Two Minute Tips: Using a gray card to get a perfect exposure every time

 

 

Wouldn’t it be great if you could nail your exposure every single shot? With the aid of an 18 percent gray card, such as this one from X-Rite, you can. 

Below, photographer David Bergman shows us how to use a gray card in the newest episode of Adorama’s Two Minute Tips. When photographing a bright subject, such as a person, against a dark background, the camera will often try to balance the exposure across the entire frame, resulting in an image that is too bright, sometimes even with blown highlights on your subject. If you fill the frame with your gray card in the same lighting conditions of your desired shot, you can get the correct exposure settings for the lighting condition and then plug them into a manual exposure.

(Via Adorama)