38 Better Available Light Digital Photography
At a destination wedding, Barry was convinced that the recep-
tion photographs were properly exposed, based on their “look”
on the LCD screens of his cameras. His style of photojournalism
means he always has the camera to his eye, ready to capture each
special moment. In the heat of battle, so to speak, a quick look
now and then at the histogram should have sounded a loud
alarm: Bad Exposure, Bad Exposure! He dismissed that, assum-
ing that the brightness of the images on the screen was correct.
It was not. He spent many, many additional hours in postproduc-
tion adjusting the selected images, correcting them to acceptable
exposure levels.Barry feels that cameras using the manufacturer’s dedicated lenses (Canon cameras using Canon EF lenses,
for example) are even more accurate, because the meter obtains more-exact data based on the focal length,
focus point, and f-stop of the attached lens. Joe knows that is theoretically true, but still uses the lenses of
other manufacturers from time to time. This monochrome image was made with a Canon EOS D30 that had
been converted to infrared capture only, and was captured using a Tamron (www.tamron.com) 11–18 mm
f/4.5–f5.6 Di II lens that was specifi cally designed for cameras with smaller-sized imagers, such as
the D30. Exposure was 1/160 sec at f/16 and ISO 800. © 2005 Joe Farace.
The second method of obtaining a light reading is the incident
method. This measures the overall light falling on the subject,
not refl ected off the subject. Handheld light meters are needed
for this type of measurement. Incident readings are helpful when
the subject is surrounded by extreme brightness or darkness that
would fool the refl ected in-camera reading. A performer or