George wrote:
"sreenath" wrote in message
om...
Hi All,

I was reading Kodak Color handbook (a very old collection of booklets
from Kodak, possibly late 60's), where there is a long treatment of
various techniques.

There is a statement in that book that surprised me:

"Field studies have shown that pictures made using reflected metering
appear to be more pleasant than those made with incident light
metering"

I may not be repeating exact words, but this is the idea.

How is it that pictures made using reflected light metering are "more
pleasant"?

Thanks,
Sreenath

It doesn't surprise me in the least (let the flames begin). If you
think about it, incident metering makes little
sense in either vision or photography (another cue for dissenting
opinions). What gives an object color, shape, and texture is the
light that it REFLECTS back to your eye or your film/digital sensor.
Take this to the extreme, and consider that you want to photograph a
black hole (so dense, even light doesn't escape...remember that light
behave both like a particle and a wave)...it REALLY DOESN'T matter
how much light falls on it, none is coming back so it just appears to
be a black area with no shape, color, or texture. I'm sorry, but the
human eye and photographic processes ARE NOT sensitive to how much
light FALLS on an object, only on how much comes back to the sensor
(eye, digital sensor, film, etc.).

So, careful (so as not to be deceived by a non-representative area)
reflected metering yields results more like what you see and
attracted you to the subject in the first place. Incident metering
can yield results unlike what you are seeing so if the scene is
unremarkable, you might prefer those results.

[INSERT OPPOSING VIEWS HERE]

In theory, incident metering eliminates the problem of how to photograph
snow, or grass or shadow etc. Your meter will never be off because of the
subject and each part of the subject will be recorded on the film in at the
expected density.

The theory sort of falls apart due to the limits of the film. It can't
always record all light levels.

Reflective averaging makes sure the average density of the subject is
grey, which is usually right, but not always.

Now if you use the zone system you get around this, and can use it to
your creative advantage, if you have the skill and time.

In the real world, there is no best, only what works.

--
Joseph E. Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math