Understanding Exposure

ok all, I have been reading understanding exposure, by bryan peterson. Outstanding book. I have read over and over. Any way. My ? is about the reading on the gray card (pg 120 if you have the book) There is an exercise for calibrating your palm. You take your Gray card and camera into full sun, and set your aperture to f/8. While filling the frame with the gray card, adjust your shutter speed until a correct exposure is indicated by the cameras light meter. Then hold your palm out in front of your lens. The camera meter should read about +2/3 to 1 stop overexposed. I did this and got a reading of my palm at -1/3. It says to do the same procedure in the shade. Should get the same reading. Has anyone ever tried this. What reading did you get? Can anyone tell me why they think the reading didn't come out for me as expected. Thanks so much!

I think I may have answered my own ?. I took out a different grey card in the sun. Metered it and then my palm and got reading they called for. But then did the same thing in the shade and got -1/3 for palm. If you ask me. I say don't use this method. it is not very accurate!!
Feel free to voice any other opinions please.

I agree, I tried the same procedure and didn't get the results he got. I have had better results metering off concrete as the "gray".

I used to meter off my hand all the time in my college newspaper photographer days. The key thing is to make sure your hand is positioned so that the light is falling on it properly. If your hand is cupped or tilted a little, it will dramatically change the amount of light falling on it.

It won't be perfect but it will usually get you pretty close.

Michael

Just spot meter off the brightest highlight in a scene, compensate as needed (typically by dialling in positive EC). You'd need to decide which zone you wanted to place that highlight in (assign a tone to it). Bingo, that's about it!

Mid tone? No EC called for.

Lighter than midtone? Dial in + ec as follows:

Bit lighter than midtone... +1/3 to 2/3 EC
Very light .... +1 to 1 1/3 stops of EC
Almost white... +1 2/3 to 2 stops of EC.
Detailless white... over two stops of EC.

nevilleb

I just read the same book and asked almost the same question. I thought it was a great idea and in thery it should work. I don't have a gray card so I can't try it out. I think the metering chapter was the best part of the book. I was courious about his metering off green whare he says green is -2/3rds of stop, I thought green was about 18% gray and one of the things you could neter off when you were missing a gray card

To be honest with you, I doubt I would meter off my hand using a dSLR. Since the LCD is there, I just check it along with the histogram to make sure my exposure is correct. That's a lot easier than metering off my hand. When I was using film cameras, you didn't have that luxury. You metered off your hand, used your professional judgement or the "sunny 16" rule and counted on the latitude of the film.

Michael