Basic Lighting & Metering

Tutorial on lighting for separation in conjunction with the large format 4x5 view camera class for professional photography students at the Art Institute of Colorado. The video covers meter reading and bellows factor.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• view-camera
• photography
• 4x5
• bellows-factor
• Large
• Format
• separation
• Thomas Christopher Moore

[rvcasa]

@tomonator60 Thats what it says when I try to watch it on my iPhone's Safari browser. "The content owner has not made this video available on mobile". When I try to watch it on iPhone's YouTube app, it does not even show up!? 1 hour on train to work daily, I could learn lots! Thanks heaps.

[tomonator60]

@rvcasa Think I got it thanks for the heads up! T

[rvcasa]

Please make this video available on mobile

[tomonator60]

@rvcasa OK thought it was, people watch it on mobile devices> I will check into it.

[tomonator60]

yes absolutely provided the scene you are trying to capture has a full range of values from white to black.

[tomonator60]

Really good question! First a gray card is adjustable so it won't necessarily represent the middle value in every situation. E gads adjustable! Sure go outside tilt it up and down the value will change. I am not shooting an average scene, I am shooting a scene made up of whites. So if I know a white with detail is zone 7 or 2 stops over middle gray why not just place my exposure there? Let all the other values fall below that. Hope I didn't make it worse, more explanation at myphotolesson,com

[davidowenjames]

@tomonator60 I understand your method for the situation and it seems to me like a smart way of doing it. I have an example question: say I the grey card outside and put it wholly in light getting a reading of say f 8.0, then photograph it there at f 8.0...

Then I take the grey card into some shade, get a reading of say f 2.0 and then photograph it there at f 2.0.

Will the grey card in each photograph be middle grey?

[davidowenjames]

Can you explain to me why an 18% grey card wouldn't be useful for spot metering in this situation? One more question from a beginner: the 18% grey card, when exposed at the stop indicated by the meter, will it represent the middle zone in any situation?

Thank you.

[tomonator60]

No you didn't miss anything a reflected reading of anything is going to make it middle gray or zone 5 add to stops that will make it white or zone 7. I just wanted the light areas to be just that, white with detail or zone 7. The blacks had no fill so they were not going to have detail anyway so there was no reason to consider them. That is why in this case a incident reading wouldn't work as well in this situation, it would have averaged areas that were not going to register.

[jcarrig]

Why do you "know that white value is 2 stops over the middle values"? it seems like you skipped the actual step of metering the scene here, or maybe i don't understand something else.