Practice question · Multiple choice
Two photographers meter the same white wall. One follows the meter exactly and gets a grey wall in the print; the other opens up two stops and gets a white one. Why does the meter get it wrong?
Hints
- Ask what a reflected reading is a statement about.
- The meter has no way of knowing what it is looking at.
Show the answer
D. Meters expose whatever they read as Zone V, so any metered subject becomes middle grey
Why
The meter is not wrong, it is answering a different question. It reports the exposure that would make its target Zone V, and a white wall belongs on Zone VII or VIII. Opening two stops places it there. This is placing, and it is the first of the system's two moves.
Practise The Zone System and Previsualisation
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