Re: [at-l] Camera -- Minolta Vectis 30

[bullard@northnet.org]

At 10:43 AM 1/18/99 -0800, Datto wrote:
>* The exposure calcs seem to be easily faked out with non-ideal
>lighting conditions. When I took a picture of myself with my Eureka
>Zephyr on a leash in my backyard with a completely white background of
>snow, the camera couldn't make the adjustment to expose the image of
>me in the foreground correctly because of the blast of snowy white
>background ..clipped..

This is a common problem with automatic exposure. Light meters are
calibrated to give correct exposure for scenes with tones that average out
to an 18% grey. A snowy or otherwise bright background raises the average
tone and therefore you get an underexposed print or slide because the
metering system makes it 18% grey anyway. To avoid this you either need a
more sophisticated metering system and/or manual override of the exposure
to correct what you know to be a wrong exposure. One tric: If you can meter
and then 'lock' the exposure, try moving in close so the snow doesn't get
metered, lock the exposure, then move back to recompose and shoot.

Saunterer

Jim & Diane Bullard
PO Box 5, West Stockholm, NY 13696 USA
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