Need an exposure crutch?

jack lumber wrote in post #3219097
Didnt mother tell you to stop that before you go blind?

you just revived this post..

Gray Card…White Paper. What’s best?

Gray card: Why your meter may be lying to you!
I found something that I didn't expect! Notice that the very last exposure in the 2nd group was of a gray card.

Do you mean your centerweighted average shots of the m&ms ("Gray Card" thread), or your suprerimposed histogram shot ("Gray Card, White Paper" thread)?

I did some tests recently and found that my my hand reads -2/3 from a gray card... and that I have to use +2/3 to 'center up' a gray card histogram.. so I guess my "hand card" is dead on for exposure... ;o)

edit: By "center up" I mean centering the spike from the gray card in the very middle of the histogram

Live a little & read them both?

I did... *grinning*

PG Great thread...Very good advice. Few folks know they have a gray card with them ALWAYS. Well most And I'm in no way making light of a handicap.

Most grass reflects light about the same as 18% gray as does a cloudless blue sky.

Yes/no? Not a constant. A particular area of grass can be light green, dark green, brown in July here. That doesn't mean that you can't use them if you compensate for a given time & place. Take another look at post #6.
Blue sky: In Michigan we get that about 1 day a week? The rest of the time it's varying shades of gray. Then there's bright clouds, dark clouds...
Again, more in post #6, above.

What do you do if the sky is blue & the subject is in the shade of a tree?

And, NO, I don't need to hear about EC? The whole point of this thread is to avoid that.

EDIT: OK, maybe I should have said more on that. Are people who recommend Exposure Compensation wrong? No. The thing is, that they already know what they're doing & they know how to adjust & what to expect when they do it. People starting out don't have that experience, which is why I still recommend starting with M so outside influences like subject brightness, background brightness, & metering mode in your specific situation become constants that you can ignore while you learn.

Many sports pros only shoot jpgs, too. They also know what they're doing & have severe time constraints to upload the images for clients.
If you're still in learning mode, why restrict yourself? Shooting RAW gives you more latitude if/when you make a mistake. I've been shooting 40 years & I make them, too.
Why I love RAW - '53 Ford Sunliner

I'm never throwing away a picture again

Does anyone with a Lowepro slingshot bag and an 18% grey card want to do a comparison between them?

I imagine that if it was pretty close, or dead on, lowepro would be more than happy to tell us about it, but you never know.

condyk wrote in post #693979
Great tip ... but my palms are covered in dense hair! Is there anything I can do?

Give up photography since you're going blind anyway...

good stuff

It's nice to find validation in other threads. Here's the same general idea in sports: Indoor Sports and Canon 40D

JeffreyG, post #18 here
So I'll walk in, set the shutter speed I want (say 1/320) for wrestling, f/2, ISO1600 and take a shot. I like to shoot a kid in a white outfit like the example I posted so I can see if his uniform blows out.

Be sure to read the following posts, too.

More related links:

Histogram: is it good to follow or not

IMAGE HISTOGRAMS - PART 1 -

Histogram - "Goldilocks and the Three Histograms"

Ice Hocky: action shooting.....

Different ways to "Expose to the right" here:
exposing to the right question.

General advice: Please help in setting camera up for shooting jumping fish

Calibrated my palm this evening .... I will tatoo "+1 Ev" on my thumb to remind me.

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