proper exposure when shooting portraits with strobes

[lance70]

Hello.... I was watching webinars over the weekend on portrait photography and now I'm a bit confused on proper exposure when using strobes....the photographer after using the light meter stated that even though the picture looks under exposed it is properly exposed because that's how he would see the picture in reality.......My question is even though part of the face is in the shadow it's still exposed correctly?

 

[photoguy99]

"how he would see the picture in reality" makes no sense to me, given that there are strobes involved. Reality involves a sudden, blinding, flash.

Possibly he means "this is how I visualized it" which would in fact make sense.

"correct exposure" is largely a meaningless phrase, especially in this context, which seems to involve fairly dramatic high-contrast lighting. My guess is that in this case "correct" means "that's the look I was going for".

Certainly there's no rule that says parts of the frame cannot be shadowed, even lost in dense opaque shadow. It all depends what you're going for.

 

[Buckster]

If he used a light meter, it was to get the proper diffused exposure value for where he took the reading using the lighting he'd set up for the shot. He then would have dialed that in and, by using those values, gotten the correct diffused value.

Parts or even the rest of the image may be lost in complete black or even blown out white, but the place where he took the reading will be exposed correctly, assuming he used the values the light meter gave.

That's actually a very important lesson. A lot of folks think that the whole image of EVERY image needs to be able to show details throughout - in the darkest shadows, the brightest highlights, and everywhere in between. But that's not necessarily true. It all depends on what you WANT the final image to achieve in terms of composition.

 

[lance70]

Thanks..... that makes more sense to me