[pure-silver] Adams' Moonrise


On Nov 20, 2006, at 2:54 AM, Dana H. Myers wrote:


Ansel exposed "Moonrise" using incident "metering" (without a meter).
I don't want to get involved in this thread, but this is not correct. Adams based the Moonrise exposure on his knowledge of the Moon's *reflected* luminance. In the zone system, there is an exposure formula that lets you quickly calculate exposure if you know the luminance (in foot candles) of an area you wish to appear as a specific tonal value in the print. In this case, he wanted the Moon to hold good highlight value, so he calculated the exposure based on its luminance (which he already knew) and opened up three stops, placing the Moon on Zone VIII (I believe - I'm typing this from memory). The calculated exposure would have been exactly the same if he had metered the Moon with a spot meter and opened up three stops. So it was really more like 'reflected "metering" (without a meter).' 

Regards,
Aaron Reece
Oswego, NY, USA
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