Shel wrote:
<snip>
> Try this some time: go out on a bright, sunny day and focus
> on a dark or medium colored car, but don't include the bright
> highlights from the chrome trim in the metering. Then move the
> camera slightly to pick up the bright specular highlights. I'll bet
> the exposure set by the camera changes, yet the light in the scene
> is the same.
>
Thank you. I agree that with a handheld spotmeter you would essentially get
the "details" of what your cameras meter is seeing, affording the
photographer more control. An additional observation (probably picking it to
death)...
If the exposure set by the camera changes, then that means the light
entering the lens has "changed". The light in the scene is not the same and
the meter is doing exactly what it should. I would assume that the cameras
meter would give readings indicating a shorter exposure would be necessary
when including the highlights. But I think, what you are saying in the
example is that this <could> lead to underexposing the main subject, the
car, whereas the specular highlights may be burnt out regardless of how the
car itself is exposed. If the difference between lightest/darkest parts of
the scene were not as drastic, the onboard camera metering may work just
fine.
And this probably is just repeating what you said... in both the portrait
example and the car example, the key factor is not the overall scene, but
which part of the scene you are most interested in metering for and exposing
correctly. In the portrait scene you would not sacrifice the person for the
sky.
(Boring analysis finished)
Tom C.
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