Use of live light and exposure meter

As we pointed out on the previous page, the metering of live light photos is different from ordinary metering. In general photometry, whether color negative or black-and-white negative is used, the shadow part should be exposed-that is, the reflected light of the important shadow part should be read, and then the exposure amount should be determined. By measuring light in this way, you will take a negative, showing the details of important shadow parts.

However, in the live photos, in order to get a sense of reality, you need the shadow to be black!

In order to achieve this goal, how should you measure light? In order to achieve this typical live lighting effect, a reflected light exposure meter is used to read strong light or intermediate tones instead of shadows. By doing so, you are actually underexposed to the image. You didn't get enough light in the shadow part of the movie to produce details. Results: On the negative, there was no detail in the shaded part. In the photo, whether it is a color photo or a black-and-white photo, the shadow part turns black.

Therefore, when using negative film, whether it is color negative film or black-and-white negative film, the typical spotlight effect should be pursued when metering. Remember to adjust the metering in strong light or in the middle. How about using incident exposure meter instead of reflected light exposure meter? Not difficult. The incident light exposure meter gives a normal reading, which will produce a normal image. However, in order to get the effect of live light, you don't need normal images-you need underexposed images. Therefore, when you read the incident light, use boundary exposure, that is, reduce the aperture of one or two blocks to take an underexposed image.

If you use a gray card, the reason is the same. First, take readings in the normal way, and then use the surrounding light, that is, narrow the aperture by one or two blocks for exposure, so that the image is underexposed.

However, when using color reversal film, you should be careful not to narrow the aperture too much. The danger of underexposure of color reversal films is that you may get an annoying color cast. Nobody likes pictures of green faces! If color reversal films are used, our suggestion is to follow the exposure rules of color reversal films-exposure under strong light. Then, in order to get a slide with vivid light effect, the aperture can only be reduced by one grid.

Finally, if the scene is dark, you can use the usual methods of professional photographers, whether it is negative or reverse film. The scene may be too dark, and it is impossible to get the reading of the middle tone or strong light with the reflected light exposure meter. The scene may be too dark to read the gray card. The scene may be too dark to read data with the incident light exposure meter. So what should you do?

For this very dark scene, many professional photographers will read the readings of bright white objects: a piece of white paper, a white handkerchief and the white side of Kodak gray cardboard. Then they opened the aperture by about two and a half gears. Why do you want to drive second gear? Because their exposure meter is set to measure 18% gray reflected light. A white object reflects about five times as much light as it does-about 90% reflection. Therefore, the reading they got from the white object was as high as five times, which was too bright. By opening the large aperture, they can get the reading they should get when measuring 18% ash. Now they have the readings needed for normal exposure. Because the scene is originally illuminated by dim light, this normal exposure will reproduce the darkness of the original scene. As a result, a photo with vivid light effect was obtained.