Expose for neon signs and the likes...

cordvision

cordvision

Well-known member
How would you use an incident light meter (don't have a spot light meter available at the moment) to expose correctly for something that emits light like neon signs/ads at night?
 
cordvision said:
How would you use an incident light meter (don't have a spot light meter available at the moment) to expose correctly for something that emits light like neon signs/ads at night?
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How does Neon light change it's use with any other light source, especially, any different from a spot meter's use. Sure, with the spot meter you get the 'reflective' value, but still the incident meter is calibrated to give the same reading as the spot, if the subject is the standard Grey card.

The thing that does occur to me, is you need to know the reflectivities of the objects of interest in the shot, especially if the neon is some 'wyrd' color relative to the objects...

Sounds like testing is in order... before the shoot...
 
Thats why I ask if its the key. If its just a rim light or for accent I wouldnt bother metering it since it wouldnt over power my key and fill. If I was keying with it then I would meter it normally as well as meter the fill light for contrast adjustments. But if its the setup im thinking of you wont need to meter.
 
Steve Laramie said:
Thats why I ask if its the key. If its just a rim light or for accent I wouldnt bother metering it since it wouldnt over power my key and fill. If I was keying with it then I would meter it normally as well as meter the fill light for contrast adjustments. But if its the setup im thinking of you wont need to meter.
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I think he was asking how to expose 'it' when 'it' is emitting the light... not what the light from it is hitting (although you'll see in this post that is how I would go about it). I would not try to spot meter a bright light. Plus, a spot meter tells you what it is reflective wise and relative to middle gray. In the sense of a neon sign... depending on what you want... you'll most likely want to have the sign at a nice zone 8-9ish. So how do you know without a spot meter? Most likely you will have to make a judgment from experience and human vision. I'd recommend you know what you'd like the things immediately around it (neon sign) to expose at (using an incident light meter) and go from there. If you get the exposure of the surrounding environment how you like yet you think the light is going from the neon sign itself is going to be blown out beyond desire, you can always stop down the camera to get a cleaner image of the actual neon sign, but then use lights off camera to accentuate and exaggerate the light falling on the objects. Motivated lighting.

This scenario is of course if you don't have a working stop... and are not holding a particular stop for aesthetic reasons.
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
I think he was asking how to expose 'it' when 'it' is emitting the light... not what the light from it is hitting (although you'll see in this post that is how I would go about it). I would not try to spot meter a bright light. Plus, a spot meter tells you what it is reflective wise and relative to middle gray. In the sense of a neon sign... depending on what you want... you'll most likely want to have the sign at a nice zone 8-9ish. So how do you know without a spot meter? Most likely you will have to make a judgment from experience and human vision.
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I interpreted the request to be one where the subjects are bein illuminated by neon, and so, given the wild colors that a neon can be, that could impact using any form of metering, whether incident or reflected, since given the dominant color of the light, the amount of reflected light from the subjects would be dependent on the color of the subject.

The image I had was how things are pretty 'monochromatic' in Sodium street lights... so, the 'usual' considerations about relative reflectivities may be off because the objects don't have much 'yellow' in their color makeup...

Where's that wave form monitor when you need it... unless it's a film shoot... so, do a 24 hour pre-test shoot... when the wife started doing under water shoots pools (still photos), we did a test shoot, and then ran to a locak 1 hour lab to have it processed, just to make sure the Nikonos was working and the film was even capturing anything...
 
There is no need to meter neon signs at night. It's like shooting fireworks. The usual mistake is to open iris too much because it's "nighttime" and the colors of the neon/fireworks get all washed out. If you're only interested in showing the neon/fireworks with no regard to the rest of your frame, you can iris way down to emphasize the colors of the neon/fireworks. Exposure becomes subjective at this point.
Of course if you want to show other stuff in your shot like faces, buildings, sky etc. then you will have to meter for that and open lens accordingly. You don't want to overexpose the neon/fireworks to the point of being washed out though, so you might have to split the difference in exposure.
Shoot it at different exposures and see what works.
 
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