Overheard a photo teacher say something about 'exposing for shadows'

I was at a coffee shop in Austin last Thursday and this old guy was giving a lesson to a young kid with a Nikon FM. He said 'you expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may' and it just clicked for me. All this time I was trying to meter for the bright spots and my shadows were always muddy. I tried it out on a roll of HP5 this weekend and my indoor shots actually have detail in the dark corners. Has anyone else had a 'duh' moment like that with a simple phrase?

3 comments

3 Comments

webb.val21d ago

Yeah, that HP5 pushed to 1600 thing is real. I shot a whole punk show in a dive bar once at 1600 and the shadows turned into this gritty texture that actually worked for the vibe. The stage lights blew out to pure white but the crowd faces in the dark still had detail you could make out. For me the real trick is learning when NOT to expose for shadows. Like if you're shooting a street scene with a bright sky, exposing for the shadows will nuke the sky completely. Film can only compress so much. So I only use it indoors or in even light where the highlights aren't way brighter than everything else. The guy was right about negative film being forgiving though. I've accidentally overexposed Tri-X by 2 stops and it still printed fine. Digital would've been totally blown out.

olivia_chen3522d ago

Did you catch what he said about the relationship between film latitude and that technique? Someone on Photrio explained that exposing for shadows works best with negative film because it handles overexposure way better than digital. The highlights just compress into cream instead of blowing out. I tried it with some Tri-X and got usable detail in a dark bookshelf while a window in the frame still had visible texture instead of being pure white.

sean_murray22d ago

Ha, yeah that's exactly how it works. I remember pushing some HP5 to 1600 in a dim basement once, trying to get a shot of my buddy's cat. The exposure was all over the place but that film just took it. The shadows had noise but it looked like grain, not digital snow. And the highlights from a lamp in the shot just turned into this smooth, blown-out cream. No harsh clipping like you'd get on my old Canon.