Best Way to Expose for Landscapes

cherryrig,
The guys recommending the spot meter are most likely using Zone system with expansion or contraction in development. A couple of questions that haven't been asked are: Are you shooting B&W or color? Do you do your own developing? Are you using sheet film or a camera with interchangeable magazines?
If you're having the film processed at the local lab you have no control anyway so an incident reading is every bit as viable as a spotmeter.

John Koehrer said:

If you're having the film processed at the local lab you have no control anyway so an incident reading is every bit as viable as a spotmeter.

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It's just as important to test a lab's processing as your own, if not more so. While some won't agree, speed testing isn't as important as contrast. What do they consider Normal? Most labs have no idea. Some time ago, I tested a number of labs in Los Angeles. These are top labs too. One of the labs was delivering a +3 and calling it Normal. In the 90s, Kodak did a big survey of labs around the country. I was able to get a copy. Scary! There were a few labs that had anything resembling a clue, but most were lost in the weeds. You need to know the variables before you can make any conclusions. Also, some labs will run a test roll for free or at a reduced price.

Does your meter have scene contrast measurement? With that you just "paint" your scene with your meter and thus measure the subject brightness range. (BTW I do this routinely with a simple gossen meter that has no true spot metering capability and it's fine.)

Aside: I think spotmeters are way overrated***. How many people would look at a 1 degree portion of your print and say, geez that 1 degree detail is blown, this print sucks. Answer: none. Our eyes "blow" minor details all the time, it is natural, it is expected. The main thing is that you don't want any obvious large-scale posterization in your print. Smoothness of the tone scale is waaay more important to how we perceive a print than whether a few details are lost in highlights or shadows... Our brains work with the detail that is there, not with minor detail that is not there. I'm just saying, people can get pretty obsessive over preserving all the range in a scene... and then wind up with some really flat-ass prints. You have to think about what you want in your print.

Once you know the contrast range a.k.a. subject brightness range, you compare that to the characteristic curve of your film. How you expose will depend very critically on your film (print or slide), that film's response curve, your filter factor (if any), your development, and how you want highlight and/or shadow detail to be rendered.

Bottom line, you can't really begin to think about protecting highlight or shadow detail until you know the contrast in the scene and what your film is going to do with that contrast. After you know those things then it's all personal decisionmaking.

*** for landscape

It may be helpful (or perplexing) to realize that in all photography, you are identifying the detail that you want, ascertaining how much of that detail you can get and/or prioritizing what detail is most important. Once you are clear about what you want, then it will become clear how to get it.

Don't over complicate things by taking multiple spot readings and trying to interpret reflected readings if all this is a bit new to you.

For landscapes, I spend 90% of my time fine tuning the composition and the remaining 5% on taking an incident light reading with the Minolta IVF.

Light changes very quickly and you need to aware of the changes while you are setting up your camera. So to speed things up, just point your incident dome at the camera assuming you are in the same light as your subject and get the shot.

I don't photograph sunsets, but would point the incident dome towards the sun.

I can't believe what I'm reading here!

eddym said:

If you are standing in the light from the same sun that illuminates the landscape, just take an incident reading.

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First, an incident light reading is taken by pointing the meter towards the camera from the position of the subject (or proxy). In the case of a sunset, this would be away from the sun, towards the camera (not towards the sun and away from the camera, as some here appear to be suggesting).

Even if this were to be attempted, it would blow out the sky thus spoiling the whole point of the picture.

Taking a reflected reading (i.e.point the meter at the subject -sky- in reflected light mode) from the sky near the sun but not including the sun would put that patch of sky in "Zone 5", but blow out the sun.

Including the sun in a reflected reading would place the sun in "Zone 5" and, to some extent, underexpose the surrounding sky. However, this would result in more saturated colours in the sky, giving a "punchier" result.

I would suggest: just meter the sun and shoot.

Hello Chan: Phil Davis in his excellent book refutes your statements rather forcefully. You are certainly correct in that reflected light readings can be used, but know that incident readings are very easily done in landscape situations. Shadows are measured by shading the meter in one's own shadows so as to replicate the shadows in the distance, or any other part of the scene. If one feels more comfortable, one can also obtain a shadow reading by simply moving the meter into any area of shadow that is close to the camera, i.e., under the shade of a bush or a tree, so that the shadow values are similar to those in any distant area of the scene. Full sun, of course, is full sun any place within the scene regardless of where the sun is measured within the scene being photographed. Both reflected and incident light can be used to good advantage, and one is not better than the other. Exposure determination via your meter depends upon how one decides to proceed, and what one is comfortable doing. Considering the question of incident metering for the sunset, the solutions offered appear to be "right on", and well explained.

Of course, no criticsm of you intended, or implied Chan. Just trying to point out that incident metering can easily be used in almost any landscape situation.

Ed

Mahler_one said:

Of course, no criticsm of you intended, or implied Chan. Just trying to point out that incident metering can easily be used in almost any landscape situation.

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And not only that: incident metering is easier (by far), and hence quicker and more reliable.

Reflected light metering is only necessary if incident metering would be not possible (which is almost never), or when you need to know the subject's contrast range (which is not often. I know that many people will protest that it is, but it really isn't).

Galah said:

First, an incident light reading is taken by pointing the meter towards the camera from the position of the subject (or proxy). In the case of a sunset, this would be away from the sun, towards the camera (not towards the sun and away from the camera, as some here appear to be suggesting).

Even if this were to be attempted, it would blow out the sky thus spoiling the whole point of the picture.

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I was a bit general in my original post. I would only point the incident dome towards the sun when the sun had actually set or was very low and I wanted that silhouetted type look, otherwise it's the dome pointing towards the camera!

I use a Sekonic L-508 with the 1 degree spot meter. I find an area of the scene that I want to read at zone III or IV on my print and adjust my exposure for that. I make note of the highlight reading and adjust if necessary in developing. Remember that you want to meter for what the print will be. At least I do and it has worked very well so far. If you use a Pyro developer you can control your negatives highlights. I print in carbon and my negatives have a huge range.

Jim

I use the built in meters for my Nikons and the Hasselblad. I will use one of those meters or the Sunny 16 Rule when I use my folding MF camera.

I usually take my reading by excluding the sky and then reaiming. When there is a very large range in the latitude of light, I will use the spot meter capability of the Nikon F-100 to take multiple readings of the brightest and darkest parts and calculate from there.

Steve

You can if you are using a meter capable of incidental readings use the " Duplex Method " in which you point the dome at the Sun and note the reading, then point it from the subject to the camera in the normal way, then set the exposure on your camera half way between the two readings, this method works whatever the direction of the light, even backlight.

cherryrig said:

I only have a L-358 with the Retractable Lumisphere and I'm having some problems with getting the right exposure for the landscape.

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I'm not real familiar with that meter either. But you should remember that, regardless, a reflective reading from the gray card and an incident reading (essentially returning the same value) will not compensate for shadow detail, especially if those shadows contain information you definitely want recorded on the negative. Just something to keep in mind when you use an incident reading or a reflective reading from the gray card and you are experiencing a loss in shadow detail that you may have anticipated recording. If you take one of these type readings, and feel you should open up to increase any shadow densities, then most likely you'll have to reduce develolpment time to control the highlights (because opening up to improve shadow detail can, and mostly will, overexpose the highvalues too much). The old maxim of expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights is true no matter how you meter the subject.

It's really rather simple: Incident metering measures the illumination itself, reflectance meters measure the actual amount of light being reflected by the subject. Both methods work well if one knows how to interpret and apply the readings.

However, often incident readings are taken for the primary illuminating source only (i.e. sunlight) and applied as though the contrast were "average." This results in underexposed shadows in contrasty situations. Taking the incident shadow reading and extrapolating exposure and development from that (often not so "quick and easy") by figuring lighting ratios, and how one wants black and white objects in both light and shadow to be rendered, eliminates this problem.

Reflected readings allow one to do roughly the same thing by taking readings from the actual values reflected from the subject. Still, one has to interpret and apply the data.

The accuracy and consistency of the exposure depend on the effective interpretation of the meter readings. Choose the complexity of your interpretive system (e.g. Zone System, BTZS, etc. or just "by guess and by golly") according to your needs and personality. Some are happy with a large amount of exposure variance, others not. There will always be some.

The only advantage I can see to reflective metering with a spot meter, is that one can get a rough idea of how differently colored areas of the scene will be rendered on the final print (e.g., if adjacent red and green areas will "merge" in tonality in the print) by checking their comparative reflectances. This is, unfortunately, limited by the mismatch in spectral response of the meter and film, so that only a general idea can be had from the readings. Experience with one particular combination of meter and film can allow better interpretations of the readings, however.

My personal preference is for the 1° spot meter, since I can evaluate specific areas of the scene as described above, and see how they relate to each other. This helps with visualizing the final print. Also, I prefer to meter through filters, for the same reason. I have to apply a lot of "fudge factors" and compensations when doing this, but I find it superior to simply applying the manufacturers' filter factors.

Spot meter readings have little advantage if one feels no need to compare specific areas in the scene.

Best,

Doremus Scudder
www.DoremusScudder.com