Proper exposure questions.

[480sparky67 66]

Very interesting since gray cards existed long before digital cameras. And film cameras didn't need any white balance...

Huh? I thought that's why I bought all those filters for (FL-D, 80a, etc).

 

[klakf]

Another way to help with overexposing the highlights is to add a neutral density filter to your lens. It really helps with clipping and overexposure caused by the sun's reflecting off bright white areas like the white feathers or on water. Try it. Tiffen lens are great.

 

[klakf]

A gray card has nothing to do with a correct exposure? . . . Now you're really confusing me.

 

[Dao]

Another way to help with overexposing the highlights is to add a neutral density filter to your lens. It really helps with clipping and overexposure caused by the sun's reflecting off bright white areas like the white feathers or on water. Try it. Tiffen lens are great.

But ..... we are talking about the dynamic range of the recording medium. So the ND filter has nothing to do with it.

 

[Breaux]

I've used a gray card with reflected light metering since the 1980s, and always got good exposures. I've read things about gray cards, and light meters, and are the cards really 18% reflectance, and do meters really use 18% anyway, and on and on. I don't know about all that. But I can vouch for the fact that a gray card works.

 

[klakf]

I like this idea. hee hee

 

[c.cloudwalker]

I've used a gray card with reflected light metering since the 1980s, and always got good exposures. I've read things about gray cards, and light meters, and are the cards really 18% reflectance, and do meters really use 18% anyway, and on and on. I don't know about all that. But I can vouch for the fact that a gray card works.

I don't know the details of it either but yes they work. :thumbup:

Very interesting since gray cards existed long before digital cameras. And film cameras didn't need any white balance...

Huh? I thought that's why I bought all those filters for (FL-D, 80a, etc).

Those are color correction filters. Color correction is not quite the same as White Balance. Color correction is for when you don't have the right film or when you have mixed lights. In that second case though, you don't correct by filtering on camera, you correct by placing a filter on the light itself. An example of that is when I went and shot a photo in an office building with a mix of fluo lights in the ceilings and regular ones on the desks + strobes and/or daylight. If I put a filter on the camera to correct the ceiling fixtures, I would also correct (wrongly) the other light sources. Not good. So my assistant spent a lot of time putting filters in the ceiling fixtures.

Color correction and white balance are very similar in effect but with a mix of sources neither one works quite right when done on camera.

That said, the white balance comes from the video world (at least that's where I heard about it first.) Way back when (may not be true today,) video cameras had to go through a White Balance before shooting or you would end up with weird colors. Photo cameras didn't. Today, in the age of digital, which I believe has its ancestor in video, photo cameras need a WB too. But in photography, WB has the same effect as color correction on camera. Not good. When you have a mix of light sources, that is.