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Archive 2009 · Do I really need a grey card?
  
 
Micky Bill
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p.3 #1 · Do I really need a grey card?


What I am saying is that there are different ways to light things, and Chuck's way of lighting is just one of them. Many people who are new to photography don't know what else can be done, Penn's work shows that shadows are nothing to be afraid of.

Oct 23, 2009 at 04:20 PM
dmacmillan
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p.3 #2 · Do I really need a grey card?


Micky Bill wrote:
Many people who are new to photography don't know what else can be done, Penn's work shows that shadows are nothing to be afraid of.
Horrors! Look at the shadows here:


This image is copyrighted by the owner




BTW, Irving had a little brother named Arthur. He's probably best known for "Bonnie and Clyde", "Alice's Restaurant" and one of my favorite films, "Little Big Man".

I was saddened when I heard of Irving Penn's recent passing. I've always loved his work.
Oct 23, 2009 at 05:41 PM
RDKirk
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p.3 #3 · Do I really need a grey card?


Micky Bill wrote:
What I am saying is that there are different ways to light things, and Chuck's way of lighting is just one of them. Many people who are new to photography don't know what else can be done, Penn's work shows that shadows are nothing to be afraid of.

That was never the question, at least not the question Chuck responded to. Chuck was responding to:

So how would I set my reflector for fill without setting my single key light first?

The real (short) answer is that a small reflector does not do fill very well. Chuck spent a lot of time fully explaining why it doesn't. There was nothing there about being afraid of shadows.

I've got a '60s-era portrait course by Penn at home. I'll dig it out and take a look, but I don't believe he even used small reflectors.
Oct 23, 2009 at 06:06 PM
Carmen Miranda
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p.3 #4 · Do I really need a grey card?


RDKirk wrote:

That was never the question, at least not the question Chuck responded to. Chuck was responding to:

So how would I set my reflector for fill without setting my single key light first?

The real (short) answer is that a small reflector does not do fill very well. Chuck spent a lot of time fully explaining why it doesn't. There was nothing there about being afraid of shadows.


Actually, the question was never about how well a reflector works but more about how it (and fill) works and it's relationship to the key. Unfortunately it was presented as an obtuse rhetorical question. Dr. Fill simply picked up the ball and ran with it into his own end zone (eg. methodology). I'd flag him for an unsportsmanlike (doing the Zeltzman dance ), but seemed like a safety should be penalty enough. For a full replay in slow motion be sure to check out: End Zone Dance

The simple answer of course is that a reflector needs light to work, just as a fill light needs a primary light source. If there is no primary light source, then a fill light is not a fill, it is the primary or "key" light. Fill, by definition, is always "supplementary" to the key, whether you set it first or not.

This ain't rocket science folks.

By the way if anybody here can set a reflector for proper fill without any light, I will gladly read Chuck's tutorials and Zeltsmann's tome from beginning to end again.

edit: whatever

Edited on Oct 23, 2009 at 09:36 PM · View previous versions

Oct 23, 2009 at 07:05 PM
Deezie
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p.3 #5 · Do I really need a grey card?


The simple answer of course is that a reflector needs light to work, just as a fill light needs a primary light source. If there is no primary light source, then a fill light is not a fill, it is the primary or "key" light. Fill, by definition, is always subservient to the key, whether you set it first or not.

Beautifully stated.

Oct 23, 2009 at 07:08 PM
cgardner
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p.3 #6 · Do I really need a grey card?


Carmen Miranda wrote:

The simple answer of course is that a reflector needs light to work, just as a fill light needs a primary light source. If there is no primary light source, then a fill light is not a fill, it is the primary or "key" light. Fill, by definition, is always subservient to the key, whether you set it first or not.


I don't think we are disagreeing here, just talking past each other because we understand words like "subservient" differently.

I agree with what you say about changing roles of light, but not with your choice of words to express it. I would never use the word "subservient" to describe the role of fill in a lighting pattern. The definition of "subservient" per the dictionary in this context is: "less important, subordinate" and I think shadow detail is actually more important than highlight tone in a photo, which winds up the same in all lighting ratios. As I have mentioned before its the shadow tone which is mostly responsible for the perception of lighting being "hard" or "soft".

Change "subservient" to "supplementary" in your statement and it will be a correct, per the actual dictionary definition of fill light. The dictionary I have describes it as: "a supplementary light used in photography or filming that does not change the character of the main light and is used chiefly to lighten shadows."

That describes neutral axis-fill perfectly.

Whether one chooses to make the shadows in a photo light and soft, or dark and hard, depends on the goal of the photo, but either way it requires the ability to control the fill independently of the main or key light, which I what the reflector vs key light tangent was about. In some cases a reflector might be the best tool for the job, in other a light. It not the tool, is knowing how to use it to get the desired effect "lighten the shadows but not changing the character of the main light".

The Penn portrait works because the dark shadows create a different emotional reaction than light ones would. I've never seen the original, but would guess that the shadows are not maximum black and devoid of detail but rather have a carefully modulated amount of detail controlled precisely with the fill.

As for your riddle about placing fill before key answer this one: Can you find a light switch in the dark? If the answer is "yes" and you've lit a face a few times you should be able to place the reflector where it will need to be to be effective by experience alone. Where is it most effective? Go back and read the definition of fill light

Chuck
Oct 23, 2009 at 08:33 PM
Carmen Miranda
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p.3 #7 · Do I really need a grey card?


cgardner wrote:
I agree with what you say about changing roles of light, but not with your choice of words to express it.


Chuck,

I've never been too good with words. But it's very gratifying to know we can agree on one thing.

How about we stick a fork in this thing and call it good?

Hey, how about those grey cards?


Oct 23, 2009 at 08:44 PM
 



RDKirk
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p.3 #8 · Do I really need a grey card?


The Penn portrait works because the dark shadows create a different emotional reaction than light ones would. I've never seen the original, but would guess that the shadows are not maximum black and devoid of detail but rather have a carefully modulated amount of detail controlled precisely with the fill.

For that particular portrait of Picasso, Penn used:
Rolliflex with a 75mm f/3.5 lens and a close-up attachment
Plus-X film
1/2 second at f/8
Available light (probably a large window, which he used often).

I've seen a reproduction of the contact sheet--it's very significantly cropped even from a fairly tight head-and-shoulders shot. There is more shadow detail than you can see in this web version.

Oct 23, 2009 at 10:54 PM
maczilla
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p.3 #9 · Do I really need a grey card?


Dear Carmen, Chuck, RD, & Friends

Three years ago I had the pleasure of attending a week-long class on portraiture taught by Louis Tonsmeire through the Georgia Professional Photographers Association.

He always emphasized beginning with the fill. He said he most often uses an umbrella to get his fill and then uses a softbox for his main.

I'm still having trouble getting used to thinking in those terms, though I'm trying. I've typically started with the main, added another light or reflector for fill, and then added one or more kickers.

--Jaddie

Oct 24, 2009 at 12:29 AM
RobertLynn
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p.3 #10 · Do I really need a grey card?


I am definitely not ashamed to take a white towel to a shoot. I briefly explain to what it does for the shot, and the client is happy to be educated.

I do plan on buying an exposure meter before long though.

As for w/b, I mostly use my 580EXII's or 1600, so it's DL w/b for me. Sometimes cloudy, shade, whatever. I've got a gray card, but it's all f&*$ed up from going on all of the shoots, so I don't use it now.

Oct 24, 2009 at 02:46 AM
RDKirk
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p.3 #11 · Do I really need a grey card?


With regard to exposure (not white balance), Chuck appears to use the textured white target as his highlight exposure reference and depends on how it is actually read by the sensor to determine whether that highlight is being recorded at the level he intends.

At least that's how I understand that portion of his method, and it's what I've adopted. I'm an old Zone System user since the early 70s, and I'd been working hard to make digital make sense within some portion of Zone System methodology until Chuck led me to realize that recording data collected by a digital sensor is just fundamentally different from recording data on film.

Recording light intensity data collected by a digital sensor has much more in common with recording audio data collected by a microphone. I've done a bit of that, and I realized that's really where Chuck has gone with his exposure methodology. For exposure, the gray card is actually part of the wrong methodology. It was great for film, but this is a fundamentally different thing.

Another part of what I have to call the paradigm shift from film exposure to digital exposure is realizing that the superiority of learning to truly understand the histogram lies in the fact that a light meter can only provide a prediction of exposure conditions. The histogram provides a report of what the sensor actually collected.

It's like the difference between a weatherman's prediction of rain next week and a weather report of the rain this morning--a report of what actually happened will always have the potential of greater accuracy than a report of what might happen. Presuming we interpret the report properly.

I think we need to further explore how to properly interpret the histogram, and I think Chuck's concept of identifying the top end of the sensor's range and using the histogram to ensure it's placed properly makes good use of the sensor itself to set exposure rather than a light meter that is far, far removed from the actual "ground truth."

As the song says, "You don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing."

Oct 24, 2009 at 02:07 PM
Carmen Miranda
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p.3 #12 · Do I really need a grey card?


RDKirk wrote:
Recording light intensity data collected by a digital sensor has much more in common with recording audio data collected by a microphone. I've done a bit of that, and I realized that's really where Chuck has gone with his exposure methodology. For exposure, the gray card is actually part of the wrong methodology. It was great for film, but this is a fundamentally different thing.

Good points and an excellent analogy to draw from.

Oct 25, 2009 at 05:22 AM
cgardner
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p.3 #13 · Do I really need a grey card?


What my reproduction background taught me is the importance of getting the perceptual reference tones on both ends of the tonal scale correct: A good solid blacks and shadow detail, and a clean specular whites and highlight detail.

The photographic process is engineered to be linear, which means if we get the ends correct all the other steps of the tonal scale will have a normal progression: a gray scale will look the same in a photo as is does by eye perceptually.



This image is copyrighted by the owner




After learning to shoot halftones National Geographic I realize that the Zone System which I'd learned a few years earlier really wasn't moving Zone V around. The middle of the tonal scale on the straight line part of the D vs E plot rises and falls with the highlights due to the D=log(E) natural of the photographic response.

The halftone process is what Levels was modeled on. It allows changing the middle without affecting the ends, something that can't be done on film. With digital if we shoot and get the BOTH points correct -- the reason I preach about fill and using flash outdoors -- we can change the "internal" contrast by moving the middle slider in Levels, or raising / lowering the middle in curves.

Also not realized I think is how sensor range affects tonal rendering. A camera histogram represents the range of any sensor. Perceptual middle gray falls in the middle between black and white.

If a camera sensor has a 4 stop range from black to white then the middle is 2 stops from either end. Thus the difference in exposure needed to render something that is white as middle gray would be 2 stops.

If a camera has sensor has a 8 stop range from black to white then the middle is 4 stops from either end. Thus the difference in exposure to render something that is white as middle gray would be 4 stops.

That that means in practical terms is that if a file is exposed for detail at both ends where the mid-tones like shadows on a face will fall in terms of f/stop difference from the sensor will be determined by the range of the sensor and will fall around DR/2.

Even in the Zone System we'd manipulate contrast at capture and dodge and burn. What those things did is alter the middle tones beyond what the limits of the linear photographic process was able to record. We really have no idea whether the deep shadows in Penn's photo were the result of lighting, or lighting combined with burning in the shadows hand-puppet style on the enlarging easel. Being in the reproduction business I know what photographers would do if making many copies of a darkroom manipulated print would be to make a high quality copy negative of the edited print then make the copy prints from that neg. No darkroom manipulation was needed that way.

Today when we shoot digital and expose for the end points the middle tones will wind up DR/2 stops from the highlights. If we want to make the mid-tones lighter or darker if we lower or rise the fill it will affect the tone of the darker shadows and we risk making them lighter the natural which will make the photo look flat, or darker and loose detail. The better approach, from a technical point of view is to:

1) "Dodge / burn" the lighting while shooting using gobos (go betweens) between the fill light and face in areas we want darker than the sensor response puts them when deep shadows are exposed with detail, and add a supplemental fill source (reflector, second gridded fill light) aimed just at the mid-tones on the shadow side of the face we want darker. Cinematographers use this method as a staple out of necessity but few still photographers except the very savvy would think to use a gobo or reflector to manipulate the fill source nowadays.

2) Dodge / burn the print. That's a generalization for all the different ways mid-tones can be manipulated independently from the end points in photo editors: levels, curves, adjustment layers, cloning, etc.

I think a few like RDKirk who did zone system work will understand what I'm saying here: We can get both detail on both ends of the scale and make the shadows on the face light or dark at the same time, but we can't rely on just the response of the sensor to put the mid-tones where we want them. Those tricks were part of the secret to the buttery smooth tonality of the studio work done with hard lights back in the 1930s and 40s characterized by a full rich tonal range and magical control if the lighting. It wasn't magic it was knowing how to use a gobo, a skill learned from the guys next door making the movies the stars were acting in.

Chuck

Oct 25, 2009 at 01:13 PM
RDKirk
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p.3 #14 · Do I really need a grey card?


Here is an image by Penn, BTW, that I personally regard as superior to the Picasso portrait. This is of the French novelist Colette, who was 80 years old and bedridden when he took her photograph in her bedroom by window light.

Rolliflex with 75mm f/3.5 lens, Plux-X film, 1/2 second at f/11.

www.style.com/blogs/voguedaily/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/powers1.jpg

It's a rather large image...let it load.

Oct 25, 2009 at 10:08 PM




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