Portrait Lighting and metering

[zeitgeist]

Daniel Ciccone wrote:
>
> Help! I recently shot a group portrait of my family. It was a sunny
> day, I had an asian printed screen or room devider for a backround. This was
> placed in front of a large window wich allowed light to come into the scene
> from behind. As I do not have refelectors I decided to place my sunpack
> thrystor behind the camera to use as fill flash on a seperate tripod. I then
> took a flash reading at the camera using my minolta meter and shooting Porta
> VC 400 film in my hasselblad.
>
> I have just picked up my prints and they are all grossly underexposed,
> wich leads me to this question. Can a flash meter only be used to read at the
> subject if not how do you correct for a reading at the camera. According to
> the reading at this time I was afraid my exposure would be to hot.
>
> Sincerely Dan Ciccone
>

This is an extremely garbled question with far too many
possible variations to consider, sun, meter reading at the
camera, background in the window?

did you meter at the camera, but the subjects were another
ten feet away, that would account for several stops under
right there, was the window in view of the meter? that could
fool the meter,

after taking the meter reading, did you change the f/stop on
the camera (note the sheepish grin on my red face...)

[Daniel Ciccone]

[Anon]

You didn't say what type of meter. Is it an incident light meter
(white dome) if so, use it at the subject position and point the dome
towards the flash, in this case you said the flash was behind the
camera.

On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:40:58 GMT, sic...@home.com (Daniel Ciccone)
wrotf:

[Wilt W]

<<As I do not have refelectors I decided to place my sunpack
thrystor behind the camera to use as fill flash on a seperate tripod. I then
took a flash reading at the camera using my minolta meter and shooting Porta
VC 400 film in my hasselblad.

I have just picked up my prints and they are all grossly underexposed,
wich leads me to this question.>>

1. If you put the thyristor flash on Auto, it could have been fooled by the
bright window and not output much fill at all.

2. " I then took a flash reading at the camera"...If the Minolta meter was the
typical Autometer X, you don't use it AT the camera! If you did, you could
have gotten (and used) a totally bogus reading.

3. "prints and they are all grossly underexposed"...You neglect to mention if
the negatives have the proper density. If they do, it could be the person
printing the negs (especially if a consumer-grade lab with a high schooler
running it!) who read the negative density wrongly, resulting in a bad print
from a good negative.

--Wilt

[Logan McMinn]

What method were you using, incident or reflected? If you tried to take an
incident reading at the camera, I can easily believe you would get underexposed
negatives. But if you took a reflected reading, you should have gotten a decent
exposure unless you had the meter set up incorrectly (wrong film speed, etc.) or
aimed it incorrectly (or if your group was a lot of pale skinned people wearing
white). Also, depending on the model of Hasselblad, you may have the camera set
to an incorrect sync setting, especially if you used the flash connection on the
camera body rather than the one on the lens.

Daniel Ciccone wrote:

> Help! I recently shot a group portrait of my family. It was a sunny
> day, I had an asian printed screen or room devider for a backround. This was
> placed in front of a large window wich allowed light to come into the scene

> from behind. As I do not have refelectors I decided to place my sunpack

> thrystor behind the camera to use as fill flash on a seperate tripod. I then
> took a flash reading at the camera using my minolta meter and shooting Porta
> VC 400 film in my hasselblad.
>
> I have just picked up my prints and they are all grossly underexposed,

[TCAA]

I do idiot lighting (some modeling lights, some slaved strobes--who knows where the
shadows lurk, if "the shadow do" he ain't telling me), but at any initial setup
involving manual lighting, I measure 1) the ambient, 2) each light separately
(background first, then key followed by fill--separately so they are not shooting
equally and provide for some patterning or modeling [but not too much--I'm not that
adventurous]), and, finally, 3) the gray card value at the model's face, which is
pretty much my f-stop, unless I don't like it, and in that case, I can cut power to
my lights or move them, whichever bores the subject least.

--Jim
zeitgeist wrote:

> Daniel Ciccone wrote:
> >
> > Help! I recently shot a group portrait of my family. It was a sunny
> > day, I had an asian printed screen or room devider for a backround. This was
> > placed in front of a large window wich allowed light to come into the scene
> > from behind. As I do not have refelectors I decided to place my sunpack
> > thrystor behind the camera to use as fill flash on a seperate tripod. I then
> > took a flash reading at the camera using my minolta meter and shooting Porta
> > VC 400 film in my hasselblad.
> >
> > I have just picked up my prints and they are all grossly underexposed,
> > wich leads me to this question. Can a flash meter only be used to read at the
> > subject if not how do you correct for a reading at the camera. According to
> > the reading at this time I was afraid my exposure would be to hot.
> >
> > Sincerely Dan Ciccone
> >
>

[Pat Jerina]

The way I typically use my flash meter is read I off of the subject; right
on top of their nose if space permits. If you read off of the camera then
the image would be underexposed. The light fall-off from camera to subject
would be very great and therefore underexposed images.

pat jerina photography
214.893.0458 phone
214.696.1758 fax
http://www.patjerina.com

[Eduardo Márquez]

This is a very strange question, I simply don't get it.
Please post more information about the setting, such as:

1) What was the main light and where exactly was it. If it was the
window, was it a north window, or what orientation had, and where was
the sun, and what was infront of the window... the background you said?
Was the window covered by... a background?

2) What type of flash were you using and in wich setting, also, what
was the exposure (f stop and time).

3) What kind of meter did you used, or how did you measured the light,
with a flash meter? with a light meter? incident, reflective, spot...?
with the camera meter? with the camera ambient meter AND with a flash
meter? What was what the meter indicated?

4) How many people, dimension of room, distances from the camera,
walls, reflectors, light sources, etc.

And when you supply this information, and only then, you'll receive
good answers. For now, everybody's only guessing. That's all. No one
can know for sure what happened.

Sincerely,

--
Eduardo Marquez
ICQ14538225
http://www.foto.deanda.com

In article <_YrO4.37492$k5.10...@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com>,

sic...@home.com (Daniel Ciccone) wrote:
> Help! I recently shot a group portrait of my family. It was a
sunny
> day, I had an asian printed screen or room devider for a backround.
This was
> placed in front of a large window wich allowed light to come into the
scene
> from behind. As I do not have refelectors I decided to place my
sunpack
> thrystor behind the camera to use as fill flash on a seperate
tripod. I then
> took a flash reading at the camera using my minolta meter and
shooting Porta
> VC 400 film in my hasselblad.
>
> I have just picked up my prints and they are all grossly
underexposed,
> wich leads me to this question. Can a flash meter only be used to
read at the
> subject if not how do you correct for a reading at the camera.
According to
> the reading at this time I was afraid my exposure would be to hot.
>
> Sincerely Dan
Ciccone
>
>

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