Jim Zuckerman
I was asked recently to write a book on hand held exposure meters. I used these kinds of meters for 25 years in conjunction with my Mamiya RZ 67 medium format camera, and I obviously have a lot of experience in reading light. One of my recent books is titled Perfect Exposure, and the way I determined exposure for most of the pictures in the book was with a hand held meter.
Since I went 100% digital last February (I bought the Canon 1Ds Mark II), I haven’t used a hand held meter once. I’ve carried it with me, but I just don’t see a need for it. I know there are situations where, in the future, I could use one, but so far I’ve been fine without one.
A case in point occurred two days ago when I woke up early in the morning to see my entire area engulfed in thick fog. This is one of my favorite lighting conditions, so I got dressed, grabbed my equipment, and walked around looking for nice graphic compositions in the dense fog.
In the past, I would have used a hand held incident meter. But now, I just let the camera’s meter read the light (this may surprise you, but I used Program mode) knowing that in the RAW converter I can make adjustments to perfect the exposure. That’s the secret. If you shoot in RAW, the amount of correction that’s possible after-the-fact is phenomenal.
My second ‘secret’ is that I underexpose virtually all my photos by –2/3 f/stop. I set the exposure compensation feature so this reduction in exposure is applied to each image. RAW files can be lightened by several f/stops, so the underexposure does not in any way damage the photo or cause a loss of detail in subtle areas of the composition. The reason I do this is that it provides insurance -- it protects the highlights from blowing out with a loss in texture and detail. In digital photography, retention of highlight detail is a very important issue. In the critiques I do, I see over and over again photos where this detail has been lost. The reason this occurs is either (1). the photo was taken in contrasty lighting, (2). the photo was taken in jpeg mode, and/or (3) the photo was overexposed.
By shooting in RAW mode and habitually underexposing virtually everything, you can prevent this problem and get a higher yield of good pictures from each shoot. Every picture I took in the fog was exposed perfectly once I made minor adjustments in the RAW converter.
I told the publisher who asked me to write the book that I didn't think the majority of photographers would be using hand held meters in the future. I know some will, but I didn't think the book would sell well at this juncture in the history of photography.
Comments