Proper skintone exposure

[Tiago Pimentel]

Hi guys,

 

Like most people shooting digital, I've embraced False Color as my go to tool to properly expose a scene. I have a question though (not necessarily to do with false color alone). If i'm shooting a subject with half his face lit one stop over the other half, I should expose the lit half in the usual 70-75 ires, right? While keeping the other half one stop less.

 

But what if the next shot is a side shot of only the shadowed part of his face? Should I keep the consistency and expose it at middle grey or expose it one stop over where caucasian skin usually falls?

 

Thanks!

[David Mullen ASC]

Expose for what you want it to look like.

 

Sometimes its helpful to imagine that the shot is circling around the subject in a 360 degree move and think how it would look if you did no stop change versus opening up a little as you came around to the shadow side. Sometimes you do the opposite and close down a little as you come to the shadow side if the person is lit by a big bank of bright windows and it feels more correct to go for a semi silhouette effect at that angle.