As promised (sigh!), Here is another series of exposure measurements. This time using a fairly high contrast, bright sun (10:00am), no clouds, scene. Film is Fuji Superia Realia 100. Linear 14-bit scans. The center photo is the one read by the lightmeter in the camera. Matrix-averageing. The bracketed images to either side are at one-stop increments. So nominally this ranged from three stops underexposed to three stops over exposed.

This is the same series, along side of a sample taken (of my cracked driveway) just to the right of the truck, and one of the sun-lit white siding. [These samples are turned 90 degrees. Hope this doesn't cause too much confusion.] The levels of the samples have been expanded (by the same amount each time) to accent any detail. The first frame, three stops underexposed, shows really no texture in the black driveway. The highlight sample clearly shows where the white boards come together, and maybe with some imagination the pealing paint. By the second frame, two stops under exposed, the crack in the black driveway is starting to show up. By the sixth frame the crack is clearly visable. in fact, one can see cracks within cracks, and other flaws in the asphault surface. In the highlights, the junctions between boards is still visable, but almost no pealing paint shows up. By the seventh frame, the highlight junction between boards is starting to burn out.

sigh... it's lovely to watch You at Work! You are so Patient ..sigh..

I like the fifth setting each time (one step over exposed)but thats just mho. Congratulation on AOM. Well deserved Pat

i'm actually learning something from all of this. Thanks Misha!

I think this is a fantastic learning tool for people Michael. sigh? See and people are paying attention. What folks should get from this (I hope) is that it is very easy for your camera's meter to be fooled by this sort of light and it's important to think about what areas in your image are crucial (exposure wise) before you push the shutter. Keeping in mind that there's personal preferences involved, IMHO the 1 & 2 stops over exposure images seems to be the best in contrast and detail. Shadows seem good and hightlights are not terribly blown out or suffering from too much detail loss. Of course these images are horribly small and my monitor always seems to be darker than others so keeping that in mind, I would need to actually see prints to make a good assesment. Thanks so much for doing this! Great learning tool!

Thanks, 'chelle, and folks. I'm not really finished with this series yet, but the first conclusion was correct. The meter is sometimes fooled. Another observation is that color negative film really has incredible dynamic range. Any of the middle images have good detail captured in the black driveway and in the white siding. Looking at the histograms, the shape is basically the same from 2-stops under to 2 over. The information is present; now it just needs careful processing to extract it... And, though this shot was certainly not intended to be "art", it should be apparent that NONE of the exposures is really very good. The prints back from Jiffy-Mart are pretty pathetic also. This very high contrasy lighting is very difficult to work with. That's why I like cloudy days!

Thanks Michelle! This is very helpful for a newbie :)

This is really Michael's (Misha883) splendid work! He's one of our technical experts here..... and I agree Mercytoo it is very helpful, even if you're not a newbie. :~)

Well, then thank you Misha :o) hehe