TOMMY WILLIAMS / L’Observateur / July 24, 1999

As I had mentioned last week, as you learn and become more comfortable with using your 35mm camera, you will at some point venture out and try to operate it manually. In brief, there are three different camera mechanisms thatcontribute to the proper functioning of your 35mm camera in manual mode, the lens aperture, camera shutter and the metering system. The basic functions ofeach of these three components were covered in a previous article, so we won’t dwell on the basics.

The metering system in many ways is considered to be the brain of the camera because it normally dictates what lens aperture and shutter speed combinations will be used to achieve proper negative exposure. A camera’s metering system,regardless of its type, reads the reflective light by way of a photo cell.

Reflective light is the amount of light reflected off or from the subject toward the camera. White walls, sky, beach sand and snow are all different types ofscenes that can create cause improper or under-exposed negatives due to the large amounts of light they reflect. Dark backgrounds, on the hand, such as nightscenes and dark walls, can cause over-exposure to your negatives. Repeatedinformation, but essential to understand where we are going with this.

Outdoor photos that contain a majority of sky area, sandy beaches or white snow can be some the most difficult scenery to properly expose for, if you don’t know how to compensate. These types of backgrounds tend to cause under-exposure because they reflect excessive amounts of light, greater than an average scenery such as green grass. For example, while in a dark room, take aflashlight and direct the beam of light toward various colored sheets of construction paper, mainly white, green, blue and black. Pay attention to howmuch light reflects off and illuminates other areas of the room. Do you get thepicture now? To compensate for these types of scenery you can try one of two different methods.

First, if your camera is equipped with an exposure compensation dial (check camera manual), add at least 1 1/2 stops of exposure compensation to correct for these types of scenes. Exposure compensation merely fools the metersystem into thinking that it has a slower film ASA, such as 100 ASA instead of 200 ASA.

Next, manually compensate by opening the lens aperture or slowing the shutter speed by 1 1/2 stops. For example, change open lens aperture form F22 to F111/2 or slow the shutter speed down from 2000 to 750 (some cameras don’t have half stop increments on shutter speed).

Either method will easily compensate for the excessive reflective light readings from these types of scenery. Please keep in mind that this article onlypertains to cameras with manual capability, some experimentation may be required to perfect standard compensation for particular types of scenery for better film exposure.

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