Look at all this lovely grey, look at it, it's all over the place. Did you know that grey
is the new black. It's the in thing to have all the
interior design programs they use a grey now if you're watching this on Dave and it's the
year twenty twenty it's now two thousand and eleven and grey is in.
I mean look at Jane here for goodness, look here, look look
look in the camera, look at this
look at that almost head to toe in grey.
reasons managed
I've even managed to break the camera and knock the microphone off, never mind it will be a fiddly moment
for you there.
But what has it got to do with it? now grey cards what do they look like?
here's one i bought this morning on the way here
because to be honest they're a bit of a thing for the past, people don't really use grey cards as much
these days.
The great card is halfway between black and white it's fifty percent in grey
now they can be used to ensure you've got an accurate exposure on your camera, you can
also use them for colour accuracy particularly if you're shooting raw.
This one is white on one side and grey on the other
now your camera cant think, it think's the whole world is this tone
because of that if you're shooting in extreme conditions like dark or bright
the camera will probably get it wrong because it's going to try and make it like that.
But this is great for the average kind of shot in average conditions
let me just show you how you would use one if you chose too.
Laurence i'm just going to borrow you if i may, just get yourself and come over here.
i'm just going to pick up my camera
i can't leave it on the floor.
Pretty good, Laurence move that way a little bit, whoa that's too much, that's it.
There's a saddle stem going out of his head and we don't really want it.
Now let's see how i'm going to shoot the shot.
This really only applies if you're shooting in manual to be quite honest
but what you can do is with the camera in an auto mode
the grey side like this, just hold it in front of your subject
careful not to shade it with your own body and
just fill the view finder with that grey.
wake the camera while pressing the button and you can read through
the view finder what the exposure should be, this says one hundred and twenty
fifth of a second, at F six point three.
So you
go into manual
and you set the hundred and twenty fifth of a second
at F six point three
and that should be the correct exposure.
Now i don't know if you had noticed while we were doing that and setting that the sun came out
that is why they're a bit fiddly
but there we go, i can then take a shot.
it's dropped back down again, i reckon we're okay.
here we go to launch the moody skateboarder
again.
cool, and the exposure is correct.
For colour correction it's quite handy because you know what colour this is
this is grey on one side if i can open it,
and it's white on the other
so that you can hold that in your hand on the computer when you've got that shot
and you know what color it is
but i can also quickly take a shot like that
with that in it.
So what i can do is look at the colours that i'm gonna set when i you know
do the post-production
i can hold that in this hand and look at the screen
and i can adjust the colours till they're right.
then i can set those adjustments onto the proper image which doesn't have that
in it
if you're shooting raw, you've got a little i drop for collecting colors
all you do is click onto the grey
that will give you the correct color balance and then you copy those settings
onto the file which doesn't have the card in, am i making sense?
There is one more thing, suppose you got a really really bright background
Laurence can you come over here, we're going to put you against the sun
let's say
i'm going back to exposure for the moment
say you're in the alps
it's really really bright, now
you can see the skies quite bright there, if i shoot, if i was to set the camera
i'm going to stick it back onto aperture priority, no full program, that will do it.
Let's say i was going to do a wide-ish shot with Laurence against that sky,it's a rubbish picture i know,
but we haven't got the budget to go to the alps right now, if i just let the camera
deal with it
there's a good chance
we will have a complete silhouette because the light meter
has been confused by all that brightness and it's darkened it down, the camera doesn't know that
Lawrence is the subject to the picture.
So if i again
go into manual mode
and i get my grey card
here we go,
and i hold that in front of laurence
by looking at that i know again it's a hundred and twenty fifth of a second at F six point three
just pure fluke that.
I've set that manually now,
recompose the shot
hang on, i'll get it right in a minute, recompose the shot
and
as you can see lawrence is now the correct exposure.
So really that's all there is to it, a grey card is kind of old fashioned, you can get
smaller ones, they're very very hand for getting your colours right if you're
shooting raw,
but to be honest
it's much easier to do your exposure just by using exposure compensation on
the camera.
Quick come back up, come back up, and
i forgot, Laurence come back, come back, sorry it's one of those
days,
right Laurence stand there, that's it brilliant
another way you could do that
with the grey, if you're in a program mode which i was you can either do it
manually like i just did, but also on the back of the camera here
you've got an auto exposure lock, it's a little button that when you press it, it locks
the exposure, so if i go back here
and again
fill the screen with grey press the exposure lock button and as long as
i keep my thumb on there, it's going to keep that locked
so i can wave the camera around
and as long as my thumbs there it's good.
Compose the shot, and take it.
once again it's
got the exposure spot on
i think that's all now.