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom. Digital images, if you shoot RAW, have a lot of underexposure lattitude; so you can recover some pretty dark shadows. There is very little overexposure lattitude; you can recover some overexposed light tones but it is much more limited than the ability to recover dark tones.
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom.
Although the shadowed areas were quite underexposed in the original image, there is a lot of underexposure lattitude in a digital RAW image that can be exploited to bring back dark tones that are pushed too far down the tonal scale by the need to avoid overexposing light tones.
1958 Chevrolet Viking Truck
This photograph was made very early in the morning, soon after sunrise. The top parts of the picture were lit much more brightly than the lower areas, because the sun was partly blocked by the trees and buildings across the street until the sun had risen high enough in the sky to clear those obstructions and light the areas shadowed by them.
The bumper and grille of this classic truck are white, and normally I would take a spotmeter reading of the grille and calculate an exposure that would make it white with full detail, as the "Chevrolet" name is embossed in the grille and would be lost if it were given too much exposure. Normally, I'd read the grille and give +2 stops exposure.
The problem in this scene is that there are other things much brighter due to the unusual light. I have photographed this truck, which belongs to a neighbor, many times over the years in different lighting conditions. On a sunny day, the sky would usually be darker than the truck's grille, and the white garage siding would be about the same brightness as the grille.
Scanning the scene with my spotmeter, I found that the sky and the garage were both much brighter than the truck's grille in this light. The sky is less important, as it doesn't need to show any detail; but the siding on the garage needed to have its texture preserved. I found the lightest part of the siding and metered it. I then set my camera to an exposure that was 2.3 stops over that reading. On my Canon 5DmkII, I can expose a white surface up to 2.3 stops over the meter reading and still have full detail rendering. Any more, and detail begins to be lost.
There are some things in the photo that are much brighter than the garage siding, such as the specular highlights on the hood emblem and in the headlights. The highlights in the headlights are blown out to pure white, and those on the chrome hood emblem are almost that light. That's ok. It is impossible to preserve tonality in such small specular highlights without severely underexposing the rest of the image, and out eyes are used to seeing such highlights this way.
The image above is the un-manipulated result of that exposure. The garage has full texture (hard to see in the web-size image, but it is there). The shadows are too dark, and the front of the truck is a little darker than I like. Those are personal judgements, though. Some might prefer the darker shadows, as they make the truck stand out; and the slightly dark rendering of the front of the truck preserves the feeling of it being partly in shade.
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom.
Although the shadowed areas were quite underexposed in the original image, there is a lot of underexposure lattitude in a digital RAW image that can be exploited to bring back dark tones that are pushed too far down the tonal scale by the need to avoid overexposing light tones.
As I noted, some may actually like the version without the shadow recovery. This version shows you what is possible if you want full shadow detail without losing the brightly-lit areas.
White House
This photograph was a fairly typical sunny-day scene. The sunlit areas are much brighter than the shadowed areas; a problem compounded by the fact that the sunlit area includes part of the white aluminum siding on the house, while the shadows include an asphalt driveway and dark colored car.
Because the most important thing is to ensure that the light tones do not end up overexposed and blown out, I used the spotmeter to find the brightest areas where I still wanted to preserve tone and texture. The white siding is the lightest toned thing in the photo, but it is not evenly illuminated. One side of the house directly faces the sun, while the side facing forward is less brightly lit because the sun hits it from an angle. In addition, both sides of the house are crisscrossed with shadows cast by the branches of trees in the yard.
The area of siding near the peak on the right side of the house was the brightest, and was somewhat like a specular highlight since it was a relatively small area much brighter than the rest of that side of the house. I didn't want it to be completely blown out, but it did not need full detail, as the siding is flat aluminum with no texture visible from this distance.
I gave +3 stops more exposure than the meter indicated, which would render the siding as white with tone visible (that is, not blown out) but without texture visible. I then checked the brightly lit siding lower on the house, on the same side, to see where it fell on the tone scale. Though directly lit by the sun, the spot indicated on the photo above was not as bright as the area near the peak. It fell 2.3 stops above the reading I made of the area near the peak, meaning it would be just about the brightest it could be and still retain full detail.
The brightest parts of the siding on the front of the house would be a little darker still, since the front of the house was not as brightly lit by the sun as the right side of the house was.
The shadows were very dark, but that's OK. They could be recovered when I processed the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom. Digital images, if you shoot RAW, have a lot of underexposure lattitude; so you can recover some pretty dark shadows. There is very little overexposure lattitude; you can recover some overexposed light tones but it is much more limited than the ability to recover dark tones.
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom.
Although the shadowed areas were quite underexposed in the original image, there is a lot of underexposure lattitude in a digital RAW image that can be exploited to bring back dark tones that are pushed too far down the tonal scale by the need to avoid overexposing light tones.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Worst Case Scenario!
This photograph represents something of a "Worst Possible" lighting situation. I made it early in the morning with harsh sunlight streaming in through a nearby window to the left of the scene. The lights in the room were off, so the only light came from the window.
This meant there was a VERY large difference in brightness between the shadowed areas and the brightly lit part of the file cabinet. An 8 stop difference!
If I exposed for the brightly lit areas, the shadows would be so severely underexposed that you would basically only see the brightly-lit parts. Everything else would be black, or nearly so.
If I exposed for the dimly lit areas, the brightly lit area would be so severely overexposed that they would be totally blown out.
As an experiment to see just how far I could push my camera's sensor, I made this exposure. I calculated an exposure that placed the lightest part of the brightly lit section +4 stops over the meter reading for that spot, and that placed the darkest part of the file cabinet on the left -4 stops under the meter reading for that spot.
If you look back on the second post in this tutorial, the gray patches, you'll see that both should render near the very ends of the tone scale without full detail and only some texture visible. The photo above confirms that. But what if we turn to the Shadow and Highlight Recovery Sliders in Lightroom?
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom, and darkened the brightly lit area using the Highlight Recovery slider.
It isn't perfect; but considering the extreme lighting contrast, it is not bad. If my exposure had been just a half-stop off either over or under, this probably would not have worked!
Laundry Center
This photograph was a challenge because of the need to balance the brightly lit interior with the dimly lit outdoors.
If I had exposed for the outside of the building, the inside would have been so severely overexposed that nothing would be visible in the windows. I wanted to be able to see the interior, and I wanted to see the outside of the building and the woman sitting on the seats.
The problem was to give enough exposure to make the front of the building and the woman talking on her cellphone visible without the interior going too light and losing the ability to see what is in there.
Because the digital exposures need to be concerned primarily with exposure of the light tones, the interior was the most important thing. I ignored the fluorescent light tubes. They're so much brighter than anything else that exposing them to have any tonality would severely underexpose everything else. We're used to seeing bare lights as blindingly white, so losing tonality in them is not a big deal.
Next, I had to decide what is the lightest thing in the interior that I want to preserve some detail in. One of the dryers indie the laundromat had a sign made from a white piece of copy paper taped to the front of it. It would make a good keytone to base exposure from. There was no visible texture in the paper from this distance, but I did want to preserve some tonality; I didn't want the paper blown out to pure white. On the second page of this tutorial, I showed that an exposure of +3 stops over the meter's reading gives a white with texture still visible while an exposure of +4 gives a white that has no texture but still preserves some tone.
I wanted to give as much exposure as I could get away with, to make it easier to get a good rendering of the woman outside, who is partly in shadow. So, I decided to expose based on the reading off the sign inside, plus 3.5 stops. This made the areas near the ceiling of the laundromat a little too light, but I knew I could bring them back down in Lightroom using the Highlight Recovery slider since those areas (mostly the top parts of the laundry machines) were darker than the white sign, so they should still have detail.
Outside the building, there were areas that I knew had to be sacrificed. There was simply no way to preserve any detail in the most dimly lit areas, like the front of the SUV in front of the door. It wasn't important anyway, and shadows that go black are not as ugly as whites that blow out to pure white.
The important things were the front of the building and the woman sitting outside. Spotmeter readings of the light blue part of the building right above the seats showed that they would fall on the middle gray tone using the exposure I determined. That's a little darker than I wanted; I thought they should fall about one stop lighter. The woman's face fell about one stop darker than middle gray, which is about a stop darker than I wanted. It was OK for her face to fall on the middle gray, instead of lighter (as is usual for white people's skin tones) because her face was lit from above and behind. Backlit faces look unnatural if too light.
Still, she would still have been too dark using my exposure settings determined from the sign inside the building. Being one stop too dark was not a big deal though; it was well within the ability of Lightroom's Shadow Recovery slider to lighten her and the wall behind her up to where I wanted them.
In very high contrast light situations like this, your metering technique has to work hand-in-hand with your processing technique; as it is often impossible to get the tones of everything in the photo where you want them using exposure alone.
This photograph represents something of a "Worst Possible" lighting situation. I made it early in the morning with harsh sunlight streaming in through a nearby window to the left of the scene. The lights in the room were off, so the only light came from the window.
This meant there was a VERY large difference in brightness between the shadowed areas and the brightly lit part of the file cabinet. An 8 stop difference!
If I exposed for the brightly lit areas, the shadows would be so severely underexposed that you would basically only see the brightly-lit parts. Everything else would be black, or nearly so.
If I exposed for the dimly lit areas, the brightly lit area would be so severely overexposed that they would be totally blown out.
As an experiment to see just how far I could push my camera's sensor, I made this exposure. I calculated an exposure that placed the lightest part of the brightly lit section +4 stops over the meter reading for that spot, and that placed the darkest part of the file cabinet on the left -4 stops under the meter reading for that spot.
If you look back on the second post in this tutorial, the gray patches, you'll see that both should render near the very ends of the tone scale without full detail and only some texture visible. The photo above confirms that. But what if we turn to the Shadow and Highlight Recovery Sliders in Lightroom?
The final image after I lightened the shadows using the Shadow Recovery slider in Lightroom, and darkened the brightly lit area using the Highlight Recovery slider.
It isn't perfect; but considering the extreme lighting contrast, it is not bad. If my exposure had been just a half-stop off either over or under, this probably would not have worked!
Laundry Center
This photograph was a challenge because of the need to balance the brightly lit interior with the dimly lit outdoors.
If I had exposed for the outside of the building, the inside would have been so severely overexposed that nothing would be visible in the windows. I wanted to be able to see the interior, and I wanted to see the outside of the building and the woman sitting on the seats.
The problem was to give enough exposure to make the front of the building and the woman talking on her cellphone visible without the interior going too light and losing the ability to see what is in there.
Because the digital exposures need to be concerned primarily with exposure of the light tones, the interior was the most important thing. I ignored the fluorescent light tubes. They're so much brighter than anything else that exposing them to have any tonality would severely underexpose everything else. We're used to seeing bare lights as blindingly white, so losing tonality in them is not a big deal.
Next, I had to decide what is the lightest thing in the interior that I want to preserve some detail in. One of the dryers indie the laundromat had a sign made from a white piece of copy paper taped to the front of it. It would make a good keytone to base exposure from. There was no visible texture in the paper from this distance, but I did want to preserve some tonality; I didn't want the paper blown out to pure white. On the second page of this tutorial, I showed that an exposure of +3 stops over the meter's reading gives a white with texture still visible while an exposure of +4 gives a white that has no texture but still preserves some tone.
I wanted to give as much exposure as I could get away with, to make it easier to get a good rendering of the woman outside, who is partly in shadow. So, I decided to expose based on the reading off the sign inside, plus 3.5 stops. This made the areas near the ceiling of the laundromat a little too light, but I knew I could bring them back down in Lightroom using the Highlight Recovery slider since those areas (mostly the top parts of the laundry machines) were darker than the white sign, so they should still have detail.
Outside the building, there were areas that I knew had to be sacrificed. There was simply no way to preserve any detail in the most dimly lit areas, like the front of the SUV in front of the door. It wasn't important anyway, and shadows that go black are not as ugly as whites that blow out to pure white.
The important things were the front of the building and the woman sitting outside. Spotmeter readings of the light blue part of the building right above the seats showed that they would fall on the middle gray tone using the exposure I determined. That's a little darker than I wanted; I thought they should fall about one stop lighter. The woman's face fell about one stop darker than middle gray, which is about a stop darker than I wanted. It was OK for her face to fall on the middle gray, instead of lighter (as is usual for white people's skin tones) because her face was lit from above and behind. Backlit faces look unnatural if too light.
Still, she would still have been too dark using my exposure settings determined from the sign inside the building. Being one stop too dark was not a big deal though; it was well within the ability of Lightroom's Shadow Recovery slider to lighten her and the wall behind her up to where I wanted them.
In very high contrast light situations like this, your metering technique has to work hand-in-hand with your processing technique; as it is often impossible to get the tones of everything in the photo where you want them using exposure alone.
Joao
Negativistic forever
Thank you for these very informative post. I apreciate the clear way you use
to adress this topic. And the well-chosen images you've used to ilustrate the text.
Best regards
Joao
to adress this topic. And the well-chosen images you've used to ilustrate the text.
Best regards
Joao
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Joao,
I am glad that you like it. I tried to choose photos that would be 'difficult' ones to meter, to show how a spotmeter can help with them.