Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
Ian, I don't specifically use a Zone thinking method. I measure the light on highlight and shadow sides of the subject, with the dome facing away. This gives me the full range of values. I then decide where I want to place the highlights and shadows. Lately I am using C-41 film, so development is not really a big contributor in this (for me). I use normal C-41 developing times, so my exposure needs to fit the subject into the film latitude, given the C-41 process. If the subject values fall within the film total scale, then good. If not, I have a choice to make in terms of which values to prioritize, which for me is normally to avoid blown highlights.
Black and white for me uses the same approach, but you have more ability to change film speed and development time to control things.
Sekonic's website has good videos that have helped me with metering. SergeiR gave a good suggestion to consider Dean Collins' approach to understanding lighting. He has a good video on YouTube talking about the range of values and capturing them on film.
Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
Forgot to mention, for me an important part of low key images is a dark (black) background. The subject (and lighting) need to be sufficiently far from the background for this to be effective. Light spillage onto the background is easy to see in the image. "Sufficiently far" for tabletop still life starts at around 6 feet/2 meters in my experience.
Here is a good discussion from Sekonic, with image examples, of reflected vs incident readings. They show high key and low key examples.
https://www.sekonic.com/united-state...eycompare.aspx
Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
thanks for sharing. beautiful work!
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Originally Posted by
dasBlute
Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
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Originally Posted by
dasBlute
Thanks for the reminder of Chris's work. Always enjoyed his images.
Les
Re: Low Key Still Photography Using Flash
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Originally Posted by
IanBarber
With the dome pointing away from the subject, will the light meter give a reading for light falling where the dome is to a middle grey value on film.
So for example, if I have 1 stop difference from where I have the dome to say a few inches to the left, then that area would be in theory zone 4 (Ish)
Sorry I'm coming to this a little late, but the idea behind an incident meter is that it's not measuring reflectance at all, it's measuring the amount of light falling on a subject. How much light that subject will reflect is completely determined by the subject itself. If an incident meter tells you a subject is lit to f/8, then exposing at f/8 should give you a "correct" exposure regardless of the subject itself. If it's a black subject it should come out black at f/8, if it's a white subject it should come out white at f/8. There's no consideration for an expected reflectance of the subject the way there has to be with reflected metering