I'm heading to Mozambique to photograph, film and interview Mozambicans for two weeks.
Will be shooting with a Canon 5D (i) + 55mm (f/1.8) and 24-105 (f/4) but need tips and tutoring on how to photograph them without the blowout of the background or under exposing the 'black' (as my Mozambican says they call their colour) person/s
Managed to spend an hour with my first black person shoot and had to edit (not too much) for these pix.
You need to read about the Zone System. And you'll have to make some difficult exposure decisions along the way. Some quick resources I found from Google:
@misschuff - Carlita, I spent a few years in Papua New Guinea and I understand your question. But unfortunately there is no easy answer. Each photo needs to be assessed as it comes, because in some situations, spot weighted WB will work and on other occasions it doesn't...
Your three shots of your dear friend are all fantastic and if you continued on this track then your journey will be full of beautiful photos!
@bobfoto Thanks Jason ... had to do a bit of editing but could take time to set the exposure in manual ... don't think I'll have that much time when on the hop over there. Cheers - had a quick look but will bookmark and 'study' between now and then.
7 shades of skin tone keep popping in my head as far as the grouping for exposure adjustments, i have not read the articles above, but one thing you will want to be careful of is exposure when there is a group of two or more people next to each other and at the wide end of the spectrum, if you have time possibly spot meter if you have time.
I'll be in MZB next month too, and facing similar issues, so thanks for posting this thread. It's been super helpful! Best of luck & safe travels to you. Boa Sorte!
This was exposed by looking straight up at the blue sky, meter and focus and drop down for the photo. Direct metering washed out the trees. I had about two minutes to get the shots that I did of this scene.
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http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/theory/understanding-using-ansel-adams-zone-system/">http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/theory/understanding-using-ansel-adams-zone-system/
http://dpanswers.com/content/tech_zonesystem.php
Your three shots of your dear friend are all fantastic and if you continued on this track then your journey will be full of beautiful photos!
some of my PNG shots can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pomfotos/
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@miranda
Been and done ... pix up from http://365project.org/misschuff/365/2011-04-10 on
Example 1: