Question On Exposure

[4knewave]

Hey I just have a quick question on exposure and what method is best for outdoor photography.

I just finished up my first year at film school and my production professor had stressed the use of the reflected meter. We worked with the old school analog L-398a and when I helped other students from other classes it seemed to be the norm that they would always use the incident.

I myself have always used the incident indoors and am always confident with my results. However outdoors I've used both methods and most of the time I get good exposure in my print but I'm always nervous that either the reflected or incident is being fooled.

I have a good understanding of what both do incident measure the light falling on a subject doesn't take background into consideration. Where as the reflected measures the light being reflected from a subject though there are certain situations where the reflectance of a subject (black cat) or if a scene is overly dark or overly bright that the meter can be fooled.

To me it seems that with a medium shot, close up, or even standard shot where the most important element is the subject, an incident meter outdoors would be fine, where as a wide shot such as a person walking down a sidewalk in New York City a reflected would be best because it would average out the light and shadow areas to an acceptable medium grey allowing my subject to be correct and my background. This seems easier then having to take an incident reading in different areas to make sure the stock Im using can handle it.

Thanks

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Whatever works for you and gets you the results you need.

I use an incident meter 99% of the time myself. I prefer knowing the amount of light falling on the object, not the reflectance of the object. Now for self-illuminating objects (TV sets, lamps, neon) or sunsets and whatnot, a reflected reading makes more sense.

 

[directedition]

How much time do you spend looking at responsive curves and the like? I always imagined the best method was metering the brightest and darkest objects you wanted correctly exposed and making sure their lighting falls within an acceptable range as per the film stock's responsiveness.

I suppose you can use an incident meter just fine with some experience. When I use one, I'm always afraid of loosing detail in the darker areas.

 

[4knewave]

Thanks a lot For The Information.

I actually have a little side question on the topic. I was looking at some stuff that I helped shoot over the year and some of my own to just get a feel of what worked best.

The incident has worked well though the only problem I've seen in the work is some shots where sky is included is to hot or in some instances blown out. The blown out has only happened in black and white reversal (due to the low latitude) though the subject has come out fine and if I had to do it over again I'd use an orange or red filter to darken the sky.

In some of the outdoor color work the sky has been a little to hot, not blown out but not what I've wanted. That comes with reading the meter wrong I assume because on other takes and other shots its been perfectly exposed.

What I'm getting at is how can u check to see that your sky isn't going to be to hot or an object wont be to dark. Could I take the reading and then with a spot meter check the sky?

Thanks

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure, you can use a spot meter to check the sky.

I don't do a lot of metering -- I meter the main key and set everything else by eye. Outdoors, I tend to split the exposure between the sun and shade, favoring one or the other depending on which is more dominent.

If I'm shooting at a low angle with a bright sky, I can see that it's bright with my eyes. I might use an ND grad or Pola if that would help, otherwise I underexpose a little (maybe a stop) to hold more detail in the sky. If the face looks too dark, I may use more light on it.

Color negative has a lot of exposure latitude.

In terms of shadow detail, most of the time you can fill by eye. It's only when I'm doing a very dark scene, like in moonlight, I meter the shadow areas IF I want to see detail in them. Because if your moonlight "key" is two-stops underexposed, your fill can't be more than two-stops under the key (if not only a stop and a half) or else it will be black.