18% Gray Card

A professional photographer in our stake has offered to share his talent by holding a basics photography class. There has always been a list of things I have wanted to learn how to do better such as cake decorating, sewing, floral arrangement, etc. Photography was on the list and I could do it for FREE, so I signed up!


Unfortunately I missed the first class on lighting, but a friend has promised me the notes. The second class was about Tone and Exposure. We were instructed to buy an 18% gray card (basically just a piece of card stock in a special gray color that reflects 18% of the light) and were promised that if we used it to help us expose our pictures it would work magic. I understood the concept behind the idea, but didn't think it would really make much of a difference with the fancy new camera I got for Christmas. I took the pictures and thought the before Gray Card and after Gray Card pictures looked pretty much the same on the view finder, but now that the pictures are up on the computer screen I am getting excited because I can see a difference!

Black on Black Before adfsdfs Black on Black After

White on White Before a kjbhkjhkjhksdf White on White After