Photographing Indian (Asian) Skin Correctly

Hi All.

 

I'd like some advice from you guys. I've been asked to shoot some

family pictures for an indian friend & would like advice from those

in the know on exposing for the correct skin tones.

 

I'll be metering handheld with a sekonic.

 

Many Thanks

 

Gavin.

if you're metering hand held with a sekonic (ambient), then you don't need to worry...we only worry when we're using the in-camera meter that reads everything as middle grey. For example, if you took three people, black, asain, and white, and had them all stand next to each other for a shot, and then for metering reasons you filled your cameras frame with each of these individuals faces, you would get three different readings from your camera all under the same lighting condition. the camera is designed to give you 18% middle zone 5 grey. if you're using your sekonic on ambient, then just meter. But if you require this advice, i'd recomend learning how the camera sees and converts tonal values.

Eric has mixed up couple important points, present some incorrect points...

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<I>if you're metering hand held with a sekonic (ambient), then you don't need to worry...we only worry when we're using the in-camera meter that reads everything as middle grey.</I>

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Most every in camera meter of recent vintage will give you a correct exposure, while a hand-held meter in the ambient mode will read the light falling on the subject (if used correctly) and give you a value for exposing middle grey, an 18% reflectance. This is a fundamental difference between ambient and reflected metering. Mixing the two up will get you in a bit of a tangle and make you second guess your camera�s meter when you don�t need to do so, or shouldn�t.<p>

If you have a modern SLR or similar camera, you can rely on your cameras meter without worry in most cases, assuming you have taken time to learn how to use it(this usually involves reading the instruction manual and thinking about what things actually do). True, you always have to think about the rest of the scene beyond skin tone, but this comes with experience.

chris:

 

Are you mixing this up and making it even more confusing - the camera's reflectance meter (leaving aside things like metering pattern) would assume the target to be made of something that is close to 18% grey in terms of reflectance regardless whether it is actually black or white or blue. The photographer has to compensate accordingly.

 

The incidence meter measures the light which is falling on the subject and thus suggest an exposure setting that would render black objects black and white objects white without need of further compensation.

<p>I agree with Johnson. Meters built into many cameras measure the light reflected by the subject, so the tone of the subject does affect the exposure. If you want to try this yourself, flip your metering to spot and aim the camera at a white object, a gray object, and a black object, and you'll see that the shutter/aperture changes for every one. This is because they're in different zones, as Ansel Adams describes in his book <i>The Negative</i>.</p>

<p>Incidence meters measure overall light reaching a subject, so assuming you have a constant and even light source, then incidence meter is pretty much fool-proof. Just make sure you take the reading where your subjects are; that is, don't have your subjects in the shade while you take a reading in sunlight. Happy shooting.</p>

Fact is, that my indian friend is looking always terribly unrecognizably dark (thus, UNDERexposed, not overexposed!)on the same photo where white skin people look completely well exposed. Now, explain THIS to me! or to Gavin.

the theory is about different skin tones, not so much how you measure them (yes that is important), and a black-indian-caucasian trio may be zone 4,5,and 6, or may be 3,5,7, or 3,4,7, or any combination in terms of final print targeting. So, the problem is a contrast issue --- printing down the caucasion's zone 7 to a 5-6 (where we sort of "expect" it) may well push the zone 3 into a very dark 2, or conversely raising the 3-4 to 4-5 push the caucasian to an 8-9, very white. (I am using B&W terms, but applies to color printing as well).

 

So, it is contrast control, and use of a lower contrast film, if they are to be mixed. Single tone wise, I don't see a huge problem (you can meter ambient or the face, and give +/- one stop usually allows enough play -- maybe 1.5 at max), unless you have auto-printing and bad contrast elements (white clothes on a dark face, etc).

 

Indian skin, incidentally, is often touted as being the mid-zone -- that is, matching ambient reading with a reflected reading, and blacks and caucasians 1 to 1.5 in either direction. After that, it is in printing, but that skin (assuming not a very dark variation) should require the least correction -- may .5-1 stop more light for a lot more detail.

 

A lot of commercial (e.g., drugstore/nonprofessional) will allow a punched up contrast, and that, coupled with more "vibrant" films, allows a more dramatic (but contrasty) impress-the-consumer result, with a lot of shadow loss. Wonderful for hot air ballon festivals, poor for people.

 

Search this site, we have seen some fair discussion on mixed wedding scenes (indeed, the white face on dark tux and dark face on white dress is the same issue, only as little more exaggerated).

Chris...

 

are you on the same page as the rest of us now? you repeated everything i said in a round about way.

 

everybody that has any confusion should load some slide film in thier camera and take three t-shirts outside and lay them down on the grass next to each other under the same lighting conditions. a white shirt, a black shirt, and somethinging in between (if you have a grey card tone as a shirt, let me know were to get it!). set your asa as per your slide film, use a lens that will fill the frame of your camera with the shirt material only, ie 50mm or better, and take a photo of that black shirt exactly as your IN CAMERA METER says is a correct exposure. do the same for the other two remaining shirts. you will have three different exposures, and when you get them back from the lab you'll find that black shirt photo over exposed and looking greyish, and your white shirt photo will be under exposed and looking greyish. neat eh! now back to the sekonic, set your asa, take an ambient (or incident) reading and step back and photograph all three shirts with that exposure. wow...all three shirts look like they are supposed to be. like i said in my first posting, you don't need to worry much with a hand held ambient meter, it gets tricky with the reflective in camera meter.

Hi All.

 

Eric was right.

 

Will be using incident metering from my sekonic (as stated). Just wanted to know if those in the know (read, have experience of this) usually under/over expose from a skintone reading to get the scene correct or give bias to the skin tones. Seems not so I'll just bracket slightly to be safe.

 

Regarding reading my manual . . . No point. the SLR's a Hasselblad - they're to simple to warrant reading of the manual! :)

 

Thanks again & bye for now.

 

Gavin

In general, Indian skin is wheatish and I would say mostly around mid-tone. Ask them to wear their traditional dresses and you could pull off good shots even with an automatic setting. In general the traditional dresses are not black or white but if its an informal setting ask them not to wear black or white. It is common in Indian family to have a somewhat fairer member as well as darker member. In such cases expose for the fairer person. Correct me if I am wrong, it will overexpose the darker person which doesn't look bad at all for an Indian skin. I have used NPZ with good success and in bright sunlight a low contrast film would be fine. If you need to see some examples let me know and I will upload some pictures. Looking at your portfolio, it is evident that you know how to expose skin tones. Aah..I am an Indian myself so I end up doing some informal sessions for my family and friends. I don't do people and if I can do it, it will be a walk in the park for you.

All of the above . . . and use Kodak Portra! It's usually very accurate assuming the lab

does not blow it.

Thanks Rajesh for the advice & the comments & also to Jeff for the film recommendation.

 

One thing Rajesh, if I expose for the lightest skin then I would expect the darkest skin to be underexposed (appear darker). I was going to average the readings of lightest & darkest & then bracket either way to give me some choices. Working manually so it's very quick to do.

 

As for the traditional dress, I've already been informed, the family (all 24 of them!) will be getting dressed up for the photos as it's a formal portrait as a gift so I'm looking forward to the colours.

 

Traditionally I'm a transparency fan so I was thinking astia or provia for film but I will try some negative colour film too, then also load black & white in one of the backs for some single portraits.

Adding to my earlier post . . . try Portra 400UC for saturated colors or 160VC to

400VC for good colors and 160NC to 400NC for neutral palette. Need higher speed?

Try the 800 Portra. It still delivers great skin tones. All of the above give you degrees

of saturation on clothing colors, but generally accurate skin tones! I just did a series

of wedding candids at my niece's wedding; Chinese/Scottish families - lots of colors

with skin tones going from dark-tanned to white "porcelain" all under available light

& flash. I shot 35mm 400UC and 400VC in 6x7cm. I sent the films to Holland Photo,

a Kodak lab that prints on Kodak paper. Grand results! Some of my shots were poorly

composed, but after many "wee drams" of Dewars, hey! the colors were still good!

I don't think it's about film, and it's only marginally about exposure. It's about the <b>lighting.</b> This is generally true of every photograph. If you can't get the lighting where it should be, it doesn't matter what film or exposure you use.<p>

 

On the other hand, if the lighting is right, maybe it can be improved with careful attention to exposure or film choice, but even with a "terrible for skin tones" film like Ultra 50, a good portrait with a variety of skin tones can be made.<p>

 

The shot below was on Ultra 50. Obviously, there is a wide variety of skin tones. The only problem is the bald head being slightly blown out, but that happens a lot. Other than powder, I haven't found a great way to deal with it.<p>

 

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<img src="http://www.spirer.com/images/fam.jpg"><br>

<i>A Family, Copyright 2000 Jeff Spirer</i>

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Jeff, is your monitor off? your post looks a little green...

Sorry for the lte post, but:

 

1. Depends on the film, slide film is much more unforgiving of incorrect exposures, so the darker tone may get lost.

 

2. If you use your camera meter, dial in around a 1/2 stop of underexposure for the average Indian dark complexion.

 

3. If there are caucasians and indians in the same shot, you may wish to spot meter off both their faces and then try averaging it out.

 

4. The best suggestion that I can give however, is to expose for the background and use fill-flash, typically dialling in around 1/3rd to 2/3rd of a stop on the FEC.

 

Regards,

Neville Bulsara