Tone Poems II

Still with me? OK, last time we explored the basics of exposure, so that we can then move past them and start using tones creatively. Here are some notes for a 2nd symphony.

To recap, exposure at any given ISO is a see-saw between depth of field (DOF) and shutter speed. The faster the speed, the less the light, so to keep things balanced, you need to “open up” the aperture by using a bigger (but smaller-numbered!) setting. Thus, ¼ second @ f8 equals ½ second @ f11, which also equals 1 second @ f16. The combo you pick depends on whether speed or depth of field (DOF) is more important to you. And if you can’t find a combination you like at the ISO you’ve set, and you’re shooting digital, then you’ll need to adjust that!

Generally speaking, the goal is to get as much information on the film or file as possible…and you can then shrink or stretch it as you wish when processing. The tried-and-true rule with negative film is to “expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights.” With positive film or digital, it’s the opposite: If push comes to shove, expose for highlights; once they’re blank, or clipped, they’re gone. Shadows are a bit more forgiving—or at least our eyes seem to accept deep black patches more readily than blank white ones.

If you have an in-camera averaging meter, whether it’s “center-weighted,” matrix-patterned, or whatever, it’s going to want to average the tones it sees to an 18 percent middle grey. So, in probably the most cited exception, if you’re shooting snow, and you want it to be white, you’ll need to increase exposure by 1 to 2 stops—otherwise, you’ll wind up with grey snow. Likewise, if you’re in dark woods and you want to keep that mysterious mood, you’re going to have to decrease exposure to keep the meter from opening those tones up too much.

Spot meters—like the 1-degree Pentax model I’ve always used with sheet film—are aimed by looking through a viewfinder, like a gunsight. All they read is that tiny central spot—and again, it’s going to make that a middle grey. In this case, you need to learn how to search out midtones in the image for reference, then look for highlights and deep shadows, jump around and read those with the meter, too—and then add those things up manually to find your best overall “average” exposure. If you slide the base exposure up, where will that place those bright highlights? And if down, where are those shadows now? Though spot metering can be a pain to learn, it offers great control over tonalities.

In digital land, you have some other, newer tools in your quiver. Most importantly, if your camera has a histogram, learn to read it! This is a preview or readout that’s in graph form with shadows on the left end and highlights on the right. Highly recommended!

Some cameras also have so-called “blinkies” or “zebras,” which indicate clipped highlights; but in my experience, they’re not as reliable as the histogram. As I mentioned in ‘Ten Tips,’ you want a camera that lets you override the auto settings and tweak aperture and/or speed up or down as needed, pulling or pushing the histogram—and the resulting exposure—to the left (darker) or to the right (lighter). For the most pristine data, your best digital exposures come when you are as close to the right, or highlight, edge as possible without clipping, even though that may look washed out on your camera’s LCD monitor.  That’s known as ETTR (“expose to the right”). But I don’t obsess over this when things are moving quickly.

Because of the increased dynamic range, flexible ISO, and, especially, the histogram, I rarely use my spot meter with digital. Instead, I usually choose the built-in multi-pattern metering on my current Sony and aperture-priority (which means the camera picks the speed to match my chosen f-stop). If I don’t like the speed I’m getting, I can either fudge the aperture or change the ISO slightly. Small adjustments up and down? I find it’s simplest to just turn the exposure compensation wheel in 1/3-stop increments.

What about images that exceed the scale on both ends of the histogram? You’ll need to make a choice between clipping highlights or letting some dark tones go—OR you could try bracketing multiple exposures, one for shadows and another for highlights, and maybe even another in between, that are later combined via software. That’s called HDR (high dynamic range). But you can only pull this off when your subject is completely still and lighting is not in flux.

OK, maybe just one more musical nod…? Try thinking of Zone 5—that middle grey—as the middle C on a piano…with treble notes above, and deeper bass runs below. You have all those registers before you, so do you want to spread things out? Or shrink them down? Play only the bass notes, or just the trebles? Hey, we’re literally talking “low key” and “high key” photos here! And emotions, too; are you in a major or minor mood?

Classicists may disagree, but I think many images don’t really need both a pure black point and a high white point, and can look a little brittle when one forces it. It’s mood that matters. But see what you think.

And now…back to the music!

EXAMPLE: I often see desert badlands as awash in dusty distance—in other words, a hazy high key look. (See ‘Turning to Dust.’) But my camera meter may not agree! My image ‘Afternoon in the badlands,’ shown at right, was made on a day of partial high clouds, with blue sky here and there. The light was coming from almost directly in back, slightly off the right. This scene was all about the glowing, backlit, mirage-like tones and rhythms wrapping those hills and receding into the distance. I wanted the rim-lit highlights to be as high on the scale as they would go with detail, and the shadows open and colorful—not deep, not neutralized.

I’ve shot this scene both on film and, more recently, with digital. On sheet film, I would use what I call a “desert pull”: overexpose, then process for a shorter time, which slightly reduces both color and contrast. I’d be looking with the spot meter at those rim-lit highlights, and placing them, for starters, on, say, Zone 6. Where does that put the hill shadows? I want them open. So like Zone 3-1/2, or even Zone 4? OK, but how about the shadows and trunks on those foreground mesquites? Where do the highlights now fall with one’s preferred shadows there? Is there a mid-tone to “check” for middle grey or Zone 5? That green foliage?

OK, that’s film. But what’s shown here is actually the later digital version, made with a Nikon d850 and a 105mm Micro-Nikkor lens. I used in-camera Matrix metering, exposed to the right, and pushed the histogram and blinkies until I started to clip the highlights, then backed off slightly. This was a longish lens, so I wanted a fair amount of DOF. And speed didn’t really matter—except for a pesky breeze blowing the mesquite branches, and likewise hitting my tripod-mounted camera, which was on an exposed ridge. So, I tried to keep the speed up just a touch. Final exposure? 1/13s @ f16 and ISO 64. I also made a couple of “darker” exposures to make sure I hadn’t lost those rim-lit highlights!

In my initial pass at Lightroom “post-processing,” I first enlarged the image onscreen and took a closer look at those brightest areas, and they looked fine; so I then reduced the contrast some overall and dialed the base exposure up a bit more, lowered the highlight slider just a smidge to compensate, and raised the shadows yet more—dancing back and forth. It’s a bit like that “desert pull” on film! Then I brought back a touch of the vibrance and saturation I’d removed by those earlier moves.

But processing, you say? Lightroom? Well, that’s another story—for another day!

By Scott Atkinson

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