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I think this is incredibly trivializing of both the tech and art. So getting exposure isn't just an arbitrary value. It's relative to tons of things, so it's a

by dagmx 5y ago

I think this is incredibly trivializing of both the tech and art. So getting exposure isn't just an arbitrary value. It's relative to tons of things, so it's always been possible to shoot darker skin. The issue wasn't just exposure though. It's actually quite possible to shoot darker skin in lower light. You just need to know how to light it and capture the skin. (E.g darker tones are more specular on film) The issue was color calibration and education. Film was designed to highlight certain tones, lighting setups were geared towards certain demographics. Those were the demographics that a segregated society preferred to show, and in turn made it so darker skinned demographics weren't equally visually representable. You absolutely do not need HDR photography to shoot darker skin with lighter skin. In fact most cameras have enough dynamic range today to deal without an HDR capture.

silisili 5y ago
> You absolutely do not need HDR photography to shoot darker skin with lighter skin. In fact most cameras have enough dynamic range today to deal without an HDR capture. We may be conflating techs(my fault). I'm mostly interested in digital, so I can't defend much about film. I know of no phone camera that can do what you say. As a diverse family, either I'm blown out, or my wife looks like a chunk of coal. Even her Fuji digicam behaves this way.
- dagmx 5y ago
  It does require quite a bit of processing, that's true, especially on camera phones. iPhones and Pixels have gotten a lot better at optimizing images for multiple ethnicities, but not everyone has the same processing accumen. On the standalone camera, shoot RAW if you can. If you're shooting jpeg, you're beholden to the cameras signal processing which can still be quite biased to certain tones. It'll require you to process the image yourself, but you'll have access to a lot more range than the jpeg output.
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    >It does require quite a bit of processing, that's true, especially on camera phones. If you mess with the curves by raising the shadows or lowering the highlights, the image will look strange. If you photograph something with a large difference between lights and darks and want to convey as much information as you can, you have to use some additional lighting, like speedlights, studio lights, reflectors.
DeathArrow 5y ago
>So getting exposure isn't just an arbitrary value. It's relative to tons of things, so it's always been possible to shoot darker skin. In photography, exposure is the amount of light per unit area (the image plane illuminance times the exposure time) reaching a frame of photographic film or the surface of an electronic image sensor, as determined by shutter speed, lens aperture, and scene luminance. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance in a specified region. [1] Image lightness can be affected by both exposure and ISO. But since film had a reduced dynamic range, the truth is it can't reproduce reliable both dark tones and skin tones at the same time. It's a technical limitation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography) >You absolutely do not need HDR photography to shoot darker skin with lighter skin. In fact most cameras have enough dynamic range today to deal without an HDR capture. Actually if you have two individuals side by side, one with dark skin, one with white skin you can't shoot both at the same time and have both look good if the lighting is the same. Cameras can record at most 14 - 15 Evs of dynamic range. The difference between the light falling on those two persons is more than that.
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  You absolutely can shoot two people with different skin tones side-by-side, but it requires some skill. I invite you to look through various press photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. meeting Lyndon Johnson. Some of them do a very good job of capturing both men; others don't.
- dagmx 5y ago
  It is going to be incredibly difficult to get two people , in the same light, to be that many stops apart just by virtue of their skin if you're correctly exposed. If you're under or over exposed, someone might clip out sooner , but a well exposed image will have enough latitude to capture both.

by dagmx 5y ago

silisili 5y ago

> You absolutely do not need HDR photography to shoot darker skin with lighter skin. In fact most cameras have enough dynamic range today to deal without an HDR capture. We may be conflating techs(my fault). I'm mostly interested in digital, so I can't defend much about film. I know of no phone camera that can do what you say. As a diverse family, either I'm blown out, or my wife looks like a chunk of coal. Even her Fuji digicam behaves this way.

dagmx 5y ago
It does require quite a bit of processing, that's true, especially on camera phones. iPhones and Pixels have gotten a lot better at optimizing images for multiple ethnicities, but not everyone has the same processing accumen. On the standalone camera, shoot RAW if you can. If you're shooting jpeg, you're beholden to the cameras signal processing which can still be quite biased to certain tones. It'll require you to process the image yourself, but you'll have access to a lot more range than the jpeg output.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >It does require quite a bit of processing, that's true, especially on camera phones. If you mess with the curves by raising the shadows or lowering the highlights, the image will look strange. If you photograph something with a large difference between lights and darks and want to convey as much information as you can, you have to use some additional lighting, like speedlights, studio lights, reflectors.

DeathArrow 5y ago

>So getting exposure isn't just an arbitrary value. It's relative to tons of things, so it's always been possible to shoot darker skin. In photography, exposure is the amount of light per unit area (the image plane illuminance times the exposure time) reaching a frame of photographic film or the surface of an electronic image sensor, as determined by shutter speed, lens aperture, and scene luminance. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance in a specified region. [1] Image lightness can be affected by both exposure and ISO. But since film had a reduced dynamic range, the truth is it can't reproduce reliable both dark tones and skin tones at the same time. It's a technical limitation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography) >You absolutely do not need HDR photography to shoot darker skin with lighter skin. In fact most cameras have enough dynamic range today to deal without an HDR capture. Actually if you have two individuals side by side, one with dark skin, one with white skin you can't shoot both at the same time and have both look good if the lighting is the same. Cameras can record at most 14 - 15 Evs of dynamic range. The difference between the light falling on those two persons is more than that.

i_am_proteus 5y ago
You absolutely can shoot two people with different skin tones side-by-side, but it requires some skill. I invite you to look through various press photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. meeting Lyndon Johnson. Some of them do a very good job of capturing both men; others don't.
dagmx 5y ago
It is going to be incredibly difficult to get two people , in the same light, to be that many stops apart just by virtue of their skin if you're correctly exposed. If you're under or over exposed, someone might clip out sooner , but a well exposed image will have enough latitude to capture both.