On Feb 9, 2011, at 10:05 PM, Walter Gilbert wrote: > Thanks for the explanation, Collin. > > When Paul said to overexpose, I was actually thinking it sounded > counter-intuitive -- that you'd want to under-expose in a snowy situation. > But, it makes sense now that you explained that the meter "assumes" a neutral > grey. > > So, I'm assuming that in extra-low-light situations, I'd want to under-expose > by a couple of stops in that case.
No. It's not amount the amount of light. The reason you overexpose snow or anything else that fills your frame with white is simply because it's white and very reflective. Like Collin said, the meter assumes everything is 18% gray and reflects the amount of light that an 18% gray surface would reflect. So shooting a white subject in low light, you would still overexpose. Shooting something totally black, you would want to underexpose by about one stop, since black doesn't reflect much light.. Again, using the gray card and exposing to the meter reading is usually better in really tricky lighting situations. Another alternative is an incident meter, which measures the light source rather than the scene. As with the gray card, you don't have to correct for the reflectivity of the subject when shooting with an incident meter. Paul > > Glad I found this out before getting too deep into the roll! > > -- Walt > > On 2/9/2011 8:40 PM, Collin Brendemuehl wrote: >> No!!! Always overexpose snow by 2 stops. >> >> Why? >> Because an averaging meter expects a mid-gray tone. >> The result will be gray snow unless you open it up, >> either with the shutter, aperture, or both. >> You can also change to iso32. >> >> >> Sincerely, >> >> Collin Brendemuehl >> http://kerygmainstitute.org >> >> "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" >> -- Jim Elliott > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
