Natural skin texture?

A

andreaok

Member
I was able to get super detailed natural skin the other day, but I'm not sure how? I'm assuming it was the lighting setup where I was - there were about 8 powerful stage lights shining down over someone I was talking to at a music venue (everything else surrounding was dark). He sat at the edge of the stage and I had the camera pointed towards him. I had it set on my usual custom settings in Dynamic mode. Bear in mind, I didn't have an extra moment to grab my lights for his eyes - they were on a time schedule.

Anyway, could I get some tips on how to replicate natural skin at music venues/live shows? I was also really close-up to him, so I assume this was another factor because it results in capturing more detailed information than not. When the artist was performing on stage, I was about 8ft to the side of him using a 50mm, and the same lights were on (perhaps more). It resulted in chalky looking skin, so I'm not sure what the "trick" is here - maybe I overexposed him.
 

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I was just told that without a light meter I can judge it by eye (zooming in and getting detail that way).I guess my question at that point is, how can I judge that the skin exposure has fallen between 40-60IRE?
 
I don't work with those or with any numbers on skin tones. You have a light meter in the camera that is pretty accurate but you'll have to set it for "spot exposure" mode and place the spot on the face. Adjust for a zero reading on the meter readout at the bottom of the screen. Or for visual effect you want.

In the menus, set EXPO-METER to ON to get that display/readout at the bottom of the screen.

Set HISTOGRAM to ON if you understand how to read a histogram. It is NOT an exposure meter but is very useful if understood.

And set CONSTANT PREVUE to ON so that your viewfinder (and LCD) will darken with underexposure and brighten with overexposure. Otherwise those will usually display what looks like a properly exposed image whether the exposure is right or not.

This will give you 3 ways to evaluate exposure (all at once): The meter readout at the bottom of the screen, the visual appearance in the viewfinder/LCD (does it "look" the way you want?), and the histogram.
 
Bruce Foreman said:
I don't work with those or with any numbers on skin tones. You have a light meter in the camera that is pretty accurate but you'll have to set it for "spot exposure" mode and place the spot on the face. Adjust for a zero reading on the meter readout at the bottom of the screen. Or for visual effect you want.

In the menus, set EXPO-METER to ON to get that display/readout at the bottom of the screen.

Set HISTOGRAM to ON if you understand how to read a histogram. It is NOT an exposure meter but is very useful if understood.

And set CONSTANT PREVUE to ON so that your viewfinder (and LCD) will darken with underexposure and brighten with overexposure. Otherwise those will usually display what looks like a properly exposed image whether the exposure is right or not.

This will give you 3 ways to evaluate exposure (all at once): The meter readout at the bottom of the screen, the visual appearance in the viewfinder/LCD (does it "look" the way you want?), and the histogram.
Click to expand...

Perfect. Thank you!
 
Bruce Foreman, I don't see EXPO-METER in my GH1. There is an EXPO option, but it's inactive somehow, maybe because of some other inactive function or just because I use vintage lenses. What is your kind advice?
Thank you in advance!
 
The exposure meter is just that little set of bars at the bottom middle of your screen that has a 0 in the middle and dots extending out in (on the GH1) one way or the other.

kind like this

-3 0 +3
----■----

If you're doing manual exposure, set it to spot metering and put that center dot on the part of your talent's face you want to be properly exposed, then just adjust your exposure until that meter is at 0.

Or, if you want to set it for auto exposure, same thing, but then press the AF/AE lock with that dot on their face, and it will lock your exposure to that setting.
 
blazer003 said:
If you're doing manual exposure, set it to spot metering and put that center dot on the part of your talent's face you want to be properly exposed, then just adjust your exposure until that meter is at 0.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea, but based on the quirks of the GH2 and on the principles of photography, let me suggest some minor modifications to your approach.
1. Most caucasian skin tone is actually a bit brighter than the Middle Gray that the spot meter is looking for, so pointing at skin and setting your meter to zero will cause you to slightly underexpose your image.
2. I just did a test and noticed that the "Smooth" setting on the GH2 is 1/3 stop hotter than "Standard" and causes you to underexpose by 1/3 stop (I shot a gray card in proper lighting, brought it into FCP and Photoshop and looked at the scopes and color meter).

Based on these 2 points, for proper skin tone exposure using the GH2's spot meter, it might be best to point it at skin and adjust exposure until it reads 1 tick above zero (plus 1/3 stop). When shooting on "Smooth", perhaps setting it for 2 ticks above zero (plus 2/3 stop) would yield ideal exposure.
 
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