Bryan Peterson Understanding Exposure Pdf

[Lorin Cupples]

Ididn't really like that book. It seemed to talk way too much about some things that either didn't matter or were already obvious, and not enough time talking about the fundamentals of light and exposure. It makes me think that Bryan Peterson doesn't really have a firm grasp on it himself, and that he has just learned some methods and tricks that usually work for him.

In an average outdoor scene, the sky (away from the sun) can provide a reference for exposure. That's why he says you can meter off the sky and then recompose and expose using those settings. The problem comes when the lighting is not average or when some things are exceptionally bright or dark.

If I were still shooting film, I'd get a good spot meter and meter all the important parts of a scene. Then I'd know how bright or how dark everything would be in the final image. (But, with a DSLR, I just look at the histogram.)

You meter the sky (north sky between 10am and 2pm) because it's the equivalent of gray card. You then have to ask yourself whether your subject is brighter or darker than a gray card and adjust exposure accordingly. Or you can just use the 'Sunny f/16' rule. Or meter the palm of your hand and subtract a stop or two.

These indirect methods of metering are used when you can't walk up to the subject and take a meter reading. And, even when you can, you still have to make a judgment about the relative reflectivity of the subject. Would you use the meter reading when metering a bright snow field?

I own a Gossen Sixtomat digital lightmeter and I checked my Minolta manual camera's: SRT-101, XE-1, XD-7, X-500. the X/XE/XD camera's are all very accurate, the SRT-101 most of the times. I checked some scenes that have moderate/average light, dark scenes, very bright scenes. The SRT has sometimes a stop more or a stop less difference.

Working with the lightmeter is fun but sometimes a hassle so I just trust my camera's lightmeter. What I do: I always set the film ISO a bit under the actual value, like ISO400=320, ISO 200=160, ISO 100=80. I understand from different sources it is better to overexpose film a little bit so you get dense exposures.

If you over-expose a little bit you have more chance to get a good picture. With automatic development and printing the machine just generates average gray scenses. I think when a picture is not good on paper you can try to let it reprint with a little more personal attention, in most cases you can get a better print. Just scan a negative yourself with a scanner and see how much more is possible, there is a large dynamic range. I thought it is called the "latitude" of film.

If I compensate the lighting manually I alway do it by 2 stops, under 2 stops the result is alsmost not vissible. So when your camera is calculates wrong by a stop or two there is no problem, but maybe two stops under exposure is worse than two stops over exposure.

And watch for gray stuff around you and use it as a gray card (as a replacement for a light meter), like pavement, or a medium gray photo bag and just meter that from close distance. Camera's with auto exposure lock are also easy, just meter average (=18% gray) stuff and lock the meter.

OK so if I'm shooting an outdoor shot with sunlight spread pretty uniformly over everything then I can get a reading off the sky. What are some of the situations that call for a different metering method? I take it aiming right in the center of the frame is not a good way to get a good reading.

One of the recent shots I took was in a forest and I was taking a shot of a gap between to rock walls. So in the gap there was very little light and not mention in the forest there isn't a whole lot of light either, but the leaves in the forest were lit up by the sun. When I looked at the shot the sunlit leaves were overexposed and the shot in general was kind of dull or washed out. What would I do in this situation, get a reading off the leaves or the sky?

From the SRT manual: CLC is a method to compensate big differences between bright and dark. I don't know if actually works: If you shoot a landscape with a bright sky and normal terrain, and you keep the horizon in the middle, CLC will compensate the reading of the bright sky, so the terrein will be exposed just right. But I don'tknow what it does for for example a portrait shot or something else. CLC is always on, you can't turn it off. But I think others can explain it better than I can.

Andrew, I still don't have a clue why you want to meter the sky. The sky is mainly the light source, and your camera meters the reflection of light from objects. Just look for something that has an average color or brightness. If there isn't anything use something dark and underexpose a few stops, or use something light and overexpose a few stops. It's all about 18% gray.

There are other trick: if possible use a CP filter to block the reflections of the leaves from trees. Or for example use a gradual ND filter to make sky a few stops darker so the difference between terrain and sky is smaller (you get a blue sky instead of a washed out sky, or a detailed terrein instead of a dark terrain).

CLC was Minolta's trade name for the earliest form of integrated metering, 'Contrast Light Compensation'. Introduced on the SRT101, it used two cells as a self compensating circuit to allow for the effects of backlighting or any other situation where the foreground and the background had greater than normal contrast. See this disussion...

>>One of the recent shots I took was in a forest and I was taking a shot of a gap between to rock walls. So in the gap there was very little light and not mention in the forest there isn't a whole lot of light either, but the leaves in the forest were lit up by the sun. When I looked at the shot the sunlit leaves were overexposed and the shot in general was kind of dull or washed out. What would I do in this situation, get a reading off the leaves or the sky?

Last night I was reading about light meters on the internet and I think I've got a better understanding of how to use it properly. Ultimately I want to get a reading off something that is 18% gray. When there's a big contrast in the scene then the meter doesn't know what to get a reading from or something.

I'm also pretty sure my light meter is off. Every shot was overexposed either a little or a decent amount. Does anyone know if the CdS cells that the CLC system works off of go bad over time? Maybe for my next roll I should close down 1 stop more than what the meter's telling me and see what happens.

I have done something similar to this to capture sunset/sunrise shots. You meter your exposure without the sun in the shot (just to left or right of the setting/rising sun), lock in exposure and then recompose with the sun inthe frame and shoot.

I think you need the old lower voltage battery, otherwise it reads wrong. The originals were mercury and aren't made anymore. There are adapters made and you can use hearing aid batteries or a Wein cell or have the camera adapted to modern batteries. You can search for px625 and see all options.

The shot below was processed with HDR Efex Pro using 5 exposures. I used Color Efex to create one of the off the wall HDR shots you see these days as my tribute to making art out of a run down building. Bryan loves going to places like this to stir up creativity and now I see why.

I ended up with a lot of fun shots which you can see at here. Many are unprocessed and some are just flat out fails, but I learned a lot and had fun shooting outside of my comfort zone. Be sure to read the captions of the shots to learn more.

I was fortunate to have Ron Martinsen as my Canon expert. Because of his equipment expertise I was able to take full advantage of my camera. I now have a much better understanding of my Rebel T1i and my camera lenses.

Based on my own observations and feedback I had from other students, I would have liked to have seen Bryan more engaged during the workshop.There were times when he was disconnected attending to business on his iPhone that was disappointing to the students who paid $995 to attend this course.

With those quibbles aside, I was very happy with the locations chosen and the experiences learned during the session. I got some great shots as did the students who attended, so we were all excited at the end to show the world our new shots.

You know Bryan Petersons books are by far the best out there, I have all of them and learned so much by reading them he explains everything that is so easy to understand and my photography went to another level, and his flash book WOW never thought I would understand flash;)

Thanks for taking the time to write about your experience Ron. I too am a big fan of Bryan's excellent collection of books and would recommend any and all of them to somebody looking for inspiration and technical instruction.

I'm very much hoping that I'll get a chance to attend one of his workshops at some point in the future.

i have rarely used manual mode. i usually shoot aperture priority. if i see that the highlights are getting too blown out, i will underexpose by the appropriate amount to keep the histogram moving to the left.

The need to use exposure compensation is a hint that you might be better off in manual mode for that shot. Sometimes the sunny 16 rule gives much better results than depending upon the meter. Another situation for manual mode is when you want a consistent exposure for a group of pictures. If taking a single shot you can point the camera at something mid grey and half press the shutter to lock the exposure before recomposing and shooting. That is a pain when taking several shots with the same lighting. Manual mode removes the pain.

I've never understood the internet forum mentality of "good" or "real" photographers shoot only manual mode. Its simply a setting, and depending on the needs it may be the best setting, but its not magic on its own. The key is simply understanding how your camera works, how it meters a given scene et al.

3a8082e126