Chapter 2

Human Vision, the Camera, and Exposure

What You See

The human eye is a truly astounding piece of biological engineering. It is able to pick up images in near-darkness and in blazing sunlight. Overall, the human eye can perceive light in a light to darkness range of almost a billion to one. Unfortunately, when shooting video or film, the critical visual receptor is not your eye, it is the camera, and the camera perceives light differently from your eye and in a much more restricted range. The differences in this perception are critical to your understanding of how to light and expose video or film because the camera simply can’t see the extended range of light the way the human eye can.

Bear with me for a moment while I take a look ...

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