From: Chris Barker <imagopus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Surely John this will tend to lighten the skin - "overexpose" it I
mean. The point about the question (as I understand it) is that the
meter is calibrated for 18 0rey and if used by itself it the skin
colour will tend towards that "colour".
I should have said that for shadow to come out as shadow, it needs to
be set at the lower end of the range of the exposure. The highlights
would surely be the eyes or any catchlight in the teeth or eye. This
is partly theory on my part as I don't do portraits ...
This is a topical point for me, as I am just re-learning the idea of
ranges of exposures after some excellent articles in Amateur
Photographer. In addition, the Royal Air Force will pay for a B/W
printing course before I leave (called "resettlement training") and
this, I hope, will be an important part of that learning process.
Chris
At 08:30 -0500 3/9/01, John Prosper wrote:
Using portrait print film (e.g., Kodak Portra 160 NC), I have found
that with average dark skin, you want to set your exposure for +2
above middle grey (+1 for average Caucasian skin tones). This is
equivalent to setting your ISO speed for Kodak Portra 160 NC to 40
ISO for dark skin (or 80 ISO for Caucasians). I vary this basic
exposure depending on the deviation from average tones for both
Caucasians and dark color skin folks. Since other skin tone groups
generally fall between these two extremes, I compensate accordingly.
The skin tones for "darks" deviate so widely that learning to shoot
them alone is great training for shooting other skin color groups.
In fact, "darks" overlap all skin color groups save for albinos.
snip
--
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, England.
+44 (0)7092 251126
mailto:imagopus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
... a nascent photo library.
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