Black Dogs - Bryan Peterson

[rpcrowe]

When shooting an image of a black dog, especially when it fills the frame, you often get an overexposed image (gray dog) if you follow your camera's meter reading religiously...

I mostly use the camera's Auto Exposure Bracketing capability (at one-stop intervals) combined with a -1 stop Exposure Compensation to get a series of three images: one at the meter reading, one at 1-stop below the meter reading and one at 2-stops below the meter reading). I am always able to get a decent image of the black dog as well as the surrounding area with this technique.

I recently read in Understanding Exposure - Revised Edition by Bryan Peterson, that he recommends taking a meter reading off the blue sky and using that to shoot the black dog. I don't have any black dogs in my home (at the moment anyway) so I cannot put that advice to the test. However, it seems pretty logical because using that technique will get you an exposure which should maintain the black dog's coat as black.

However, I can't see any advantage to this system over my AEB + EC system (except in shooting action using burst mode). I am a firm believer in the insurance of my system. In fact I have one of the user selected modes (Canon 7D has three of these) set up for this system. I not only use it for very black subjects but, for night shots of cityscapes. The system works great for most night shots which usually include lights. The bane of most night photos of lights is overexposing the lights..

[Tringa]

I agree, Richard. You have worked out a procedure that works for you and I guess that you have probably used, and possibly tweaked it, over some time, it rarely lets you down. Although I don't have a user mode set on my camera for such an event, I do somethng similar - just dialing in some compensation.

I haven't read Bryan Peterson's book but I know it is well regarded and if it suggests someting that works, then that is good.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

The book may have some good points but, it really fails when he tries to pawn off an overexposed image of his wife (with absolutely no black point) as a high key image. It isn't; it is just over exposed!

When someone writes a book and has a big error in the subject material, I often wonder about the rest of the book (although in this case most of the book seems pretty reliable).

It's very much like if someone was giving a lecture on the American Civil War (1861-1865) and began by stating the following: "The events portrayed in this book are accurate because I was there when they happened" I might worry about the veracity of some of the other statements