Blandford Forum Camera Club

I mentioned recently that I had ordered another book by Michael Freedman with the above title. I also said I would let you have my thoughts on the content.
The first thing to say is that it is well written, with plenty of examples and illustrations, and that it deals with a pretty fundamental topic……exposure with a DSLR.
The second thing to say is while the concept is reasonably easy to grasp, getting ones head (mine anyway) round the detail is taking some doing. At this stage I am pretty sure that I should persevere; get to fully understand, absorb, and use what Michael Freeman is offering.
Most of us are aware that our DSLR’s have a dynamic range of so many stops. And that if the subject has a brightness range within the upper and lower limits of that range we will not get blown highlights or blocked shadows.

(Incidentally although not central to this argument, most of us are also aware that all too often this comfortable situation is less common than we would like.
Given a situation where (typically) the sky is too bright we can resort to one of a number of things that can help. A neutral density filter, or multiple exposures and then HDR or blending perhaps).

One might think that in the situation where the dynamic range of the camera was adequate to capture a given scene, we would be pretty happy and judge that we had achieved a ‘perfect exposure’. As I understand it Michael Freeman (MF) would argue otherwise.

The main thrust of the argument, I believe, is that one should assess the important tone/s in the subject before shooting and make sure the exposure given ensures that the resultant image reflects that assessment. Therefore, in some cases where the ‘normal’ exposure would place individual tones where they fell, MF would adjust the exposure (+/- part of, one, or more stops from the nominal) in order to achieve the required result.
An example may help. There is a photograph in the book of an oriental woman in a scene with at least 1/3 of the image area blocked up with no discernable detail. The claimed objective was to show the woman’s skin tones correctly (as the key tone).

Alongside there was another version of the image where detail was recovered and as a consequence the face, among other tones, was a little lighter. I’m pretty sure that most judges would prefer the second image with its shadow detail and with the face tone still evidently oriental. However, having had it pointed out, I can well appreciate MF choosing to show what he saw and chose to be important. In other words the face tone being accurate was more important to him than the lack of detail in an unimportant area of the picture. A standard exposure would, of course, have achieved detail in the shadows.
If none of that makes sense, forgive me.

There is much more to the subject than that; but something I realised from my so far limited understanding of the book’s topics is this:
Assuming shooting in raw, the adjustments available in the Raw Converter and Photoshop allow quite poorly exposed images to be recovered so that little, or no, clipping occurs and mid tones have been recovered. However there is something lacking in the final result when compared with an image exposed half decently in the first place. If you agree with that statement you will probably accept that taking even more trouble and tailoring the exposure to the specific key tones in the subject might just be worth considering.

If my poor attempts to explain have been good enough to excite your interest, and if you can still afford to eat afterwards, perhaps you should buy, or borrow, the book. But don’t expect it to be easy.

Keith