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light meter question


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what is the purpose of measuring the high lights and darks?

 

instead of measuring just the grey and going from there?

 

could some one give a brief example of where you would read one method or the other?

 

the only thing I can see here, is so you would have an idea as to how blown out your highlights might be, and if your highlights are important, then you would lose a stop or 2 after reading your grey card...!

 

please give some pointers!

 

thanks

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You have the basic idea. You meter something in order to find out where it lies on your greyscale. If you're shooting for a certain aperture to stay at throughout your shoot or your scene, you need to know how much detail you have in your shadows and your highlights, because you can't adjust that much in processing like you can with still photography.

 

As far as what to look for when taking your readings, you will learn as you get prints of your film and learn how much latitude the stocks have. Everyone says that the new 19 stock from Kodak has tons of latitude, which it does, but you don't want to assume you have a safety net and let you highlights go nine stops over. It's all about finesse.

 

Shoot some tests. Take extensive notes on your aperture, and the incident and reflected readings in the shot and you will be able to see how to control things better.

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