[Photography] Light Trail Photography: A Beginner’s Guide (+ Examples)

The post Light Trail Photography: A Beginner’s Guide (+ Examples) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darren Rowse.

If you want to capture beautiful light trail photography, then you’ve come to the right place.

Because while beginners struggle to understand how light trails work, it’s actually pretty easy – once you know a few simple tricks.

And that’s what I’ll share with you in this article: The tips, tricks, and techniques you need to know for amazing results. By the time you’re done, you’ll be able to capture images just like this:

Plus, you’ll know how to experiment with different approaches for unique, one-of-a-kind light trail images.

Let’s get started.

What is light trail photography?

Light trail photography uses a long shutter speed to capture car lights as they drive past, for a creative, artistic image.

You can create beautiful light trail photos pretty much everywhere: in the city, in the suburbs, in rural areas, and even in the desert. You simply need the right equipment (discussed below), as well as a moving car or two!

The best equipment for light trail photography

Here’s the simple light trail equipment list, though I’ll explain more below:

• Camera
• Lens
• Tripod
• Lens hood (optional)
• Remote shutter release (optional)
• Neutral density filter (optional)
• Warm clothes (optional)

There is no single camera or lens type that you need to capture light trails (these days, you can do light trail photography with only a smartphone!).

However, your camera must let you control your exposure settings, particularly those that allow you to choose longer shutter speeds (in the area of 10 seconds to 1 minute). Therefore, you need a camera that can shoot in either full Manual mode and/or Shutter Priority mode. All DSLRs and interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras do offer this functionality, though certain compact cameras, film cameras, and native smartphone camera apps do not.

You’ll also need a tripod, as you’ll be shooting with ultra-long shutter speeds. In a pinch, you can perch your camera on a concrete railing, the ground, or even a car, but it’s really best to work with a sturdy tripod.

And while they’re not essential, it’s helpful to use a lens hood, which will block flare from ambient lights, as well as a remote shutter release, so you can trigger your camera without pressing the shutter button and causing camera shake. The two-second or ten-second self-timer is an adequate substitute for a remote release, but it can be inconvenient to wait for the shutter to fire while shooting, plus it can mess up your timing.

Neutral density filters – which block the light to allow for longer shutter speeds – aren’t necessary if you’re shooting in complete darkness, but will helpfully elongate your shutter speeds around sunset and at dusk. And if you’re going out on a chilly night, make sure to bring warm clothes!

Light trail photography: the basics

Here’s the simple, step-by-step process for light trail photos:

1. Find a spot with moving cars

   First, you’ll need a good location, ideally one with plenty of cars driving by. I recommend shooting on a bridge or safely setting up near a busy road.

2. Mount your camera to a tripod and determine your composition

   Get out your camera and attach it to your tripod; be sure the tripod is on solid ground. You’ll be shooting with an ultra-long shutter speed, so complete stability is essential.

3. Dial in your settings

   You’ll need a shutter speed of at least 5 seconds, though 10 or more is often better. I recommend a narrow aperture (e.g., f/8) for increased depth of field (though you can adjust this, depending on your shutter speed needs). If possible, keep your ISO at its base level.

4. Wait for a car, then take the photo

   Be patient. When a car heads toward your composition, press the shutter button just before they enter the scene. Make sure the car leaves the scene before the shot finishes.

Light trail photography tips

Now that you know the fundamentals, let’s look at some helpful shooting tips, plus plenty of in-depth discussions!

1. Think about the light

Light trail photography requires darkness, but what time is best? Should you shoot just after sunset? An hour after? Or the middle of the night?

That depends on the effect you’re after. If you shoot at midnight, you’ll get a very dark shot with (probably) car-less light trails. This can look nice, but tends toward abstraction:

Personally, I prefer shooting just as the sun is going down. You’ll capture the light trails along with ambient light in the sky, which can add atmosphere to the composition.

Plus, if you shoot earlier in the evening, you’ll get a little more action, with lots of cars and even people moving through the scene.

2. Carefully select your composition

It’s not hard to find light trails. But if you want an attention-grabbing shot, you’ll need to put some extra thought into your location, timing, and framing.

For instance, I recommend you look for creative perspectives – that is, perspectives that go beyond the standard, eye-level shots. Instead, get down low and shoot up, or even find a high vantage point that lets you shoot light trails from above.

Also, find a location that complements (and highlights) the light trails. You’ll need to pick an area next to a road, but also look for nearby buildings, road merges (where the traffic flows together to create interesting light trail pathways), or even roundabouts (for beautiful circular light trails!).

Compositional framing can be useful, too. Look for natural frames, such as overhanging trees, railings, fences, and the like to emphasize the light trails. Keep the viewer away from distractions (and if possible, eliminate these from your scene!).

3. Experiment constantly

The main thing I learned in my early days of light trail imaging? Experiment extensively.

After all, you’re learning a new technique. It’s bound to take some fine-tuning, and if you dive in with enthusiasm, you’ll see gorgeous results in no time at all.

So shoot at different times of the evening/night. Try different equipment. Use different focal lengths. And work with different shutter speeds, too!

4. Pick the right settings

While the ideal camera modes, shutter speeds, and apertures will depend on the ambient light and the speed of the cars, I can offer helpful guidelines to streamline your choices.

First, use manual focusing; that way, you can get your subject sharp, then leave the point of focus and forget about it.

As I discussed above, if you don’t have a remote shutter release, make sure to use your camera’s self-timer. (Also, if your lens or camera offers image stabilization, make sure it’s deactivated.)

As for aperture and shutter speed: While I wish I could give you specific numbers, different situations are just too variable, so there’s no one exposure combination that will work in every setting. I usually shoot at shutter speeds between 10 and 20 seconds, which gives cars time to move through the frame. And I work with midrange apertures, starting at around f/8 or so, then stop down or widen the aperture depending on your shutter speed requirements.

Also, you can darken the image by dropping your ISO or brighten the image by raising your ISO – but use an ISO boost as a last resort, because the higher the ISO, the noisier the image will become.

And pay careful attention to your exposure. You don’t want to blow out any light sources (such as headlights or street lights); this looks bad, plus it draws the eye away from the main subject. Here, the histogram is your friend. After you take your first shot, go ahead and view its histogram on your LCD, looking for peaks pressed against the right-hand side of the graph.

One final settings tip: If possible, shoot in RAW. It’ll offer increased dynamic range, plus more flexibility during post-processing for better overall results.

5. Consider Bulb mode

Many digital cameras have a mode on them, called “Bulb.” It allows you to keep the shutter open as long as you wish, past the standard 30-second exposure limit on most DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.

Bulb mode can be very handy if you’re shooting in extremely dark conditions or you need a lengthy exposure time to capture a car slowly winding its way through the frame. But make sure you use a remote release to stop any camera movement while the shutter is open.

How to shoot light trails: conclusion

Well, there you have it:

A comprehensive guide to shooting light trails.

So remember the tips and tricks I’ve shared. And the next time you’re out at night, do some light trail photography! It’ll be a ton of fun; I guarantee it.

Now over to you:

Where do you plan to photograph light trails? Got some good light trail shots? Share your thoughts and photos in the comments below!

The post Light Trail Photography: A Beginner’s Guide (+ Examples) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darren Rowse.

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[Photography] Choosing Pictures: 7 Strategies to Pick Your Best Photos, Fast

The post Choosing Pictures: 7 Strategies to Pick Your Best Photos, Fast appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Melinda Smith.

Are you tired of taking forever to pick your best pictures? Do you want to know how to choose photos, fast?

When I first started out as a photographer, I’d get hung up on the picture-choosing process after every photoshoot. I’d spend way too much time agonizing over every photo (and I worried deeply about accidentally discarding a good one…).

But over time, I developed several strategies. Strategies that:

• sped up my workflow
• made the culling process far less painful
• helped me focus on actual photo editing

Below, I share seven of these strategies, all of which are guaranteed to make choosing pictures a piece of cake.

Let’s get started.

1. Don’t take so many photos in the first place

Yeah, yeah, I know; it’s not exactly a way to sort through hundreds of photos in a few minutes. But for many photographers, deliberately taking fewer photos is a gamechanger, so you should at least consider it.

And I get it: Digital storage is inexpensive and cameras offer insanely deep buffers, so it feels good to fire off a thousand shots, knowing that you’ll eventually get some decent ones. But how many of those thousand photos are actually good? And how many of them do you really need to take in order to get some good shots?

In my experience, not only is it unnecessary to take so many shots, it’s actually harmful. As a photographer, you’ll get lazy if your finger is always pressing the shutter button. You won’t spend time carefully composing your images. Instead, you’ll shoot a lot, but you’ll miss a lot, too, and your photos will suffer.

Plus, constant shooting comes with another major drawback:

You have to sort through mountains of images to find the best ones.

Bottom line:

You don’t need to take hundreds of images. And if you can restrain yourself, you’ll have a much easier time during the post-processing and organization stages.

Make sense?

2. Choose images that reflect your style

If you want to create a solid narrative of an event, or you want to produce a cohesive portfolio, then don’t just think in terms of “good images” and “bad images.”

Instead, ask yourself:

Does this image fit with my style? And if not, reject it. You don’t have to throw the shot away – after all, your style might change, and you might need images like that down the line – but put it aside for now, so you can focus on the style you’re developing.

For instance, if your style involves dark, moody, dramatic images, then a bright, upbeat, airy shot probably doesn’t belong in your portfolio, no matter how great it is. Does it deserve to be trashed? Probably not, but quickly add it to a rejects folder and move on. Later, if you decide to create a portfolio of happier images, you’ll know where to find it. But in the meantime, get it out of the way and spend time on what matters.

3. Look for distractions

As you’re choosing pictures you like, make sure you’re hyper-focused, not just on the main subject, but on the background, the foreground, and any distractions that they might contain.

Distractions are easy to miss when out shooting, but they can seriously detract from an image, so it’s up to you, in the editing room, to identify them and send them packing.

I’m talking about things like:

• Telephone poles
• Streetlights
• Wires
• Passersby
• Cars
• Fences
• Trees

Really, it all depends on the image – certain items can be distracting in one shot but work well in another – so take the above list with a grain of salt. But make sure you keep an eagle eye out for any and all distractions; that way, you can quickly reject photos that ultimately won’t work.

One thing to note, though:

Certain distractions can be fixed in post-processing. For instance, telephone wires can be removed from a portrait, cars can be removed from a street scene, etc. And you must decide whether the distraction is fixable and whether it’s actually worth fixing (especially if you took another, similar shot that doesn’t suffer from the same issues).

Check out this set of images:

The top image features a garden hose in the grass, but I removed it in post-processing, and the photo looks much better. The image was too good to send it packing, and I knew the hose would be easy to edit out, so I held on to the shot. In the end, it’s your call, but don’t keep too many images that require major fixes; it’s just not worth it.

 4. If a shot is out of focus or blurry, reject it

If any photos have softness or blurriness, they’re automatically out. That’s my rule and I stick to it, no matter what else the photo offers.

After all, if you’re shooting for a client and you include a blurry image in their package, what if they want to print it on a huge canvas? An image that appears blurry at low resolutions will look horrible when blown up big, so just don’t go there. Instead, get rid of blurriness as soon as you identify it.

It’s often possible to instantly tell whether an image is blurry, but if you’re not sure, you can zoom in to one-hundred percent in your favorite post-processing program, check for focus/blur, then make your final decision.

(This rule also applies to any photos that are way off with exposure. Just let them go!)

I’ll be the first to admit: This can be really tough. Sometimes, the best poses are ruined by blur and I hate to get rid of them, but I know it’s necessary. Here’s an example where the top photo has the better head turns and expressions, yet one of the faces is blurry:

So I had to go with the bottom image.

5. Eliminate similar shots on your first photo-picking pass

When you’re choosing pictures, every time you come to a series of similar shots, be ruthless. Get rid of all but one photo, because no portfolio should include a handful of near-identical images, and no client wants to wade through a bunch of twin images, either.

Even if both photos are amazing, just pick one. You can do this any way you like: flip a coin, always go with the one on the left, or (and this is ideal) pick the one that makes you feel the most, because one of the shots is bound to be better than the other. You might also consider checking sharpness, exposure, and thinking about which shot speaks to your style and your client’s interests.

When comparing the two shots above, I knew I needed to get rid of one. But which would it be? I went with the image on the right because the expression was slightly more enthusiastic, and that little girl was full of enthusiasm. I wanted to show her personality!

6. Don’t miss the hidden gems

Thus far, I’ve offered strategies for getting down to your best shots as quickly as possible. But I’d like to throw this piece of advice out there:

Sometimes, the best photos aren’t immediately visible. Sometimes, it’s the hidden gems that include the best expressions, the best moments, the most worthwhile scenes.

So while you should go through your photos fast, if an image speaks to you, don’t immediately reject it, even if it has issues. Perhaps the shot could be great with just a little bit of magical editing.

For instance, check out the images below. The top left shot has two great expressions and one bad one. So I took the bad expression, and I replaced it with the expression from another photo:

Just watch for that kind of thing: Photos that could be your favorites after a wave of the magic editing wand.

7. Be ruthless, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes

The whole point of this article is to help you pick photos fast, and you can’t do that unless you’re willing to make mistakes.

Yes, you’ll occasionally reject great photos. Yes, you’ll occasionally fail to identify shots that could be massively improved with editing. But is that such a bad thing? Why is rejecting a good photo so problematic? It’s not like you’re truly trashing it. Assuming you have plenty of storage, you can keep it on your hard drive, then come back to it later if the urge arises.

And you’ve got to be ruthless, too. You can’t edit every photo, and sometimes you just have to make quick judgment calls and move on.

With the photos above, the one on the left is cute, but I decided that I liked the connection displayed in the middle shot, so that’s the one I kept. Did I make the right decision? I don’t know for sure, but I can always return to the other image if I decide it’s superior.

Quick tip: If I’m having a really hard time giving photos up, I will give them star ratings as I go through: five stars for definite keepers and four stars for the “maybes.” I usually end up with more five star shots than I need, so the four stars automatically get cut. Sometimes, it’s easier to let images go after you’ve given them a fair trial.

Choosing your best photos: final words

I hope this article has given you some photo-picking strategies you can use the next time you need to go through lots of photos in a short amount of time.

Just remember: It’s okay to make mistakes. And don’t be afraid to get ruthless! It’ll make things far easier.

Now over to you:

Which of these strategies is your favorite? Do you have any strategies of your own for choosing pictures? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Choosing Pictures: 7 Strategies to Pick Your Best Photos, Fast appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Melinda Smith.

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[Photography] The Essential Guide to Camera Light Meters

The post The Essential Guide to Camera Light Meters appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

These days, every camera has an in-built light meter – but what actually is it, and how does it work?

In this article, I share everything you need to understand your camera’s light meter. And by the time you’re done, you’ll be able to select different metering modes, plus you’ll know how to meter your camera for great results.

Let’s get started.

What is a camera light meter?

A light meter measures the amount of light reflecting off a scene, then indicates the proper combination of settings (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO) for a well-exposed image.

In other words, light meters are all about getting a nice, detailed, balanced exposure, where the highlights aren’t too bright and the shadows aren’t too dark.

Your camera almost certainly includes a light meter, though some photographers also purchase handheld meters. The latter are just like camera light meters, except they offer increased control and greater flexibility.

Now, if you’re familiar with the basics of exposure, you know that a well-exposed image is the product of the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO working together. You might use a wide aperture but a fast shutter speed, a narrow aperture but a slow shutter speed, or a high ISO but a narrow aperture – and you’ll end up with the same exposure.

My point is that a camera meter won’t tell you the precise aperture, shutter speed, and ISO you need for a well-exposed shot. Instead, it will let you, as the photographer, balance your settings, and it will simply tell you where that balance point exists. Make sense?

How a camera light meter works

As I explained above, a light meter measures the light. These days, most cameras use a process called TTL metering (i.e., through the lens metering). Your camera examines the light coming in through the lens, then uses it to evaluate the brightness of the scene.

Next, the meter indicates the optimal exposure settings based on internal calculations. Generally, a light meter’s goal is to make the scene an average middle gray, also known as 18% gray, which is a decent approximation of most scenes.

So if you’re photographing a tree, your camera’s meter will measure the light reflecting off the tree and into your lens. It will calculate a shutter speed, aperture, and ISO combination that will make the scene 18% gray when photographed. And it will communicate (or automatically select) these settings, depending on your camera mode.

If you’re using Auto mode, your camera will quietly do its metering, then pick settings for an optimal exposure. If you’re using Aperture Priority mode, you can pick the ISO, then your camera will pick a shutter speed that produces an 18% gray result. And if you’re using Manual mode, your camera will simply indicate the ideal settings, using the exposure bar at the bottom of the viewfinder:

Set your camera to Manual mode, then look at the bottom of the screen in your viewfinder. Notice the scale with zero in the middle. That is the light meter at work.

Raise the shutter speed, and the little indicator will move to the left; this indicates underexposure. Drop the shutter speed, and the little indicator will move to the right; this indicates overexposure.

In fact, working in Manual mode is a great way to understand how your meter works, and how it’s affected by different camera settings. You can watch the exposure bar change as you point your lens at different scenes, and you can see how, with the adjustment of aperture, shutter speed, or ISO, the exposure changes.

Metering modes: what part of the scene does a light meter evaluate?

You might be wondering:

Does a light meter measure the entire scene? Or just a sliver of the scene? Where in the frame does the meter look when it measures the light?

Well, that depends on the metering mode your camera uses.

Most cameras today have a few metering modes, and each one measures the light slightly differently. Camera manufacturers have various names for these modes, but the labels used below are the most common:

1. Matrix or Evaluative Metering measures the entire scene and creates an intelligent average, with weighting of different scene elements. (Nikon puts a bigger emphasis on the area where your lens is focused, for example). Nikon calls this mode Matrix Metering; Canon calls it Evaluative Metering.
2. Center-Weighted Average Metering looks at the light of the entire scene and averages it, but with emphasis on the center of the frame.
3. Partial Metering measures the light only in a small portion of the center of the frame (about 8-12% of the scene). This is a Canon metering mode; Nikon does not offer an equivalent option.
4. Spot Metering measures the light only in a small area around the central autofocus point (about 1.5-3% of the frame).

The metering mode can have a huge impact on whether your photo is properly exposed. If your camera spot meters off a sliver of bright sky, the entire image will turn out dark – except the sky sliver, which will be well exposed. If your camera spot meters off a dark rock in a forest landscape, the entire image will turn out too bright, except the rock, which will be well exposed.

To illustrate this, here are three shots taken with different metering modes:

Image #1, taken with Matrix (Nikon) or Evaluative (Canon) Metering.

Image #2, taken with Center-Weighted Metering.

Image #3, taken with Spot metering.

Note that the Matrix metering produced an average of the entire scene, including both the figurine and the background. The Center-Weighted Average metering gave an underexposed result, because it metered off the window in the background. And the Spot metering gave an overexposed result, because it metered off a dark area inside the window.

That’s why it’s essential you choose your metering mode carefully. Meter using the wrong algorithm, and you’ll end up exposing for the wrong part of the frame!

Reflective versus incident light metering

There’s another aspect of light metering that comes into play when setting up a shot. It has to do with how TTL metering works compared to a handheld light meter.

Reflective metering

TTL metering works by measuring the amount of light that comes through the lens. But there’s a problem: unless you are pointing your camera directly at the light source, the light is actually bouncing off your subject first.

So when your camera measures incoming light, it’s looking at the amount of light bounced off your subject, not the amount of light actually hitting your subject. This has huge implications and can dramatically affect your exposure. In the illustration above, the subject is wearing clothes that absorb most colors of light except for blue, which means there is still a great deal of light being bounced off the subject and sent to the camera. However, if the child changes clothes, the light meter receives a completely different reading:

In the illustration above, even though the amount of light hitting the boy has not changed, the camera will read the scene much differently because he is now wearing a dark shirt and pants. In the second situation, the camera will think it needs more light to compensate for what it believes to be less light in the scene – when in fact the amount of light hasn’t changed. As a result, the dark-clothed subject will be overexposed.

Here’s a real-world example of how this works:

Nikon D7100 | 200mm | f/2.8 | 1/8000s

In the photo above, so much light was being reflected off the girl’s white shirt that my camera had a hard time metering the scene properly. Much of the sunlight was bouncing off the shirt and coming directly back to my camera, so it responded by using a very fast shutter speed and low ISO value to make sure the shirt was properly exposed. The rest of the scene, however, turned out underexposed.

I then took this shot a few seconds later – after my subject put on a brown shirt. Much of the light was absorbed by the dark color, so my camera created a much brighter exposure:

Nikon D7100 | 200mm | f/2.8 | 1/1500s

To summarize:

Because different subjects reflect different amounts of light, your camera meter is often fooled into underexposing or overexposing an image. In such situations, there is an optimal exposure, but thanks to reflective metering, your camera will consistently fail to find it.

Incident metering

If you are shooting a wedding, reflective light metering can cause serious problems; grooms often wear dark tuxedoes whereas brides will usually be dressed in dazzling whites, and this can really throw off your camera’s TTL metering system. The solution is to use an external handheld light meter, such as the Sekonic L-308X-U, which actually measures the amount of light falling on the subject (known as incident metering).

Handheld light meter for incident light metering (light falling on the subject).

Incident light metering will give you consistently correct exposure results, because it won’t be fooled by subject reflectivity.

Here’s how the diagram from above would look when using an external handheld incident light meter:

You will often see wedding photographers using a handheld light meter – not the camera light meter – in order to get a more accurate light reading.

Camera light meters: final words

Now that you’ve finished this article, you should understand the basics of camera light metering – and you should know how to use a meter to create top-notch exposures.

That said, it’s important to remember that there is no one correct way of metering a scene. Any of the metering modes and methods will work, as long as you know what you are shooting and what type of results you are trying to achieve.

Now over to you:

Which metering mode do you plan to use most often? Do you think you’ll purchase an incident light meter? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post The Essential Guide to Camera Light Meters appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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[Photography] How to Use a Gray Card in Your Photography (Step By Step)

The post How to Use a Gray Card in Your Photography (Step By Step) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

What is a gray card, and how can you use one in your photography?

In this article, I’m going to address all things gray-card related. I’m going to share the purpose of a gray card, when it’s needed, and – most importantly! – how to use a gray card for beautiful exposure and colors in your photos.

These little accessories start at less than $10, yet they give you a huge amount of control over your images, and they can be invaluable in tricky situations.

So to master gray card photography, read on!

What is a gray card in photography?

A gray card is exactly as it sounds: A card that is gray. More specifically, a gray card is generally middle gray, or 18% gray. They tend to be small, portable, light, and easy to whip out of a camera bag when necessary.

Certain types of photographers never photograph with gray cards, such as street photographers, wildlife photographers, and (most) landscape photographers. But other photographers, including portrait photographers and product photographers, rarely leave home without one. Why? I explain that in the next section:

Why are gray cards important?

Remember how I said that a gray card is middle gray, also known as 18% gray?

This number is important because 18% gray is what your camera’s meter is trying to calculate when it determines a correct exposure for a scene. If you put a gray card in front of your subject and take a meter reading, you will get a balanced exposure regardless of any tonal contrast in the scene.

Now, you might be wondering: What about my camera’s meter? Why can’t I rely on it for a good exposure?

Camera meters are very, very good, but they make mistakes, especially when faced with significant tonal contrast, as well as scenes that are naturally very light (e.g., a snowstorm) or very dark (e.g., a black rock).

The scene below is a tricky one for a camera meter to handle, thanks to the bright highlights on the food and the dark wood of the table:

Gray cards have a second important use:

They offer a completely neutral surface for white balance calculations. Unlike most colors in a scene – blues, yellows, greens, etc. – a gray card has no natural temperature or hue. So by training your camera on a gray card, you can set a perfect white balance for everything you photograph. This is particularly important when you need to faithfully recreate colors in your images, either for commercial purposes or scientific/record shots.

Although the basic white balance settings in cameras can be pretty good, they do tend to struggle at times. For example, tungsten bulbs can vary greatly in color temperature, depending on their quality and power output. This may lead to the tungsten setting on your camera failing to give you an accurate representation of colors, hence the need for a neutral gray card.

Do you need a gray card?

Gray cards are helpful, but they don’t work for every type of photography. For one, if the subject is moving, then a gray card calculation is essentially worthless; within a few moments, the scene will change, and you’ll need to take another reading, and another, and another, which is more than a little annoying. Imagine a street photographer, who goes back and forth from shadow to sunlight while photographing subjects on the move. A gray card would be useless, as the exposure and white balance would need recalibrating from moment to moment.

Additionally, a gray card only works if your subject and the gray card are illuminated by the same light. Yet in certain genres of photography – bird photography and sports photography, for instance – the subject may be far off in the distance. That’s why bird photographers and sports photographers pretty much never use a gray card; there’s really no point, given the distance to the subject!

On the other hand, gray cards are perfect for controlled shooting scenarios. If you’re photographing food, products, or portraits, then a gray card is incredibly helpful. You can get close to your subject, take a gray card reading, and rely on it for an entire shooting session. Plus, gray cards are often necessary in these scenarios, as you must accurately represent the product and food colors.

How to use a gray card for perfect exposures

A gray card is the closest thing you’ll get to a magic bullet; it will give a near perfect exposure in almost any situation. So how does it work?

First, set your camera to spot metering mode, which tells your camera to meter off a small spot in the center of the frame. While this is not absolutely necessary, it will help a lot, especially in circumstances where you cannot fill the entire frame with the gray card.

Next, put the gray card in your scene, right at the center of the frame. Switch your camera over to Manual mode and set the exposure (based on your camera’s meter reading).

Then take the gray card away. As long as the light doesn’t change, you will now have an accurate exposure for all subsequent shots you take of the scene.

Easy, right?

Metering with a gray card: quick tips

Here are a few hints to make the gray card metering process easier and more accurate:

First, after metering, make sure that your subject remains in a similar position relative to the light source. For example, if you’re taking headshots outdoors and the sun is lighting your subject from the front, make sure your subject stays frontlit. If you turn your subject to the side, turn completely around, or head into the shade, that will affect your exposure and you will need to take another gray card reading.

When you’re taking the meter reading, fill the frame with the gray card as much as possible. This will ensure that your meter only exposes for the card and not anything around the edges.

How to use a gray card for a perfect white balance

There are two ways to set your white balance with a gray card:

First, you can set your camera’s custom white balance.

Second, you can use Lightroom (or your favorite post-processing program) to set a white balance for your images (though thanks to the gray card, the white balance will be consistently perfect).

Shifts in White Balance – Left: Daylight – Center: Tungsten – Right: Custom

Method 1: In-camera custom white balance

The technique described here is for Canon users. If you use Nikon, Sony, or any other brand, you will need to consult your manual for instructions on setting a custom white balance, though the process will be somewhat similar.

1. Take a photo of your gray card. Try to make sure that the card is flat and that it is lit evenly. It should completely fill the frame and mirror the positioning of your subject.
2. Open your camera’s menu and select the option labeled “Custom White Balance” (or Custom WB). When prompted, choose the photo of your gray card. Set the camera’s white balance to use the new custom setting and start taking photos.

Note: If the lighting or direction of your scene changes, just repeat the steps above. All of your images will have an accurate white balance!

Method 2: Post-production custom white balance

For this white balancing method, you only need to do one thing with your camera:

Take a photo of your gray card before shooting each new scene.

(It may help with organization if you start off any sequence of photos with the gray card image. This way, you will always know which image to use for a white balance setting.)

So if you’re photographing a food photography setup, you’d place a gray card in the scene, take a single shot, then continue on with your photography. If the scene or the lighting changed, you’d add the gray card once more, take a shot, and so on.

Many photographers use a ColorChecker Passport for this type of white balance process:

Note that the gray card doesn’t need to fill the frame; it just needs to be present in the shot. So you can set up your entire scene, put the gray card in front of your subject, then take a single picture.

Once your photoshoot is complete and you open up the images in Lightroom, the steps are quite straightforward:

Step 1: Select the photo of a gray card and enter the Lightroom Develop module:

Step 2: Select the eyedropper tool in your White Balance settings. Click on the gray card in your photos. This will adjust the white balance for a perfect result.

Step 3: Press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy your settings (Cmd+C on a Mac). Check the White Balance boxes, but leave all of the other boxes unchecked.

Step 4: Select all of the photos you want to correct, then press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the white balance setting (Cmd+V on a Mac). Now all of photos you took should have a corrected white balance!

How to use a gray card: final words

All of the techniques outlined here are simple and quick, yet they offer a huge amount of control over your exposure and white balance. That’s why a gray card is one of the most cost-effective accessories you can buy!

So if you don’t yet own a gray card, considering grabbing one. And if you do, go ahead and practice these techniques! Test the gray card out for yourself! You’ll love the results.

Now over to you:

Do you plan to use a gray card? Which of these techniques did you like best? Have you done gray card photography before? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post How to Use a Gray Card in Your Photography (Step By Step) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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