Metering for darker skin

I am a nonprofessional and will be taking some informal shots at a

wedding. I have little experience with darker skin tones. I shoot

6x6 manual with a handheld meter and some 35mm with auto metering.

Do I need to make any adjustments when metering for closeup shots,

or for automatic settings on a metz 45 flash?

You will have a white dress (a guess) and a dark bride (another guess)

 

 

 

--- you will have to shoot two shots (the old bracket method) of each [and every] pose and let the printer have a go at printing the images. One will be good detail on the dress, and one will have good exposure on the face(s.)

 

 

 

There is not a simple, nonprofessional way for better results.

I make sure I use light backgrounds and two flashes. The first time I ran into this situation I had a african american bride and her husband was even darker and one of her bridesmaids was a pale irish girl. I made the mistake of shooting them with green woods in the background. Fortunately I also shot them at a lake with sky in the background and those were much much better!! I learned my lesson.

The key here is film choice.Use a medium contrast film such as NPH or Portra 400NC and expose properly(for the shadows).The brightness range of a dark suit(tux) and a white wedding gown in the same scene is a common wedding scenario.

METERING AND PHOTOGRAPHING DARKER SKIN:

 

The solutions are many, and not in simply overexposing the color negative film.

 

Use 2 flash heads on a camera bracket. Or have a remote slave flash, total 2 lights. The 2

lights will reduce the effective contrast, and produce a more 3D look. This is an excellent

idea. It works well in any situation. You will need a specially adapted Stroboframe to do

this.

 

Use a diffusion filter on your flashes. You'll lose 2 f stops of power here, so you may have

to use 400 ASA film to compensate for your loss.

 

Fool your camera into slightly overexposing: set your film speed to a film speed which is

1 f stop slower, and use color negative film only.

 

Use natural light whenever possible. This diffused fill light will lighten areas a flash

arrangement cannot.

 

Use bounce flash whenever possible. This is diffused light. You will need a white or beige

ceiling to bounce light from. An 8' white ceiling will cause you a 2 f stop loss.

 

Pose them against a medium color background. I know, you thought I was going to say

"white" but if you do, the auto mode will be fooled into lowering the flash power and

possibily underexposing the film. The camera or flash unit is sort of "set" and calibrated

to see a medium tone. It LIKES a medium tone.

 

Pose them very, very near any wall. They should stand only one or one and one half feet in

front of any wall or background. If you use more distance between them and the wall, the

wall will go darker in the final print. Again, use lots of bounce light.

 

In outdoors light, use natural light, no flash, but always turn their back to the sun. The

exposure for ASA 100 film under blue sky shade is 1/125th at f2.8. If you are using ASA

400 film, use 1/125 at f4-1/2. Otherwise use your incident meter and shield the dome

from the blue sky above. Otherwise with your auto mode in your reflected type meter in

your camera or flash; point at the darker clothing or grassy ground to get an exposure.

But my suggested exposure amount will likely work very well.

 

If you can, use an incident meter. Learn how to "shield the meter" to meter for the fill.

Instructions and discussion can be found by search with www.google.com for

"incidentmeterreading" No spaces. Look for my name in the discussion.

 

Bring some light discs with you in silver and white surfaces. Place these on the ground or

have a guest (they will help you) point the silver reflector from a place under the knees of

the person upward towards their face. You can also purchase some silver mylar vinyl

canvas and lay this on the ground. Buy about 3-4 yards. Search www.google.com only for

"fhi018" model number and located at www.ahh.biz

 

The white dress of the bride will also provide some fill light for the darker Groom if they

are seated, perhaps. Photograph the Bride slightly in front of the Groom with his arms

around her for this effect.

 

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Try not to flash very closely. 6 feet is better than 5 feet, for example with a flash. But 8

feet is even better with a flash. This may make you use a short telephoto. This will put

the "rule of inverse square" on your side to reduce contrast alittle.

 

"lightingatthealtar" "meterforthefilllighting" "meterforthefill"

 

Timber Borcherding timberborcherding

Do not shoot with a camera on auto, the relective meter will be tricked. The

best way to meter is with the hand held meter that you have mentioned. Make

sure that you know how to use the meter correctly..hold it in front of your

subjects pointing at your camera. Doing this will measure the light falling on

your subjects, not the light that is reflected from them..the light that falls on

them does not change if they are light or dark. Also as mentioned already, do

not have too dark a background such as all trees.

One other thought. Darker skin usually falls on a gray card Zone V so there is less chance of the meter being fooled by it. Lighter skin falls on a Zone VI so one has to open up one stop if metering off the light skin. It is easier to get a correct exposure with darker skin than with lighter skin.

I think that "dark skin" would be more likely a Zone 3 or 4. Furthermore, any reflective

readings can be adversely affected by the overly broad coverage of the meter. I would

rather sow seeds of doubt than to give this person confidence that he will have success

with what he has got! He has some shooting procedure adjustments to make!

Timber - there is some debate about Zones for African Americans...<p> <em>

"From the meter reading, exposure for a caucasian probably should be increased a stop or slightly more in order to accurately place the skin in the zone above Zone V and the suit coat in the dark but detailed realm of Zone IV or Zone III. The black woman probably ought to be given a little less exposure than the "spot" reading of her face indicates: at Zone IV she will be dark and have plenty of detail and the white dress will now lie in the well-textured vicinity of Zone VII." </em>

</em> <p> Yet if you look at a chart it could be interpreted as Zone III <p><em>Zone 0 Total black

 

<p>Zone I Black without any texture<p>

 

Zone II Black with slight suggestion of tonality<p>

 

Zone III Darkest areas that still retail some visible detail<p>

 

Zone IV Average shadows in landscapes or portraits<p>

 

Zone V Middle Gray - 18% gray card<p>

 

Zone VI Average Caucasian skin - Shadows on snow in sunlit snowscapes<p>

 

Zone VII Lightest areas in any scene that still retain some visible detail<p>

 

Zone VIII White areas with slightly visible textures - Highlights on Caucasian skin<p>

 

Zone IX Glaring white surfaces - Highlights without any texture<p>

 

Zone X A light source (records only as the maximum white value of paper surface)</em> <p> I'd say bracket...just to be safe.

One person who may be photographing darker skinned persons at weddings is Carl

Williams. Sooner or later, he will chime in. He should give his opinions and experience

here.

 

What I do in practice is to use 2 flash heads and over expose 2/3 f stop with color negative

film. So, I rate a ASA 160 Vericolor/Porta to be 100 and then provide more buffer

exposure to go to ASA 80. So, I don't know how you want to define "exposure

compensation" here because most wedding photographers rate Portra differently. But the

film can stand the overexposure anyway.

 

By overexposing alittle, you make sure that if the flash has not recycled fully during a

burst of shots by the photographer, you won't have some under exposure. The little

"charged" light goes on usually before the unit is at 100% power. Maybe it goes on at 85%

for the sake of argument. With another .2 of a second, it would be at 100%. But if you are

rapidly shooting, you can't tell what happened. Therefore, I overexpose for this reason,

too. The fact that I might be helping out the dark skinned exposure issue is just a 2nd

issue solved: 2 for 1.

 

I say "shut off the auto mode" and learn to use manual mode. I never use auto mode

unless I place a slave unit into the hands of a guest, such as a Vivitar 285. I take control at

all times for my exposure values.

 

Using a 2nd light source at the altar is very important for dark skinned folks. A 2nd

source can be as simple as a used $25 vivitar 283 purchased at the auctions. Add a slave

unit to it and you have a 2nd source of light. Even if there is alittle mismatch in light

output between the camera unit and the slave, there is no problem. The 2nd light will

illuminate the sides of their faces that would normally disappear with a one-flash-unit

system.

 

I say Robert should go out and purchase a Vivitar 285 and stick a slave on it. A guest or

usher can hold the unit in their hands; you don't really need a stand for it. I know this to

be the solution. And no, you really don't need an umbrella. An umbrella is only a extra

slight improvement that requires 4 more times the power to run.

Since you are a MF user and have and use a manual meter, just use your meter in incident mode. You didn't say if your 35 is autofocus or not, but you can certainly set the camera to expose manually! Just treat it like your MF! The real trick is the film as has been mentioned. Use a Pro film of moderate contrast, such as Portra 160NC or 400NC. I prefer these for wedding work (sorry to all you Fuji users). I DO however like the NPZ 800 stuff from Fuji. Bright churches can be hand held if you're steady enough. (Good grain structure in MF!) Your Metz 45 flash is pretty good unit. Solid and stable! Neg film can take the overexposure of dance shots in dark halls. Just use the settings as per the flash and you will get acceptable prints.

Here is a NPZ image shot handheld.<div></div>

David P.'s comments don't go to the core of the problem for dark skinned folks: simply

choosing another film type will only have a tiny effect. Over exposure is a safety net, but

not the whole answer. Several methods of using softer light should be used. I think the

readers should understand that the picture above does not illustrate the problem and any

solution.