A guy at the darkroom told me my highlights were blowing out

I had been metering for shadows like everyone says, but he pointed out I was losing detail in bright skies. Switched to spot metering the highlights first and now my portraits look way more balanced. Anyone else get a tip that totally changed their exposure approach?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_miles1mo ago

Buddy of mine spent years underexposing everything because some old timer told him to always meter for the shadows. He'd get these muddy, crushed blacks and thought that's just how film looked. One day a different guy in the darkroom asked him if he'd ever tried pulling the film a stop and metering for the midtones instead. He did it, came back with negatives that actually had separation in the shadows and highlights both. Now he's all about finding the middle ground instead of chasing extremes.

elizabeth_williams1mo ago

@the_miles that's a good story but I gotta say, metering for shadows isn't really wrong if you're doing it for a reason. Zone system folks do it on purpose to hold detail in the dark areas while letting highlights fall where they may. The real trick is knowing what your film can handle, lol. Different stocks have different latitude, so what works for Tri-X might totally suck for Ektar or Portra. Sounds like your buddy just needed to learn his film's limits instead of following advice blindly, which is honestly how most of us figure it out anyway.

the_simon1mo ago

Buddy of mine metered for shadows once, blew out his whole landscape shot. @the_miles knows the struggle.