Get It Right

By Paul Tyler

It turns out after many emails to the technical line that many of you would really appreciate getting back to basics. The main concern seems to be with confusion concerning light metering! So I thought why not let's get back to basics and really understand how light meters can help you to understand better how the picture will look when printed.

One of the most interesting questions I have been asked since issue one is, "Why don't my pictures look the same as when I looked through the viewfinder?" This question becomes even more important for those of you that spend good money, hire a studio and model and wait with excitement for your pictures to come back. Then to discover they are rubbish. I know many keen amateurs that were so disappointed by this that they never bothered again, which is a real shame.

Understanding what your film sees and what you see and how light works is a fundamental basic, but with the advent of fully automatic light metering seems to have been forgotten. So lets go back to basics!

If you hire a studio and model you will also have a flash meter. You can expect the guy to show you how to use the meter, but you cannot expect him to show you how to calculate what results the readings will give.   This also applies very much to any photography you are doing of a model, even out of doors.

Let's say for arguments sake that a beautiful model is standing in front of you on a very bright sunny day. She is holding an umbrella (parasol) over herself and it all looks wonderful. You allow the camera to meter for you. When the picture comes back the scene looks great, but the models face is completely in shadow and hardly visible. Ok let's assume that you're on the ball and spot metered for her face and now when the picture comes back she looks wonderful, but the scene around her has completely disappeared like there was nothing there. Just burnt out. Remember light is like focus. Your eyes as they move around a scene compensate for the differences, but film cannot do that. What it sees is what you get.

Film has changed and massively improved over the last five years, in fact film now that is 400asa is as good quality wise as 50asa   ten years ago. Forgive me for really starting at the beginning, but my post bag shows some of you need help here. If you don't just skip down.

So your camera is showing a reading of f8 at 125. A very standard reading. So if you open up to f5.6 your shutter speed will go to 250. Being mainly concerned with glamour we are concentrating on the aperture. (f numbers) So choosing the aperture affects the speed!

Now if I opened to f5.6 and didn't change the speed, too much light would come into the camera and the picture would be overexposed. If I closed down to f11 and again left the speed at 125 it would be underexposed. As this is by a full f number either way it is called "by a stop". Now all good quality modern film can give details in the darkest area and brightest area providing their range is within 5 stops. So with your subject at f11 at 125 let's say and your meter tells you that the darkest area in the scene is 5.6 at 125 and your brightest area is f22 at 125 can you see from f5.6 to f22 is five stops?

Notice the shutter speed remained 125. So from that information we know that everything from the darkest point  to the brightest point we metered fall within our five stop range. So we can shoot the subject at 125 at f8 knowing we will have detail in the shadows and the highlights. So using the light meter seriously allows us to visualise what the film will see and how our pictures will look.

One of the biggest problems I see with amateur glamour work is far too heavy shadows really not allowing any detail to come through. Generally the reason for that first bad studio session, or the opposite complete burn out of any detail making everything flat. With glamour work ideally you want to accentuate the curves, swells and depressions on the models body using the light source. OK I am the first to admit it takes practice and an experienced eye, but at least by using the flash meter you can get some idea of what effect the boxes, snoots, doors etc, are having as you arrange and change them.

OK we'll go for the easiest studio set up. Three lights and a floor space with paper back drop. Set the lights up firstly as you want them, however it takes your fancy. Now using the flash meter walk around the whole area you expect the model to use and ensure there are no more than three stops difference over the whole area. Adjust and move lights until that's what you achieve. Now I guarantee if your camera settings are correct you will at least get well lit pictures with brightness, colour saturation and sparkle. Use the modelling lights to give you an idea of how the picture will look. OK they will not be fantastic lighting wise, but subtleties of lighting only comes with practice, but it's a good idea to have the basics in place first.

There are many, many different factors concerning what you see and what your film sees. I do believe that getting the lighting sorted out is one way of improving things no end. I will go into greater details about other aspects in future months, but let me say film is of course important. Flame me if you like, but I say that quality film is far superior to 'own brand'. Fuji, Agfa, Kodak, Ilford whatever you use will give far better results than chemist and drugstore own brands.  So a golden rule is to find a film you like and stick with it. All films behave slightly differently even different types by the same manufacturer. So if you always use the same film you begin to learn what you can and cannot do with it. I am not talking about speed here, I am referring to brand type.

Another golden rule for studio work is to use around 100 asa. The flashes produce so much light it will improve colour saturation. At 100ASA  using 125 you'll probably find f22 is very common. Another very good piece of advice is if you are using a zoom it must be of very good  quality. Really studio work needs fixed length lenses for full colour saturation, but more details in a later article.

I hope I have covered why light metering is important and how knowing what the readings are gives you a chance to understand better what the picture will look like.

Understand what your light meter is telling you and what your film sees and be confident when you squeeze the shutter.

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