Photography Friday

Faces. It seems everyone loves faces, and quite frankly so do I! I love serious faces, silly faces, and happy faces. But mostly I love those BIG eyes. Not so easy to get in Katie, but doable when she's older.

I've talked about how your camera has an in camera meter. In a dSLR, especially those Canons, you have 3 choices for the in camera meter - spot, center weighted, and evaluative. Each are good in their own way, and I think the default is evaluative. But I can't remember for sure and I don't feel like looking for my manual to see. Forgive me?

Anyhow, here are what those 3 in camera meters do.

Spot - the spot, the circle in the camera viewfinder? That's what is metered to 18% grey if the image is turned to B&W and "averaged" overall. So, if what is in the spot is black, the camera will overexpose that to where that spot would be 18% grey. If it is all white, then it will underexpose to 18% grey. Spot metering is GREAT if you are looking to meter something that is far off and you can't get close and the rest of the scene could be too bright or too dark. Say, oh a child on a snow bank. ;) You probably don't want to use it for close up because one spot on the face might be more in the shadows or brighter sunlight...and the rest of your exposure could be off.

Center weighted - this will evaluate the entire scene in the view finder but "weight" the results to what is in the center...and again, bring the exposure to 18% grey. If you have 3 kids in dark snowsuits sitting in the snow and they are centered, then the camera will set the exposure with the subject matter in the center more "weighed" and it might actually come out close to correct. But, what if, you are following the rule of thirds and a snow scene and had a child in the top 1/3 on the left (that point) in a dark snowsuit. The entire image, weighted for the center of bright snow, will be underexposed. (hint, spot might work better here)

Evaluative - this one considers the ENTIRE scene and brings the entire scene to 18% grey. So, a snow scene is going to be underexposed and a scene shooting in the dark shadows is going to be overexposed.

So, why does this matter with FACES? It pertains to it a little, but mostly, to get a good exposure in a non-direct lighting situation, the best way to meter using your in camera meter is to get really really really close to the face and meter. Set the manual exposure to the most correct when filling the frame full of the face. Then, after getting the correct exposure reading you can back off, recompose, and take the photo knowing that the FACE will be in correct exposure regardless of the rest of the scene.

Compositionally speaking however, what is good for those close-ups? I prefer a horizontal crop with the head tilted at a an angle (so the eyes are not horizontal). If I'm going to include the shoulders in the shot, then I prefer a vertical shot with the eyes at an angle. With shoulders and head, I will also turn the subject at an angle to the camera as well. The 3/4 shot? again, at an angle and vertical. :)

I have different tricks to getting different looks. Did you know that a recent 4 year old that I was taking photos of looked to see if she could find Tinkerbell in my camera? ;) My camera also does tricks. If you smile REALLY good, then it will wink at you. But you have to be aware, that IF you ask a child to smile for you, and you get that cheese smile, then they do think they are smiling pretty. They really do. It's a forced smile they are giving you, not a true one, and they don't understand the difference. I never tell them, "Oh that's not a real smile, give me a prettier one." I will say, "OH what a BIG smile you have. Let's see if you can show me a small smile? How about no smile? I bet you can't be serious. Now, don't smile. Don't you dare smile....don't smile...." and guess what they do? They smile. They just can't help it.

Except there is always one or two out there that can hold a straight face forever. Those kids, they make me work for their smiles. They get to see some silly looks, hear some silly sounds, and oh if they are around 6 year old boys...they get really bad jokes told by me. ;)