Pixiq

With today’s modern equipment in our hands, the question of what makes a perfect exposure still abounds and the answer remains the same in the digital age as it did in the film days. 

During my career, I always used hand held meters, but I have to say modern in-camera meters are now sophisticated computers and not just "dumb" readers of light. They can evaluate and breakdown complicated lighting situations. And the hand held meters have kept up getting very sophisticated with how they evaluate light and tie it to your specific camera chip.

But in the end, in this high tech age, you still need to use your eyes on the scene, just as Ansel Adams did, pre-visualizing a scene to determine where he wanted the tones to fall. He then made his adjustments during exposure and processing. It’s the same today. The right exposure for tehe right image.

So the answer for me, as to what makes the perfect exposure, comes from the great Jay Maisel. Back in the film days, I once asked Jay how much he bracketed a shot. Jay replied, when possible “From one end of the lens to the other.”  Meaning there is no "perfect" exposure, he would expose a scene at every exposure the camera would give him or he thought appropriate. Some scenes lent themselves more to under exposure and some to over exposure to have the greatest impact. But how much more can only be decided by you, the photographer. Today with shooting digital, rather than his customary Kodachrome (Jay was “Mr. Kodachrome” in the day) he sets his camera to shot 3 shot brackets.

The best thing for most shooters is to learn to use the EV controls, to look at scenes and try over and under exposing, depending on what you want. I've underexposed and blocked up my blacks for one result and have over exposed blowing out the hightlights in some scenes to get another effect. Depends on the scene. Sometimes, middle grey just doesn't make it.

It takes practice and experience but in the end, using your eyes and your "wetware", your brain, will yield the best visual results. I still have my trusty Sekonic meter, to establish for certain what the tones and tonal range is, to measure evenness of light in the studio, to get my starting point, but it’s just a tool.

In the end the question of what is the perfect exposure is really a trick question. There is none. Oh, there is a technical perfect exposure, where the tones fall evenly along  a histogram, but the perfect exposure is really what you say is the perfect exposure for you, for that image.