exposure mid tone

[teaking]

its mainly more a problem with digital imaging with out sounding boring here lol, if we take mid tones as zone-5 we have high lights in zone-6/7 and shadow in zone-4/3 in digital images... in film there are more zones so you capture more tones moving on from that the way the image is stored there are more tone values captured in the mid tones and high lights and the shadows have few tone values. And that is why it is notoriously hard to restore shadows in post processing. It is also very difficult to restore highlight detail passed a certain point.

Hope you didnt fall asleep reading lol.

And that is why they say meter for the mid tones which means what ever your mid tone is (average colour) your meter is zero on spot metering then check the highlights which will be the brightest parts of the shot and check it isnt blinking, to try to make sure the most tonal detail can be captured. You can also use it as a quick check to see if a shot is possible or to evaluate a scene

[toryw]

its just kinda confusing applying all this info from books.

im getting it though.

Jim Zuckerman's perfect exposure is a good book.
He uses meters all the time
i dont have an external meter. cant afford one. hahahah
rather have glass

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by TerryMC

A camera meter is a reflective meter. Most separate meters are incident meters.

If you meter a mid-tone (18% gray) object with you camera meter then white is white and black is black. It is the same as taking an incident meter reading.

However, the exposure range maybe outside the sensor range so you have to check for highlight clipping to recover details in post processing.

One: most separate hand-held meters are both reflective and incidental in exposure readings.

Two: If you meter a 13% grey tone (All meters are calibrated at 12.9% grey) this is nowhere near the same as an incident reading-light reflected from different tones will result in different exposure readings-where incident light which is falling on subject gives a constant exposure reading,no matter what the tone.

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by toryw

weston/adams zone system? whats that.

Thanks

In the 1940's Edward Weston and Ansel Adams worked together on a system that allowed them to pre-visualise a finished print at the time of making the exposure.

They allocated 11 "Zones" (tones) between 0 ( Pure black with no detail) to10 (Pure white no detail) with the average mid tone being Zone 5 . from this sequence, zone 3 would give detail to black,(eg: black animal fur; black tuxedo) and zone 7 would give detail to a white wedding dress; caucasian skin. Ken

[toryw]

so (7) white for dresses would be the + 3stops from 0 and
(3) Black is -3 stops from 0 for black animal fur, black tuxedo

[TerryMC]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

[B][U]
Two: If you meter a 13% grey tone (All meters are calibrated at 12.9% grey) this is nowhere near the same as an incident reading-light reflected from different tones will result in different exposure readings-where incident light which is falling on subject gives a constant exposure reading,no matter what the tone.

My meters have K of 14 instead of 12.5 and the reflectance R of 17.6%. One has to know what to buy!

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by toryw

so (7) white for dresses would be the + 3stops from 0 and
(3) Black is -3 stops from 0 for black animal fur, black tuxedo

NO!!!!!! If Zone 5 is mid tone, zone 3 is minus two stops,and zone 7 is plus two stops.

Now "0" on your exposure compensation diagram = Zone 5 so plus 2 for detail on white,and minus 2 for detail on black. Ken

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by TerryMC

My meters have K of 14 instead of 12.5 and the reflectance R of 17.6%. One has to know what to buy!

K,(Kelvin) is color temperature,as in White balance,nothing to do with exposure-Kodak have explained that all camera meters are calibrated at 12.9% grey.

[toryw]

ya ur right, i had it in my head wrote it wrong, ok makes good sense now.
I follow these rules in real life just reading it gets confusing, still, even though, this makes alot of sense though.
What kinda Meter would anyone recommend? and how much

[TerryMC]

K (luminance in cd/m²) and C (illuminance in lux) are the Meter Calibration constants per ISO 2720:1974.