Re: Perception of brightness (was Re: Good exposure)

[P3D Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Paul Talbot wrote:

> Eric, in noting your agreement with respect to "monochrome works," are
> you referring to negative or positive film?

Either one, Paul. In working with black and white, all you have is light
and shadow, so it is basically tautological that the shadows strongly
influence the perception of light and visa-versa.

> While I would
> not expect it to make a good *general rule* for working with stereo
> slides (exposing for shadow over highlight), I agree that it could be 
> useful in the *special* situation
> where the primary objective is to control the viewer's perception of
> brightly/dimly lit, as Gary stated.

Well said. The only other point to add once again is that because most
positive or negative films compress at the extremes (the so-called
"shoulders,") you can gain a small amount of effective compression of
the contrast range of a scene by favouring the shadows a half a stop or
so.

That is, assuming that a half a stop is important to you, which leads to
my next post...  8-)


Eric G.


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