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<blockquote data-quote="spb_stan" data-source="post: 658112" data-attributes="member: 43545"><p>Once you understand how the meter sees the world, it becomes pretty clear what is happening. A scene often has more light intensity range than what can be recorded by the camera, from the very darkest to the very brightest part of the scene is 12-14 stops, or doubling in intensity 12-14 times. So the meter is calibrated to a midpoint between the blackest black and the brightest the camera can capture and is scaled by our perception of light and dark. The midpoint between the brightest and the darkest in our perfection is middle grey and in light intensity that is about 18% along the scale of deep black at 0% and the brightest being 100%. Think of mixing white paint and black paint. One might assume that equal parts of white and black would be middle grey, but we are much more sensitive to small changes in the low energy end of the luminosity scale than the high end because all our senses are logarithmic in scale instead on linear. If you started adding a small amount of black to the white paint, you would notice a darkening much quicker than is if adding a little white paint requires a lot more white to reach what you see as about mid why between white and black middle grey. Meters are doing the same thing, assuming the midpoint in exposure will be 18% black and 82% white. Shooting a scene that is very bright like snow on a sunny day or a white wedding dress will almost always come out dull, grey and not white. We know the scene is supposed to be very bright but the camera doesn't so we trick it into setting exposure TRIAD settings to overexpose by the meter's calibration but we see it is snow and it is supposed to be bright. </p><p>Same with taking a portrait of someone with a deep tan or black skin will almost always be overexposed and look unrealistically bright. So we purposely underexpose skin that is supposed to look darker by dialing in a stop or two of negative compensation. Most of us probably use full manual all the time so we simply set the meter point a couple stops underexposed for dark subjects and a couple stops over the meter center line for snow or bright white scenes. It is easier to go full manual in these cases than using auto-exposure modes because it is too easy to forget compensation is still one when changing senses because the meter does not function in auto modes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="spb_stan, post: 658112, member: 43545"] Once you understand how the meter sees the world, it becomes pretty clear what is happening. A scene often has more light intensity range than what can be recorded by the camera, from the very darkest to the very brightest part of the scene is 12-14 stops, or doubling in intensity 12-14 times. So the meter is calibrated to a midpoint between the blackest black and the brightest the camera can capture and is scaled by our perception of light and dark. The midpoint between the brightest and the darkest in our perfection is middle grey and in light intensity that is about 18% along the scale of deep black at 0% and the brightest being 100%. Think of mixing white paint and black paint. One might assume that equal parts of white and black would be middle grey, but we are much more sensitive to small changes in the low energy end of the luminosity scale than the high end because all our senses are logarithmic in scale instead on linear. If you started adding a small amount of black to the white paint, you would notice a darkening much quicker than is if adding a little white paint requires a lot more white to reach what you see as about mid why between white and black middle grey. Meters are doing the same thing, assuming the midpoint in exposure will be 18% black and 82% white. Shooting a scene that is very bright like snow on a sunny day or a white wedding dress will almost always come out dull, grey and not white. We know the scene is supposed to be very bright but the camera doesn't so we trick it into setting exposure TRIAD settings to overexpose by the meter's calibration but we see it is snow and it is supposed to be bright. Same with taking a portrait of someone with a deep tan or black skin will almost always be overexposed and look unrealistically bright. So we purposely underexpose skin that is supposed to look darker by dialing in a stop or two of negative compensation. Most of us probably use full manual all the time so we simply set the meter point a couple stops underexposed for dark subjects and a couple stops over the meter center line for snow or bright white scenes. It is easier to go full manual in these cases than using auto-exposure modes because it is too easy to forget compensation is still one when changing senses because the meter does not function in auto modes. [/QUOTE]
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