NYIP Unit 2, Lesson 6

Lesson six = exposure.  This is one of the most important lessons in the course, or so I was told in the first part of the lesson. 

The lessons come on CDs with several tracks on each CD to help break up the lessons into manageable segments.  With Unit 2 I received a lesson explaining that Track 6 was really Track 2 and Track 2 was 6.  I listened to Track 1 last weekend and listened to Track 6 this morning.  I'm old and forgetful so I thought I'd forgotten something when they started talking about page 50 in the book when I'd only read to page 21.  Turns out, they'd fixed the error and Track 2 actually was Track 2.

So far we've discussed evaluating correct exposure and light meters.  The instructors said the reflective light meter in your digital camera is probably all you'll need unless doing specialized photography, such as advertising.  However, you can't rely on the meter alone - it can't do all your thinking for you.  They also said that if you were going to buy a meter, get an incident meter and they mentioned the brand name Sekonic.

1. The NYIP web site has a short article on incident light readings and use of an 18% gray card. 
2. Cambridge in Colour does a nice job explaining camera metering and exposure.
3. The Digital Photography School has a lesson on using your camera's light meter in their (free!) Photography 101 course. 

We also discussed digital cameras and histograms.  I didn't even know digital cameras had histograms, much less what they were used for.  Now I do.  Here are some tutorials if you want to learn more about using the histogram to improve your photographs.

1. Cambridge in Colour has a 2-part tutorial on histograms.
2. The National Parks Service has a 4 page pdf leaflet on Understanding Histograms.   While I was there I noticed they also have a leaflet on Digital Storage Media.
3. Digicamhelp  also has a good little tutorial on using histograms.