Exercise 28: Measuring Exposure. Part II

There are two parts to this exercise. The first part requires me to take 4-6 photographs which are deliberately under or over-exposed, and analyze why it is a good choice. The second part requires me to select 5-6 subjects, and mark 5 exposures (light and darker) at each one, and select one that I prefer.

Believe it or not, the first part is actually more difficult than any other exercise in this section. I am not too sure about what is "underexposed" or "overexposed" means technically. If the question is whether or not I use the built-in light meter inside my camera, and anything that light meter indicates as "underexposed" means underexposed, then I will get different answer on the same setting with different metering type. Personally I use spot metering most of the time, and most of the images I took is not "correctly" exposed based on the light meter, given that the mid point is usually not at the centre.

Anyway, I did the second part first.

First screen, the subway. If I care about the detail on the stairs, I prefer the fourth one. Otherwise, the second one has better atmosphere(ie no one pays to keep the subway so well-lit).

Second screen, the river bank. I prefer the second one.

The third screen, sunset. I prefer the last one. However, one can argue that the third one gives a better balance on sun and the cloud.

Fourth screen, still sunset, but I changed location. The first one and the second one works for me. Somehow the sun is the main subject here. In the later shot when the exposure is higher, it lost the details of the sun, but not providing enough details on the pier.

Fifth screen, the street lamp. I prefer the third one. However, I have to admit that the difference between all of them are not that big (ie there is no lost of details on the subject). It is really depends on the atmosphere you want to get.

So after 25 boring images, what is the conclusion? I have to admit that I like slightly underexposed images. However, I don't think by differing by 2/3 of stop will be the end of the world. The resulting image will be different, but not horrible. I have to say that this is at odd with the concept of "exposing to the right" in digitals, and "exposure the shadow and the highlight will take care of itself" in film. Sometime I feel totally technical advise ignores the effect one might want to create. Of course, that goes the same with the whitebalance. Has anybody thought of setting an "incorrect" whitebalace just to make the screen look more yellow (tungsten)? Would that give sort of an old age atmosphere? If we are manage to pre-visualize what will come out at the end, does it matter if we have the "correct" exposure and whitebalance. 

Just a thought, I am sure someone will beat me up for that one day.