When we meter the Background and the Hair light we must first establish the light on the subject with an incident meter, as that is our control point.
Metering the Background must be done with a reflective meter aimed at the spot on the background where you want to place the value. An incident meter really does not work for this process as it does not know how dark the background is. A spot meter is very handy as you can meter from camera and carefully meter the exact spot on the background that you want to control.
Just by changing the power on you background light you can change the value of the the background. A reflective reading in the diagram above would give a nice middle value. If it read F/8 it would be a stop darker than middle gray. If you crank up the power on your BG light you could make a dark gray background turn bright white.
Metering for the hair light is done with an incident meter at the hair. If the hair light exposure is adjusted to equal the subject lighting the hair will be rendered in full detail. Dark hair can take more light and blonds may need less!!
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