I'll just nod and agree with Robert..
Light meter / strobe meter.... (and a coffee filter...)
Ignore anyone who says you can use the histogram, and they're just for old film photog's.
They're not just for studio work though.
An example...
I recently did some event coverage of a 'service' in a large hall. The day was overcast, and the lighting in the hall as a mix of window and flouro.
When I walked into the hall as people were sitting down and the 'officials' were getting organised I pointed my camera around the hall, at areas I might want to get photos off, the stage, the front of the crowd, and the band area. The camera light meter readings were all over the show..
I figured that the light was not going to change substantially over the 30 minutes I had to cover, so I whipped out the light meter and took three incident (Light falling on the meter, not reflected off the 'subject') readings along the wall where I could shoot from. I averaged them and set the camera in manual at 1/100th at F/2.8 ISO 800 for all the shots taken.
Now for the coffee filter bit...
Because I didn't have time to do the post-processing on RAW images for the event, (Deadline for submission for papers was 1hr after the event) I was shooting JPEG. One of the big advantages of RAW for indoor event/pj work is the whitebalance can be corrected post-shot.
To set the white balance in a mixed lighting situation, my solution (old videographer trick...) is to put a large coffee filter over the lens and take a shot, then use that shot to set the custom white balance.. Basically I pointed the camera at a relatively neutral area of the hall (The wall in this case) then held the filter paper in front of the lens and took a shot in Av (Apeture Priority) mode.
The end result is that I took 80 odd shots in the hall, some backlit by windows, some of speakers at a podium, and others just of the public, and all are consistently exposed and have good enough colour temp to keep most people happy.
Darn, that was long..
Anyway, my only other comment is that being a pro just means you're paid to take photos. Don't set your targets simply on being paid to do a job. Set your targets at being the best you can, and figure out how to get paid for it later. :-)
Cheers, Me.
Message edited by author 2005-04-30 07:18:59.
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