Problem with shooting with a bright white back drop

[Andy_Pearlman]

Just make sure you're using an incident meter, not a reflective meter, and you sheild the ball from the background and back lights. I usually do this by standing in for the model myself, and hold the meter under my chin. Any back light hitting the ball will give you a false overexposure, causing you to stop dowm, giving you an underexposed image. You might also check to see if your meter is calibrated, then check it against some friends whose meters/exposures you trust. For some reason, when I have my old Minolta IV serviced, it comes back giving me under exposures. I check it against three friends' meters, and it is unformly off from all three. When I dial in the correction on the adjustment dial, so that it matches them, it works great, but its "off" from the service tech's facotry setting. Go figure.

Also, try flag your bbackground lights from spilling onto the model (unless you want a little rim) and especially into the camera. Here's a couple of shots I posted recently of my basic "white seamless" setup.






Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[That_Look_Photography]

Hi Andy,
That setup is just what I needed to see. Thanks for posting it. May I ask how you were able to shoot that image of it with the flashes going off ?

Mike

That Look Photo

[Andy_Pearlman]

My assistant shot them by available (modeling) light - slow shutter, no flash (which as you've figured out, whould have triggered the studio strobes and messed everything up). In the old days, we did this kind of behind the scenes on tungsten film, now with digital its easier to get the color balance right.

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[jimmyd]

re your pics: i can't help but wonder about the significance of you labeling the client, yourself, and the dog... but not the model. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Andy_Pearlman]

I figured that was kind of obvious, but if you can't figure it out, then maybe you're in the wrong line of work? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio

[jimmyd]

hehehehe.... no, i get it... and i got it. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[Marko]

A reflective meter's reading is NEVER meant to be taken literally. Reflective metering is absolutely the most accurate form of metering there is, it tells you EXACTLY how hot or how dark any portion of your subject matter will read if you meter carefully, but it takes more time and requires more interpretation than incident metering.

Whatever you read against, it gives you the formula to render this subject (or subjects if you're taking an overall meter reading) as a midtone, specifically tone in B&W or color equivalent to your greycard that we call "middle grey." Anything that is actually lighter than this your reflective meter is trying to darken, anything actually darker your meter is attempting to lighten.

And, in the case of a white backdrop, therein lies your very simple problem.

A reflective meter requires interpretation to expose properly.

Oh, and one last bit of info. Average caucasian skin metered at middle grey renders unnaturally dark. Like they had a bad sunburn. Typically a stop over is much better. For very tanned people, somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 stop over is more appropriate. Most afro-american skin tones render very well at the middle grey setting, unless you're shooting in B&W and going for artistic effect.