Portraiture exposure metering

I mean this in the kindest way, but shooting RAW is no excuse for poor metering.

Sure you get plenty of latitude with RAW files to take them up or down. But when dealing with hundreds, perhaps thousands of images, it's nice to have them close to proof ready right out of the camera.

I remember shooting with other togs at the beginning of digital. "We'll just fix it in post production... put the extra work on the client dime". Those studios didn't last very long. Those who lasted were the ones who shot digital with just as much care as the film togs. We respected the client dime.

The production side is the boring part keeping us from shooting more. We should consider doing everything possible to shoot it right in the field, in order to make post processing as quick and easy as possible... IMHO.

Thanks for the reply. I have taken flat portaits sometimes and this +1 exposure seems to help in that respect, but I felt these still needed help. Compared to the sample pics in the post especially. I only spent a little while setting this up to try, so I am happy with the results. I look forward to trying it out some more later. The sample pics are so beautiful and have so much color that they pop off the page. I posted a link to this article on dpreview and only one person responded. I'm amazed more did not check this out or try it. Their loss I guess. Thanks again for posting!

Sorry I forgot to mention that I blended a little under her eyes where darker lines appeared. I also bumped saturation a little and clarity. A small vignette.

Thanks again for your kind words. I aspire to take better portraits and this has helped.

rickztahone wrote: ...grab the camera as fast as you can situation, how would you meter then? When does your WB settings change?

I appreciate that. I worked as a photojournalist for six years and understand that sometime you just have to get the shot quickly. But let's be honest and distinguish between grab shots and portraits. Sometimes a quick flip to full AUTO (AF, ISO, Settings) will allow for the fastest grab shots. But you know we did it back in the film days too, with full manual everything. For quick grabs back then, WB wasn't an issue because the film was usually B&W. It's not very difficult to look at a room and know the range of exposures. For instance, from experience, walk into any HS gymnasium and realize your settings will be somewhere in the range of 1/250th f2.8 iso1600 wb3000K. That might not be perfect, but I'd bet a plucked chicken it's pretty darn close. Then know the mid court is brighter than under the net. Just think about the light.

Quick grabs today are for P or AUTO modes. But more than five seconds passes and I've returned to A-Priority with a quick spot meter lock/toggle. If there is time to point the AF sensor, then there is time to spot/toggle lock a reading. If further time is permitted, then a proper spot meter on face is performed with the appropriate exposure compensation.

Shooting RAW always, I've resolved to having two main WB. 5000K and 3000K, depending upon situation. I may hit 4000K for mixed daylight and tungsten. Most florescent lights are closer to 4700K these days (depending on age). But for those that aren't, around 6500K will get close.

Regardless, my camera is always on RAW for the freedom to fine tune WB later. Haven't shot a JPG in years.

It works! Thank you Clyde for this free lesson.

This one is straight from my a580 with minolta 50/1.4.

bartman wrote: It works! This one is straight from my a580 with minolta 50/1.4.

Absolutely perfect bartman. The highlights are bright and alive without blowing and the shadows have plenty of detail and depth. You hit this one spot on. The nice thing about getting such wide latitude straight from camera is that you've got what I call a really "fat file" to tweak more with contrast, saturation for final printing. There is lots of "room" to work this image. Great job!

Thanks for sharing such knowledge, it's invaluable. Looking forward to putting it to good use in the near future. Out of interest, would the same settings work when shooting portraits of animals? I have had it suggested that shooting swans, for example, it's sensible to minus on the exposure to keep the details, and viceversa for a brown bear?
Cheers

Daniel