MikieLBS Loc: "Southeast of Disorder"

Hey Dufus! I wrote it. Don't blame Jim Bob! Anyone who writes false information as a positive fact without giving any reasoning for it except that we should all believe them without question because they're a pro is not worthy of a polite response but that is just my opinion.

Jim Bob

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

It is supposed to be an example of where EC is needed. I shot manual, spot metered, ETTL with an EC of -1 1/3.

MikieLBS Loc: "Southeast of Disorder"

I thought it was a good example with no blown out areas. It should have helped others understand that spot metering on a predominantly black photo would overexpose the brighter areas just as a photo with a dark subject and light background could be underexposed and this is why using EC is sometimes necessary as a fine adjustment for exposure. I don't have a lot of experience with a flash or studio setups so am I understanding correctly that you lowered the flash output by -1 1/3?

tomcat

Go back and look at the face again. It is overexposed. The blacks in the clothes are washed out. This is not a good image. If the shooter had used spot metering on the face with no adjustments, then the skin would look like real skin and not reddened over blown with the cheeks blown out. As I mentioned earlier, this is not something I would show as a final image.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

That never occurred to me because I already own three incident meters and two spot meters. I use those mainly for shooting film since some of my film cameras have no meter.

Although there are also drawbacks to using an incident meter, they are just not as fundamentally handicapped as reflected light meters - hand held or built into the camera. They eliminate the need to carry a gray card.

But when it comes to shooting in broad daylight in sunny Florida, I have no need to use a meter at all. I may say more about that in a separate thread.

MikieLBS Loc: "Southeast of Disorder"

Tomcat:
Personally I think it would look better at EV -1 2/3 instead of EV +0. The op was not demonstrating what a great photo he could take. It may be oversaturated but not overexposed or blown out. The photo was only a postage stamped sized compressed jpg of the original too so of course a lot of color information was lost which would account for a couple of pixels with the red maxed at 255 .
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Everyone:
Tomcat has explained to us that the photo is overexposed and if the op would have used spot metering(the op used spot metering) and had not adjusted EC -1 1/3(If the op had not lowered lowered the exposure) then the photo would not have been saturated and the blacks would not have been washed out. http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/tpr?p=7678607&t=456684

Can anyone else tell me what happens to the darker parts of a photo when you lower your exposure?
1. The photo gets darker
2. The photo gets lighter
....

Even the lightest areas are not blown out (255 255 255). Imagine what it would look like if he hadn't lowered exposure -1 1/3?

(Download)

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The new examples are at Sunny 16 Rule - Part 2.

tomcat

Are you telling me that you don't think the top of those cheeks under his glasses and above his eyebrows are not blown out? How can you not see this? They most certainly are and there is no detail there. The flesh is way overexposed, especially in this blowup that you posted here. I'm sorry, but the OP is not giving us the whole story here. There is absolutely no way that he can be using spot metering and a -1 ⅓ underexposure and get this overblown image. If those two things are all he did for the exposure, then this camera needs to be sent to the factory for recal. I've never seen an underexposure put this amount of light onto an image, unless someone turned on a bright spot light a nanosecond before he pressed the shutter or he had his ISO cranked up to 10000.

MikieLBS Loc: "Southeast of Disorder"

And now you are blaming the op, accusing him of not being truthful to try to prove yourself right. That's pretty low in my book. I Know that only a few pixels are blown and that we are looking at a reduced size compressed jpg. I also know how to examine pixel rgb to determine if they are actually blown. I looked, they're not. I just completed a refresher course in color correction. I know what I'm talking about but you sure don't.

tomcat

Then you should ask for a refund. If you cannot see the overexposed areas of the cheeks and forehead, then there is little hope for you in PP an image.