Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1952-04-06

III photography, exposure
the prime factor from start to
finish. It takes a good exposure
to get a good negative and then
it takes another good exposure to
get a good print. Let's take first
things first and discuss the initial
exposure made in the camera.
Too many people are still of
the opinion that all they need dc
is aim the camera at a subject
press a button and come up each
time with a humdinger of a pic
ture. Then they are surprised
when their snapshots turn out to
be fiat, extremely contrasty, lack
ing in shadow or highlight detail
or, in some cases, nonresident
The really surprising thing though
is that those who guess and trust
to luck get any kind of picture
at all. All the credit goes to the
film manufacturer who has built
into the film a margin for error
that allows for all but the widest
of INSTALLATIONS.
There's no good reason for any
one to guess about an exposure
these days. First we have ex-
posure meters that operate on the
extremely accurate photo-electric-
cell principle and if you can't at
ford one of these handy gadgets,
you can certainly treat yourself
to an exposure guide. 1t takes
about 10 minutes for child to
hearn to use one of these. While
Vthe exposure guide is not a precl-
sion tool like the meter, you will
never be ashamed of the picture
made by its direction.
Two Major Factors.
Before taking up the subject OF
exposure guides or computers, as
some call them, let's get to the
heart of all exposure problems.
In computing any exposure there
are two major factors and two
others of less Importance 70 be
considered. Our greatest con-
Germ shall be subject type and
prevailing light. The way in
which the light falls on subject
will influence an exposure and
occasionally the distance between
the camera and the subject will
have some bearing. Shutter
speeds and lens openings are, OF
course, vital to the exposure. but
these are always governed by the
factors outlined.
! have before me a typical ex-
posure computer. It is very SIM
pie arrangement of a card bearing
illustrations of the four typical
light conditions encountered in
photography. Mounted on the
card is a disc showing the subject
types. BY turning the disc you
can quite easily match your SUBJ
ject type with the light which pre-
walls at the time the picture is to
be made and the proper lens open
ing for any shutter speed is au-
tomatically computed for you.
But first a word regarding sub
jects and lighting conditions
Our subject types. as broken down
by the computer, are average SUBJ
jects, light subjects dark subjects
and shaded subjects. When shoot
ing by daylight, whatever you are
picturing will fall within one OF
these classificationS. Average SUBJ
jectS include scenes which have
light and dark objects in about
the same proportion-general
landscape views, houses, garden
scenes and nearby people.
Classifying Subjects.
Light subjects may be described
as beach and snow scenes, distant
scenes or any scene where light
colored objects predominant. Dark
subjects would include pictures OF
people who are wearing dark
clothing, woodland scenes and
those of foliage and flowers and
pictures of dark colored buildings
and animals. Shaded subjects are
subdivided as open shade and
deep shade. Open shade means
that while the subject is shaded
from direct sunlight, it is well
lighted or an unobStructed sky