Digital 101 Exposure Part 4

In conjunction with the Nikon Talk Forum at DP Review

It's All in the Tones...

I wish I had the time and the energy to spend years working on an exposure system that will allow me to quickly make decisions about how to properly expose and image. I have read many articles and took some from here and some from there to finds what works for me.

First I want you to do a test if you haven't already.  Take your digital camera and find an image with good range of different light. Then take sample readings from different areas of the image and take a photo and look at it. If you used a bright area of the photo the darker areas will be totally black. If you use the dark areas to base the exposure the light areas will be totally washed out. Now look for a color in the image that is middle tone. Not dark or light but right in between. Now base your exposure on this area of the image and see what happens? Your dark areas are not to dark, your light areas are not to light, and the middle tones are perfect.

Even the metering system in your camera will try to make verything middle tone. Since you may have as many as 30 stops of light from bright white to pitch black you can see there is no way you can use either of these extremes to base your exposure. So your camera's metering system tries to average everything, to find that middle ground. For years cameras had center weighted metering systems that always assumed the subject would be in the middle of the image. Yeah right. Now most cameras have a matrix system that will divide the image area into sections and average these together to get the best exposure.

John Gerlach a well known nature photographer from Michigan divides his exposure into seven possibilities which range from snow to black and assigns a minus or plus exposure compensation for each. He teaches his students to be able to look at a subject and instantly make a decision. Since he shoots slide film and sometimes needs 20 exposures of an image for the stock houses he send his pictures to he must be able to look at any situation and instantly make a decision on exposure. If you want to learn more about exposure in a single day then you can learn in years.  I suggest you contact John and attend one of his seminars.

 His address follows: 

John Gerlach
PO Box 259
CHATHAM, MI 49816.

I don't have to make decisions that quickly and at 57 not to sure I want to but I have learned so much from John's information on exposures that I wanted to pass his name on to you. I wish I could discuss many of his ideas with you but you know that copyright thing. I do want to give you information on how I base my exposures.

As I look at any image I try to find the middle tone and I base my exposure on that area first. With film I never knew if I was right until it was developed. With digital you know right now. I will look for the middle tone then if needed I take the recommended exposure and set it in the manual mode. That way the camera can't change the reading. Sometimes I zoom in the middle tone area to fill the frame then take my reading and set it in manual.

What if there is no middle tone? Simple I carry several 12-inch squares of middle tone swatches of fabric in my bag. One each of; green, brown, blue (actually a piece of faded blue jean) and gray. Fabric can be folded and stuffed in a small place so it is easier to carry then a gray card. Now if you use these middle tone samples they must be in the same light as your subject or it won't work. You can also take a reading form the dark areas and light areas and average the two.

At some point you might say why don't you just use automatic.  I have had a camera in my hands for 42 years. Before metering systems and when I had to set everything manual. I feel more comfortable setting my own exposures. Plus auto exposure systems are accurate about 80% of the time. The other 20% needs some kind of adjustment. So with automatic one in five pictures will not be exposed properly. Not good enough for me. That and while I don't need deep technical explanations I do need to know how to use my camera to the best of my ability.  So I use the manual side of the dial. I have more control in manual and the camera can't change my settings. I got the power, I the man.

Next couple of days and I will post the last in this series.  I will discuss difficult exposure situations and how to make them simple. I really appreciate the feed back and compliments. If I can help you take an image that will last a lifetime then I have accomplished my goal.

Troutman

Click here to discuss this tutorial on the Nikon Talk Forum at DPReview...

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