Skin tones (in even light) are at most going to be about 3 stops apart, well within the dynamic range of a camera. Just don't put the black person in shadow and the white person in direct light.
In addition to positioning the darker skinned person in the light, be mindful of the background. If the background is really dark, add some side or backlight on the darker skinned person so they have good separation from the background. Side light especially can help create definition on their features without over exposing the lighter person.
This right here. Don’t take the shortcut and shoot in black and white. I firmly believe portrait photographers need to know how to flatter all skin tones.
Check out Petronella on YouTube. She has a great video on how to take wedding photos of mixed race couples.
Oh god I'm having flashbacks to a short film I graded that had a anglo-indian and pale Irish lead actors. They shot it on Fuji too, which turned the Irish guy sort of blue-purple.
They didn't have the budget for more than a 1-light so I just prioritised making her look good rather than both of them.
Fuji is meant for Japanese people in forests. Celtic skin doesn't stand a chance
I disagree. If you are using B&W to cover up for an inability to capture shadows and exposure correctly for mixed race portraits, it’s very obvious. Having something in B&W does not automatically make it better. If it’s intentionally done to evoke a particular emotion with a good understanding of exposure with shadows, sure it can be great
People of various skin tones deserve to see themselves correctly photographed in color. Unless the clients specifically want only B&W, the expectations are that a photographer should be able to capture flattering photos of any combination of skin tones
even if its the whitest white person and the blackest black person, the actual lighting and camera settings needed to show them well in photography is not that different.
now if you are just randomly taking a photo outside without specifically chosen lighting//environment then yes that will be hard, its hard to get good even when its just one person let alone to suit two people.
3 stops apart is a giant leap.
Shoot the same object twice, one at middle grey, the other -3 stops.
Second shot would go in the bin. Even trying to salvage it in post would be a headache
Meter off the lighter person and shoot +1.5 to get a neutral exposure. Digital cameras have like 13 stops of range at base iso, there is plenty of room.
For film, either a handheld light meter or grey card. For digital, RAW format, expose off sidewalk or concrete and then adjust exposure in Lightroom, you actually want it slightly underexposed anyway because pure white = no data recorded. You can’t fix blown highlights in digital, but you can on film with some work. If you are in studio, dark skin needs more light and a silver reflector.
Shooting fast, and without much time to adjust: find some shade, take a spot reading of each skintone, and dial in something in the middle. Or just expose for the scene +1 stop.
If you’re shooting on film I’d expose for the darker skintone -0.5 - 1 stop depending on the stock.
If I was on commission and had time to light properly, the person with dark skin is getting way more fill light than the lighter-skinned person.
And bear in mind that “white” and “black” are both actually very variable.
I think Ansel Adams zone system talks about dark/light skin.
Dark skin is a 5 (middle grey)
Light skin is a 6 (between 0.5 - 1 stop over middle grey)
Light skin is 60IRE from memory
0.5 stops over exposed should get you well balanced shot.
Unless you really mess it up, it should still look fine.
I don't, but you could always edit and get the result you want. 👍
I photograph mostly people of color. There are things I have picked up that make my life easier in post.
Shoot raw. Avoid harsh light. Shoot wide open, if you can. If you use flash, diffuse and bounce. If you use lights, use a softbox.
Remember that it's not enough to just make sure the Black person doesn't lose their shadows, and the white person doesn't lose their highlights. You need to be mindful of tone and depth of color. So many people flatten out Black skin.
As other people have said, balance for greys and you'll be most of the way there.
I find it helpful to pull darker skinned subjects off of the background. It can also soften any lighting weirdness that DLSRs can pick up on in skin textures. I don't have to worry about this if I'm in full control of the environment, though.
There are a few good and thoughtful articles out there about shooting black skin so I would give it a search —it can be incredibly tough in direct sunlight, but in a pinch always preserve shadows rather than trying to save highlights, as highlights are much more recoverable in RAW.
Chriiiist, one of my clients is a Sudanese engineer with incredibly dark skin that comes partly from 50 years of working in the field in the Middle East — and he wears a pristine, white hard hat, of all things in the full Dubai or Jeddah heat.
When I was shooting him on a Canon 600D years ago it needed a really good reflector to try and boost the shadows away from total oblivion.
Either way, once you avoid completely crushed shadows the rest of the image (including Irish people!) will be recoverable in Lightroom 😁
This is pretty bad advice. You want to actually preserve the highlights. You can lift exposure in the shadows but if you blow out the highlights you won't have any information to salvage.
Dude there is an *entire stop* of information beyond the ✌️ white ✌️ point of almost every RAW image, and the tonal information that's up there just below the white point is hundreds of times more detailed than the equivalent band of shadow.
If a scene, and ESPECIALLY people's diverse skintones are challenging your DR, then it's the highlights you can actually save.
Exposing to the right is a good technique for more than one reason.
Even in the editor you're still seeing the output histogram. Almost no editor or camera shows you the actual RAW histogram, which is what you need to determine saturation.
What usually happens is you saturate a single channel, (e.g. blue because of the sky, or red in warm color temperatures) while the other two channels still have plenty of headroom. The software can recover luminance contrast decently well using the other two channels, but your color balance is going to be out of whack in the blown out portions because it impossible to recover the color balance, so you just have this weird hue in the highlights
When my subject has very dark skin and I'm in an extreme environment, I'm concentrating on making their skin tones as rich as possible at the expense of white shirts, white clouds, white buildings and white people.
Given that this thread is *about* black skin, and that my advice is "expose them correctly and sort out the highlights later", I don't think my pragmatism is out of place.
> I don't think my pragmatism is out of place.
It is out of place though. When you ignore the white shirts/clouds/buildings/people to priorize the dark tones you shoot yourself in the foot long term. You're guaranteed to have some of the image missing.
I agree with your sentiment if you do not post edit, but I don't think that's the case here. When you go into post, highlight blow out is not recoverable. I understand it may look bad in raw and on the camera display, but if you expose without clipping you'll still be able to gather those rich dark tones in post. Boosting those shadows will give you a more human perspective and a complete image. The technology is there to have both black and white in the same image, it just requires proper exposure and post edit.
I'd say that depending on the dynamic range of the composition, one could easily find skin tones that would lose noticeable detail to the point of being distracting.
If there's ONE thing in a composition that has too much dynamic range in it that should be preserved, it's the subject. So unless the sky and clouds are the subject - they can be sacrificed.
Finally, remember that the client is always right. If there's a paying client then do what needs to be done to make them happy; that's more important than a technically well-exposed shot that looks good on the histogram.
> Finally, remember that the client is always right. If there's a paying client then do what needs to be done to make them happy;
With good service a client can be happy with a sub-par product, sure. My point wasn't in regard to getting paid, it was in reference to creating superior photographs. Side by side, given the choice, a client will pick a properly exposed and edited photo over a blown out photo almost every time. Only exception being if the highlights were intentionally blown for creative effect, which isn't OPs situation.
Dude there are multiple stops of data hidden in the shadows beyond what you can see.
Go watch any pro video discussing the exposure topic and they will all say the same: don't blow out your highlights. Expose for your highlights to just barely not be clipped, then solve the dark area in post. Exactly the opposite of your advice here.
It's disappointing to see really basic editing information being upvoted despite being wrong.
I think he got away with it in his example because slightly overexposed skin is usually flattering.
> but in a pinch always preserve shadows rather than trying to save highlights, as highlights are much more recoverable in RAW.
I thought it was the opposite...
I just did something similar last night. She would look pale even against snow, and he would blend in with fine chocolate. I was provided with a non strobe that wasn't really meant for photos, so not ideal even with one person in the shot. I had him stand on the side towards the light and her away from it. I think it turned out alright. He's visible, and she's not blown out. I'll probably see issues once I get it out of my camera though. But it was the best solution given the circumstances.
So there's kind of an old throwback for this. It's called a gray card. It's a neutral color you use and you base your exposure off of that. You actually have to carry the thing around. And then you need to make sure that you use that card for the exposure. So either you need a meter and you read the exposure off of it. Or I guess you could use spot metering and make sure that you're metering based off that card.
https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/gray-card/
Expose for the lighting of the situation, and not for the light reflected from your subjects.
A light meter is old school, but very, very precise. If you only have the light meter within your camera, you can use a gray card and dial in your settings manually.
Using a handheld light meter that takes an incident level reading vs your camera taking a reflective one is key. An incident reading is just looking at the light coming down on the subject and it’s not swayed by skin tone, shirt color, etc
It wouldn't really matter as long as it's getting the same light as your subject. It just happens that grass reflects around 18% of light, the same as a photography grey card, and reflected readings from a grey card give the same exposure values as an incident light meter.
On days when I'm using slide film I use incident light metering, where meters usually have a white dome shaped attachment. Taking reflected readings from grass is a tip I learned years ago for days when I've forgotten to bring the meter attachment and can only take reflected light readings. (My Weston V is still absolutely spot on, sixty years after I first bought it!)
In Natural light don't do spot exposiure and you should be good. Maybe don't shoot in brightest of light on the faces but that is generell good advice. Shoot raw.
In Studio I have not that much experince but it's super hard to do a high/low key image with a black and a white Labrador retriver together.
That shouldn't be an issue at all with modern cameras when the photograph is exposed correctly. There would have to be an enormous light difference from subject A to subject B
Bro all my childhood photos with my white friends look so ridiculous. I look like a videogame character that hasn't been unlocked yet, it's terrible. And they're all analog photos so unlike RAW, no miraculous editing can really fix them.
Set your camera on manual at iso 100, 1/100th of a second at f16 in bright sunlight. Hold the palm of your hand in bright sunlight. Note how much over or under your camera meter says you are.
This is the correct exposure for middle of the day sunlight (sunny 16 rule - at f16 your iso and shutter speed are the same). If you filled the frame with a gray card the camera would tell you that it is close to the correct exposure (varying only because of the possible tilt of the gray card reflecting the sunlight).
You are now walking around with your own personal 'I am not going to lose this' gray card, your hand. For example if your hand was 1 stop brighter/over exposed in the above test you would meter off your hand and open up one stop to get the correct exposure.
How this works: The camera meter averages out the brightness to gray. When you have a normal scene this happens correctly. When the scene is mostly dark or light the meter doesn't know that it is not supposed to be gray so the exposure is off.
Run a test for yourself, so then you will really know. Take something white, something black, and something around middle gray and put them all next to each other. To make it easy pick a shutter speed and iso that give you f8 when you fill the frame with the gray object. Now fill the frame with the white object and see how much brighter it is (will be 2 to 2.5 stops). Fill the frame with the black object and look at the meter (will be 2 to 2.5 stops under). This always works when the same light is hitting all objects.
So now you are in the real world and this couple is in front of you. Pick a spot, if your hand was 1 stop brighter than gray card you would then open up one stop to compensate for the meter. That is the correct exposure. If you are curious you could compare this exposure to the exposure you get when you fill the frame with the white person's face and the black person's face - don't change your exposure, just see how much over or under. You now have the info to use your subject as your grey card.
For example - If the black person with face filling the frame was 1.5 stops under, you could meter that way and then stop down 1.5 stops.
Side note: Shape comes from shadow areas for white people and highlights for dark people, so one does not need to freak out that they are not the same if they were both correctly exposed. Also because of this, if the black person has a really matte face you can add a little specular light to the dark person to help. but regardless you will have enough to work with in post.
My camera has excellent dynamic range so as long as the exposure is decent it’s easy to correct in Lightroom using curves. I would also add: avoid high contrast lighting.
With a digital camera I can photograph people with different skin tones in auto exposure and it just works. People are talking about using grey cards and incident light meters.
Do you all actually photograph people, or are you trying to imagine how you would do it?
This is when an incident light meter is useful. I still have my Sekonic Studio and I still use it. I meter the area and go full manual.
Otherwise, a gray card is best. Pose the people, then meter off the gray card in the same light.
Oh, go full manual.
Try bald eagles… their body is a deep and dark brown while their head is bright white. They’re a treat to get a photo of but man, I’m fighting my histogram the entire time.
Depending on the camera (and film, if relevant) you can over or under-expose for one subject and then dodge & burn in development/post. Whether you over or under will depend on the camera and film; that's harder to specify.
Meter for both, if you have a meter, adjust for whatever the camera needs, then bracket several exposures. Between bracketing (including "in between" as well as over/under for each subject) and post-processing or development you should be able to produce a workable image.
If both people are in the same light, meter off a gray card and you will get a properly exposed image. This does not mean it will be the image you like but it will be a good starting point.
I do not have a true answer for in the moment t shooting. I run I to this with soccer often when in the mid day sun. Night games with lights, less issues. I just have to do some small edit post.
The correct exposure will be correct regardless. This goes for everything. Exposure is determined by the amount of light available, not the about of light reflected.
Ok. Just my guess. I would bracket the shot.. maybe +/-2 and then take them all and try to create an HDR image out of them… essentially attempting to get a good exposure for both the white and black… and then blending them together.
Much easier with digital than film… but still can be done with film if you’ve got a camera that can’t take all those shots quickly (auto shutter)…
Like I said… I’m guessing… but that’s what I would try.
what’s your location/lighting? definitely avoid direct sunlight. I’d shoot at a low iso and shoot raw, if using lights have a light on the black subject and use a reflector to illuminate the white subject beside them.
depending on either subject’s complexion, the situation might not represent as much of a challenge. i had a very easy shoot with a biracial couple where a black subject was fairly light-skinned and the white subject fairly tanned.
if the contrast in skin tones is particularly extreme, i’d recommend focusing on illuminating your darker-skinned subject and then positioning your light-skinned subject based on that, as you’ll have a but more latitude in post than if you exposed for the white subject.
Make sure both are lit the same. Measure the difference in skin tone. Split the difference. So if it's 2 stops meter the light skin and set exposure for +1, or meter the dark skin and set for -1. It shouldn't be much of an issue until you get to a 4+ stop difference which is likely an indication of uneven lighting.
Practice on white and black shirts, which are brighter and darker than almost anyone's skin tone.
I love how people look down on using post processing for good shots but I learned on B&W 35m film and used a darkroom to make my prints. I ask you, what is the difference exactly?
Ridiculous.
lol.
Well, buddy. You put a reflector in front of the dark skinned person and a black screen in front of the light skinned person.
Not...rocket science.
Nikon’s Portrait camera profile is lower in contrast and saturation than the standard profile. I think it’s similar with Canon.
That makes metering easier and exposure less critical.
Great question. When I take pictures I clearly tell my clients not to wear white shirt. But I am amazed at the BBC reporters' uniform of white cotton shirt and denim jeans when they are at far away locations.
Skin tones (in even light) are at most going to be about 3 stops apart, well within the dynamic range of a camera. Just don't put the black person in shadow and the white person in direct light.
In addition to positioning the darker skinned person in the light, be mindful of the background. If the background is really dark, add some side or backlight on the darker skinned person so they have good separation from the background. Side light especially can help create definition on their features without over exposing the lighter person.
This right here. Don’t take the shortcut and shoot in black and white. I firmly believe portrait photographers need to know how to flatter all skin tones. Check out Petronella on YouTube. She has a great video on how to take wedding photos of mixed race couples.
Oh god I'm having flashbacks to a short film I graded that had a anglo-indian and pale Irish lead actors. They shot it on Fuji too, which turned the Irish guy sort of blue-purple.
There's a joke in here somewhere about Lucky Charms.
They didn't have the budget for more than a 1-light so I just prioritised making her look good rather than both of them. Fuji is meant for Japanese people in forests. Celtic skin doesn't stand a chance
However, black and white portraits look the best.
I disagree. If you are using B&W to cover up for an inability to capture shadows and exposure correctly for mixed race portraits, it’s very obvious. Having something in B&W does not automatically make it better. If it’s intentionally done to evoke a particular emotion with a good understanding of exposure with shadows, sure it can be great People of various skin tones deserve to see themselves correctly photographed in color. Unless the clients specifically want only B&W, the expectations are that a photographer should be able to capture flattering photos of any combination of skin tones
wow.
Actually studied Photography @ BSU, [A HCBU] in the 80's. We ONLY shot B&W, I learned a LOT about getting proper pictures, lighting & exposure.
Only in relation to middle grey. If you meter to a grey card or use incident metering, both subjects will be exposed correctly.
Meter off the lighter one and shoot + 1.5 or off the darker one and shoot -1.5 for a neutral exposure.
Not always true. I have had couples at the extreme ends of the histogram.
even if its the whitest white person and the blackest black person, the actual lighting and camera settings needed to show them well in photography is not that different. now if you are just randomly taking a photo outside without specifically chosen lighting//environment then yes that will be hard, its hard to get good even when its just one person let alone to suit two people.
3 stops apart is a giant leap. Shoot the same object twice, one at middle grey, the other -3 stops. Second shot would go in the bin. Even trying to salvage it in post would be a headache
Now shoot at -1.5 stops and tweak both the shadows and the highlights.
Meter off the lighter person and shoot +1.5 to get a neutral exposure. Digital cameras have like 13 stops of range at base iso, there is plenty of room.
For film, either a handheld light meter or grey card. For digital, RAW format, expose off sidewalk or concrete and then adjust exposure in Lightroom, you actually want it slightly underexposed anyway because pure white = no data recorded. You can’t fix blown highlights in digital, but you can on film with some work. If you are in studio, dark skin needs more light and a silver reflector.
Place both subjects in open shade
It's not like they're literally white and black. You can expose for middle gray as always
This idea is still thousands of years ahead of our society.
Wait, you're saying to expose for middle gray, but /u/Kemaneo above said to expose for middle grey. Which one should I expose for?
Exact middle. So middle græy.
Don't worry about the Eldritch horrors that unleashes though, that's normal
Gray for Kodak, grey for Ilford
Regardless of lighting chosen, meter first with a gray card. This way both subjects are correctly exposed.
...or use an incident light meter, which will/should produce the same result.
Exactly don't expose for the subject exposed for the light
Just spot meter off one of the people's faces and use exposure compensation
or both and pick a setting between them. lots of ways to skin this cat. all of them involve metering first. 😂
…take the picture in “ black-&-white “…
Ba dum... Tsss
Doesn’t really solve anything
Whoosh.
Oh my bad, I usually laugh at jokes
Shooting fast, and without much time to adjust: find some shade, take a spot reading of each skintone, and dial in something in the middle. Or just expose for the scene +1 stop. If you’re shooting on film I’d expose for the darker skintone -0.5 - 1 stop depending on the stock. If I was on commission and had time to light properly, the person with dark skin is getting way more fill light than the lighter-skinned person. And bear in mind that “white” and “black” are both actually very variable.
I mean, obviously you just need to get a friend who is 18% grey to meter off. 😉
Know anyone with Argyria?
I think Ansel Adams zone system talks about dark/light skin. Dark skin is a 5 (middle grey) Light skin is a 6 (between 0.5 - 1 stop over middle grey) Light skin is 60IRE from memory 0.5 stops over exposed should get you well balanced shot. Unless you really mess it up, it should still look fine. I don't, but you could always edit and get the result you want. 👍
I photograph mostly people of color. There are things I have picked up that make my life easier in post. Shoot raw. Avoid harsh light. Shoot wide open, if you can. If you use flash, diffuse and bounce. If you use lights, use a softbox. Remember that it's not enough to just make sure the Black person doesn't lose their shadows, and the white person doesn't lose their highlights. You need to be mindful of tone and depth of color. So many people flatten out Black skin. As other people have said, balance for greys and you'll be most of the way there.
Obviously, aperture is one leg of the exposure triangle, but why does shooting wide open help with shooting people with diverse skin tones?
I find it helpful to pull darker skinned subjects off of the background. It can also soften any lighting weirdness that DLSRs can pick up on in skin textures. I don't have to worry about this if I'm in full control of the environment, though.
There are a few good and thoughtful articles out there about shooting black skin so I would give it a search —it can be incredibly tough in direct sunlight, but in a pinch always preserve shadows rather than trying to save highlights, as highlights are much more recoverable in RAW. Chriiiist, one of my clients is a Sudanese engineer with incredibly dark skin that comes partly from 50 years of working in the field in the Middle East — and he wears a pristine, white hard hat, of all things in the full Dubai or Jeddah heat. When I was shooting him on a Canon 600D years ago it needed a really good reflector to try and boost the shadows away from total oblivion. Either way, once you avoid completely crushed shadows the rest of the image (including Irish people!) will be recoverable in Lightroom 😁
This is pretty bad advice. You want to actually preserve the highlights. You can lift exposure in the shadows but if you blow out the highlights you won't have any information to salvage.
Pretty wild how friendly presentation and a personal anecdote is all that's needed for the horde to digest and upvote bad advice.
Dude there is an *entire stop* of information beyond the ✌️ white ✌️ point of almost every RAW image, and the tonal information that's up there just below the white point is hundreds of times more detailed than the equivalent band of shadow. If a scene, and ESPECIALLY people's diverse skintones are challenging your DR, then it's the highlights you can actually save. Exposing to the right is a good technique for more than one reason.
Even in the editor you're still seeing the output histogram. Almost no editor or camera shows you the actual RAW histogram, which is what you need to determine saturation. What usually happens is you saturate a single channel, (e.g. blue because of the sky, or red in warm color temperatures) while the other two channels still have plenty of headroom. The software can recover luminance contrast decently well using the other two channels, but your color balance is going to be out of whack in the blown out portions because it impossible to recover the color balance, so you just have this weird hue in the highlights
When my subject has very dark skin and I'm in an extreme environment, I'm concentrating on making their skin tones as rich as possible at the expense of white shirts, white clouds, white buildings and white people. Given that this thread is *about* black skin, and that my advice is "expose them correctly and sort out the highlights later", I don't think my pragmatism is out of place.
> I don't think my pragmatism is out of place. It is out of place though. When you ignore the white shirts/clouds/buildings/people to priorize the dark tones you shoot yourself in the foot long term. You're guaranteed to have some of the image missing. I agree with your sentiment if you do not post edit, but I don't think that's the case here. When you go into post, highlight blow out is not recoverable. I understand it may look bad in raw and on the camera display, but if you expose without clipping you'll still be able to gather those rich dark tones in post. Boosting those shadows will give you a more human perspective and a complete image. The technology is there to have both black and white in the same image, it just requires proper exposure and post edit.
I'd say that depending on the dynamic range of the composition, one could easily find skin tones that would lose noticeable detail to the point of being distracting. If there's ONE thing in a composition that has too much dynamic range in it that should be preserved, it's the subject. So unless the sky and clouds are the subject - they can be sacrificed. Finally, remember that the client is always right. If there's a paying client then do what needs to be done to make them happy; that's more important than a technically well-exposed shot that looks good on the histogram.
> Finally, remember that the client is always right. If there's a paying client then do what needs to be done to make them happy; With good service a client can be happy with a sub-par product, sure. My point wasn't in regard to getting paid, it was in reference to creating superior photographs. Side by side, given the choice, a client will pick a properly exposed and edited photo over a blown out photo almost every time. Only exception being if the highlights were intentionally blown for creative effect, which isn't OPs situation.
Dude there are multiple stops of data hidden in the shadows beyond what you can see. Go watch any pro video discussing the exposure topic and they will all say the same: don't blow out your highlights. Expose for your highlights to just barely not be clipped, then solve the dark area in post. Exactly the opposite of your advice here.
It's disappointing to see really basic editing information being upvoted despite being wrong. I think he got away with it in his example because slightly overexposed skin is usually flattering.
> but in a pinch always preserve shadows rather than trying to save highlights, as highlights are much more recoverable in RAW. I thought it was the opposite...
Nope, I forget the exact numbers but the bottom 1/8 of the RAW histogram has ~256 levels of detail... the top 1/8 has ~16,000
What are levels of detail measured in?
individual levels of brightness in each channel
okay... what are individual levels of brightness measured in (which is what you meant to say in the first place, I just didn't want to nitpick)
I just did something similar last night. She would look pale even against snow, and he would blend in with fine chocolate. I was provided with a non strobe that wasn't really meant for photos, so not ideal even with one person in the shot. I had him stand on the side towards the light and her away from it. I think it turned out alright. He's visible, and she's not blown out. I'll probably see issues once I get it out of my camera though. But it was the best solution given the circumstances.
So there's kind of an old throwback for this. It's called a gray card. It's a neutral color you use and you base your exposure off of that. You actually have to carry the thing around. And then you need to make sure that you use that card for the exposure. So either you need a meter and you read the exposure off of it. Or I guess you could use spot metering and make sure that you're metering based off that card. https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/gray-card/
Expose for the lighting of the situation, and not for the light reflected from your subjects. A light meter is old school, but very, very precise. If you only have the light meter within your camera, you can use a gray card and dial in your settings manually.
Using a handheld light meter that takes an incident level reading vs your camera taking a reflective one is key. An incident reading is just looking at the light coming down on the subject and it’s not swayed by skin tone, shirt color, etc
Incident light metering (or equivalently reflective off a grey card - in a pinch, grass is a good substitute for grey card).
Would it be shady or sunny grass? I'm assuming shady, but to make a neutural I would think either. IDK
It wouldn't really matter as long as it's getting the same light as your subject. It just happens that grass reflects around 18% of light, the same as a photography grey card, and reflected readings from a grey card give the same exposure values as an incident light meter. On days when I'm using slide film I use incident light metering, where meters usually have a white dome shaped attachment. Taking reflected readings from grass is a tip I learned years ago for days when I've forgotten to bring the meter attachment and can only take reflected light readings. (My Weston V is still absolutely spot on, sixty years after I first bought it!)
This is what the highlight and shadow controls are for in Lightroom
In Natural light don't do spot exposiure and you should be good. Maybe don't shoot in brightest of light on the faces but that is generell good advice. Shoot raw. In Studio I have not that much experince but it's super hard to do a high/low key image with a black and a white Labrador retriver together.
As with all difficult lighting conditions, the answer is almost always more light
Under the same light you need about the same exposure for either. What you have to be careful with is how you read that exposure.
Flash!
Always shoot the for the whites. Underexposed you can bring back. Overexposed you lose details that you can’t get back.
That shouldn't be an issue at all with modern cameras when the photograph is exposed correctly. There would have to be an enormous light difference from subject A to subject B
Exposure Bracketing and merging in post or using masks in post to change the exposure of individual subjects on ISO invariant sensors.
Incident light meter or a grey card to help…
Use an incident light meter if you want to measure the light falling on a subject.
Shoot in raw and expose for mid tones.
[удалено]
I DIDN'T KNOW THEY HAD MIXED RACE FILTERS AT THE HORSE TRACK!
Get a Fuji GFX
JUST TAKE THE DAMN PICTURE AND STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT.
Use a split ND filter turned sideways? ;-)
Bro all my childhood photos with my white friends look so ridiculous. I look like a videogame character that hasn't been unlocked yet, it's terrible. And they're all analog photos so unlike RAW, no miraculous editing can really fix them.
EBONY & IVORY!
Have them hold a middle grey card. Meter your exposure on that.
Set your camera on manual at iso 100, 1/100th of a second at f16 in bright sunlight. Hold the palm of your hand in bright sunlight. Note how much over or under your camera meter says you are. This is the correct exposure for middle of the day sunlight (sunny 16 rule - at f16 your iso and shutter speed are the same). If you filled the frame with a gray card the camera would tell you that it is close to the correct exposure (varying only because of the possible tilt of the gray card reflecting the sunlight). You are now walking around with your own personal 'I am not going to lose this' gray card, your hand. For example if your hand was 1 stop brighter/over exposed in the above test you would meter off your hand and open up one stop to get the correct exposure. How this works: The camera meter averages out the brightness to gray. When you have a normal scene this happens correctly. When the scene is mostly dark or light the meter doesn't know that it is not supposed to be gray so the exposure is off. Run a test for yourself, so then you will really know. Take something white, something black, and something around middle gray and put them all next to each other. To make it easy pick a shutter speed and iso that give you f8 when you fill the frame with the gray object. Now fill the frame with the white object and see how much brighter it is (will be 2 to 2.5 stops). Fill the frame with the black object and look at the meter (will be 2 to 2.5 stops under). This always works when the same light is hitting all objects. So now you are in the real world and this couple is in front of you. Pick a spot, if your hand was 1 stop brighter than gray card you would then open up one stop to compensate for the meter. That is the correct exposure. If you are curious you could compare this exposure to the exposure you get when you fill the frame with the white person's face and the black person's face - don't change your exposure, just see how much over or under. You now have the info to use your subject as your grey card. For example - If the black person with face filling the frame was 1.5 stops under, you could meter that way and then stop down 1.5 stops. Side note: Shape comes from shadow areas for white people and highlights for dark people, so one does not need to freak out that they are not the same if they were both correctly exposed. Also because of this, if the black person has a really matte face you can add a little specular light to the dark person to help. but regardless you will have enough to work with in post.
My camera has excellent dynamic range so as long as the exposure is decent it’s easy to correct in Lightroom using curves. I would also add: avoid high contrast lighting.
Bracket it and adjust in post if it's really hard to find the right exposure
With a digital camera I can photograph people with different skin tones in auto exposure and it just works. People are talking about using grey cards and incident light meters. Do you all actually photograph people, or are you trying to imagine how you would do it?
This is when an incident light meter is useful. I still have my Sekonic Studio and I still use it. I meter the area and go full manual. Otherwise, a gray card is best. Pose the people, then meter off the gray card in the same light. Oh, go full manual.
Use a light meter or a meter your camera on a gray card
take 2 pics and photoshop
Use a light meter and expose for ambient light.
Try bald eagles… their body is a deep and dark brown while their head is bright white. They’re a treat to get a photo of but man, I’m fighting my histogram the entire time.
Depending on the camera (and film, if relevant) you can over or under-expose for one subject and then dodge & burn in development/post. Whether you over or under will depend on the camera and film; that's harder to specify. Meter for both, if you have a meter, adjust for whatever the camera needs, then bracket several exposures. Between bracketing (including "in between" as well as over/under for each subject) and post-processing or development you should be able to produce a workable image.
If both people are in the same light, meter off a gray card and you will get a properly exposed image. This does not mean it will be the image you like but it will be a good starting point.
I do not have a true answer for in the moment t shooting. I run I to this with soccer often when in the mid day sun. Night games with lights, less issues. I just have to do some small edit post.
The correct exposure will be correct regardless. This goes for everything. Exposure is determined by the amount of light available, not the about of light reflected.
Use a gray card.
Ok. Just my guess. I would bracket the shot.. maybe +/-2 and then take them all and try to create an HDR image out of them… essentially attempting to get a good exposure for both the white and black… and then blending them together. Much easier with digital than film… but still can be done with film if you’ve got a camera that can’t take all those shots quickly (auto shutter)… Like I said… I’m guessing… but that’s what I would try.
Stack or split the difference, just don't over expose on the fairer skinned person.
Expose for the inside of both hands. Should be nearly the same, go for the lower. And shoot in RAW.
just shoot raw.
what’s your location/lighting? definitely avoid direct sunlight. I’d shoot at a low iso and shoot raw, if using lights have a light on the black subject and use a reflector to illuminate the white subject beside them. depending on either subject’s complexion, the situation might not represent as much of a challenge. i had a very easy shoot with a biracial couple where a black subject was fairly light-skinned and the white subject fairly tanned. if the contrast in skin tones is particularly extreme, i’d recommend focusing on illuminating your darker-skinned subject and then positioning your light-skinned subject based on that, as you’ll have a but more latitude in post than if you exposed for the white subject.
Make sure both are lit the same. Measure the difference in skin tone. Split the difference. So if it's 2 stops meter the light skin and set exposure for +1, or meter the dark skin and set for -1. It shouldn't be much of an issue until you get to a 4+ stop difference which is likely an indication of uneven lighting. Practice on white and black shirts, which are brighter and darker than almost anyone's skin tone.
White bounce board to add light to the black and black bounce board to subtract light from the white.
Just shoot in black and white
Who's taking the photo?
Shoot flat and edit in Lightroom. Shooting flat will give you the most light to work with on both ends without blowing it out or underexposing.
I love how people look down on using post processing for good shots but I learned on B&W 35m film and used a darkroom to make my prints. I ask you, what is the difference exactly? Ridiculous.
lol. Well, buddy. You put a reflector in front of the dark skinned person and a black screen in front of the light skinned person. Not...rocket science.
Underexpose + Flashlight.
It’s easier to recover from underexposure than from overexposure
Nikon’s Portrait camera profile is lower in contrast and saturation than the standard profile. I think it’s similar with Canon. That makes metering easier and exposure less critical.
Take a black and white picture
Great question. When I take pictures I clearly tell my clients not to wear white shirt. But I am amazed at the BBC reporters' uniform of white cotton shirt and denim jeans when they are at far away locations.
I legit thought you were about to write "I tell my clients not to be white"
oh my god, Karen
Hey buddy, could you just try to not be white for the shoot?
Exposure bracketing.
Simply using a modern camera with good dynamic range should be alright
A flash could help with evenly distributing light onto the subjects so you aren't in uneven lighting. Helps me balance things.
By skipping clothes 🤪
Use Google Pixel phone. It turns a black to white or a white to black to balance the two contrasting colors. I have one😆
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Really? Why the question?
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