How would you meter/expose for these 2 shots?

hoakin1981 · Apr 3, 2014

Got my a MF 645 and a roll of Velvia 50 to try out. Coming from digital I have some experience but I am not sure if what I know can be applied on slide film as well.

So, example No.1

Typical sunset shot but with a clean horizon. In this I would meter (Spot) for the brightest part of the sunset and one more for the darker part below (house on right), calculate the difference and use an ND grad filter to compensate. Perhaps in trying using the zone system a tad as well I would calculate +1.5 exp.comp. on the bright spot.

Example No.2

Again, sunset but this time the horizon is not clean so using an ND grad is not possible. This is trickier, again 2 measurements in sunset/mill, calculate the diff. and either use an average or +1.5 in the bright spot and fire away. Of course in digital even if the mill was too dark I could easily fix it but this is not the case.

So, how would you go about shooting these 2 scenes? Please keep in mind that for this example you have velvia 50 on so not much room for errors. Also, since I have a Mamiya 645 Pro with the metered prism I/you have both spot and average metering available.

Really looking forward to any replies, many thanks in advance!

darkosaric · Apr 3, 2014

On rare occasions when I shoot color - I use matrix metering on camera and just letting camera decide for me (canon t90). In 99% of the cases it does better job than me. MF 645 does not have matrix metering?

hoakin1981 · Apr 3, 2014

darkosaric said:
On rare occasions when I shoot color - I use matrix metering on camera and just letting camera decide for me (canon t90). In 99% of the cases it does better job than me. MF 645 does not have matrix metering?

Thanks for the reply. No, the 645 Pro I have only has spot and average plus one more auto-mode which lets the camera decide what to choose from the two.

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 3, 2014

For sunsets with slide film, I'm usually spot metering for the part of the sky where I want to have color, and then it's not a bad idea to bracket 1/3 or 1/2 stop either way from that setting, because there can be a range of "correct" exposures that each give a different emotional effect on film.

If your digital camera has spot metering, you could test this out first to get a feel for where to meter, before working with film.

hoakin1981 · Apr 3, 2014

David A. Goldfarb said:
For sunsets with slide film, I'm usually spot metering for the part of the sky where I want to have color, and then it's not a bad idea to bracket 1/3 or 1/2 stop either way from that setting, because there can be a range of "correct" exposures that each give a different emotional effect on film.

If your digital camera has spot metering, you could test this out first to get a feel for where to meter, before working with film.

Thanks. Well my D300s indeed has spot metering but I would really try to be able to manage without it. First of all because that would mean less gear/weight to carry and secondly by using a different meter this would void the whole point of buying a metered prism for the Mamiya in the first place.

Poisson Du Jour · Apr 3, 2014

First scene: the sky is of no consequence; (spot-) meter tones of the buildings where the major focii and detail interest is.

Second scene. Spot meter the stonework (if detail is required in light shadow where the door is, spot meter that too), and the darkest part of the sky. Average both. The foliage and lower stonework is of no relevance in metering.

If lighting presents as flat/dull, you may wish to add +1 to +1.5 to spot meter summation.

When spot metering a sunset or sunrise, it is the area left or right — light midtones, not the brightest part, that requires metering. Otherwise the brightest area you meter from will turn the scene flat. You need to be very careful with Velvia; I favour, very strongly, hand-held multispot/duplex-averaged metering and never onboard "matrix" or "evaluative"/"multipattern" meters. These meters don't know what they are looking at and furthermore, they don't care.

gone · Apr 3, 2014

You're just going to have to decide which is the important area to you, and let the rest fall where it may. Slide film doesn't give you a lot of options w/ it's narrow exposure range.

markbarendt · Apr 3, 2014

Personally in both situations I'd just incident meter normally.

MartinCrabtree · Apr 3, 2014

I've always wondered why is slide film so unforgiving in exposure?

Steve Smith · Apr 3, 2014

MartinCrabtree said:
I've always wondered why is slide film so unforgiving in exposure?

Because there is no room for error. The slide is the finished product.

With negative film you can compenaste for some over or under exposure at the printing stage. People refer to this as exposure latitude but it's really the extent you can get it wrong but still get away with it!

Steve.

MattKing · Apr 3, 2014

As your 645 Pro is new to you, I'll pass on one caution.

The "spot" mode on the metering prisms isn't as small as in some other options. And the actual area read from is a fraction of what is being viewed - so it is dependent on the field of view of the lens on the camera.

So it is a good idea to experiment a bit with it until you get a good feel for how it works.

Just as it is a good idea to experiment with Velvia.

It is difficult for us to know how you want your highlights and shadows to appear in the final result. I would say, however, that metering the sky is potentially misleading.

benjiboy · Apr 3, 2014

darkosaric said:
On rare occasions when I shoot color - I use matrix metering on camera and just letting camera decide for me (canon t90). In 99% of the cases it does better job than me. MF 645 does not have matrix metering?[/QUOTE

The Canon T90 doesn't have matrix metering, although it was very advanced for 1988, and almost science fiction in those days it's metering is silicon cell T.T.L. matrix metering wasn't invented for about another twenty years.

BrianShaw · Apr 3, 2014

markbarendt said:
Personally in both situations I'd just incident meter normally.

Me too. There are many times when I've both spot metered and incident metered, only to find out that the incident metering works just fine.

benjiboy · Apr 3, 2014

I find I get a higher proportion of acceptable exposures in just about any lighting conditions with incidental metering without tying myself in knots doing mental arithmetic.

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 3, 2014

hoakin1981 said:
Thanks. Well my D300s indeed has spot metering but I would really try to be able to manage without it. First of all because that would mean less gear/weight to carry and secondly by using a different meter this would void the whole point of buying a metered prism for the Mamiya in the first place.

I didn't mean that you should carry both cameras, but practice spot metering sunsets with digital first to figure out where in the sky to meter with respect to the sun, and then you'll be able to do it with slide film, which responds very much like digital.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 3, 2014

hoakin1981 said:
Got my a MF 645 and a roll of Velvia 50 to try out. Coming from digital I have some experience but I am not sure if what I know can be applied on slide film as well.

So, example No.1

Typical sunset shot but with a clean horizon. In this I would meter (Spot) for the brightest part of the sunset and one more for the darker part below (house on right), calculate the difference and use an ND grad filter to compensate. Perhaps in trying using the zone system a tad as well I would calculate +1.5 exp.comp. on the bright spot.

Example No.2

Again, sunset but this time the horizon is not clean so using an ND grad is not possible. This is trickier, again 2 measurements in sunset/mill, calculate the diff. and either use an average or +1.5 in the bright spot and fire away. Of course in digital even if the mill was too dark I could easily fix it but this is not the case.

So, how would you go about shooting these 2 scenes? Please keep in mind that for this example you have velvia 50 on so not much room for errors. Also, since I have a Mamiya 645 Pro with the metered prism I/you have both spot and average metering available.

Really looking forward to any replies, many thanks in advance!

my limited digital experience tells me:nohing beats Nikon's matrix metering.I use it and shoot rawto rescue what was out of bounds later.so far itworked every time; Zone System good bye.:munch:

jspillane · Apr 3, 2014

I don't have a lot of slide experience, but I would agree with the above: you have to meter for what you want to be the 'neutral' part of the exposure. On negative I always meter for the darkest part of the frame that I want to have good detail, then try to pull down the rest. That kind of 'lazy' shooting works better with B&W and negative though.

I use a small digital as a kind of 'polaroid' for studio shots and difficult outdoor exposures; once you get used to the difference between your film of choice and your puny ugly digital camera of choice, it can be remarkably useful.

hoakin1981 · Apr 4, 2014

Thanks for all replies so far. How about the "underexposing" rule regarding slide film? I love the strong saturated colors of slide film but everything I have read has confused me even more...

There seems to be a contradiction the way I see it. I mean It is generally advised to +1-1/2 stops on the highlights to maintain shadow detail as well without blowing them but In such a case what would I exactly underexpose? And if I do want to try the underexpose theory, how exactly would I go about doing that?

markbarendt · Apr 4, 2014

I don't think that I would call it an under exposing rule. What I think it should be called is calibrating.

What you're actually doing is making sure that how you meter matches what you want as the result. This requires a bit of trial and error and maybe some bracketing until you have it figured out well.

spatz · Apr 4, 2014

With velvia (and other similar slide films) i usually spotmeter the highlights that i want detail in and then reduce the exposure by 1.5 stops. Very much depends on the photo but i think with slide film its better to have nice highlights than good shadow detail. Blown highlights look garish to me.

Sent from my LG-P710 using Tapatalk

darkosaric · Apr 4, 2014

benjiboy said:
The Canon T90 doesn't have matrix metering, although it was very advanced for 1988, and almost science fiction in those days it's metering is silicon cell T.T.L. matrix metering wasn't invented for about another twenty years.

You are right. From those "new" cameras with automatic features I used nikon F801s and canon T90, so i mixed up which one has matrix metering (both having more than good metering).

benjiboy · Apr 4, 2014

darkosaric said:
You are right. From those "new" cameras with automatic features I used nikon F801s and canon T90, so i mixed up which one has matrix metering (both having more than good metering).

I don't have a camera more hi- tech than the T90 it's about as automated as I want to go, and generally only use it for situations where I want to use T.T.L. fill in flash for outdoor portraits.

MattKing · Apr 4, 2014

spatz said:
With velvia (and other similar slide films) i usually spotmeter the highlights that i want detail in and then reduce the exposure by 1.5 stops. Very much depends on the photo but i think with slide film its better to have nice highlights than good shadow detail. Blown highlights look garish to me.

Sent from my LG-P710 using Tapatalk

Be careful with this advice.

You need to incorporate some zone placement thoughts into the process for it to work.

If you simply meter a highlight, the meter will recommend an exposure that will render the highlight as Zone V - a mid gray.

If you want the highlight to show as a highlight, you need to increase the exposure - to Zone VII (2 stops)?

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 4, 2014

I agree with Spatz. If the image has a lot of important highlight detail, with color slide film, I'd place the highlight 1.5 stops or 1.3 stops over middle grey. So meter the highlight and open up 1.5 stops or so. 2 stops over will be blown out.

The Zone System principle is really the same as with negative film--you want to retain detail in the thinnest part of the film (shadows on neg, highlights on a slide)--but slide film has a lot less latitude.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 4, 2014

Steve Smith said:
Because there is no room for error. The slide is the finished product.

With negative film you can compenaste for some over or under exposure at the printing stage. People refer to this as exposure latitude but it's really the extent you can get it wrong but still get away with it!

Steve.

Although you do have a last resort push or pull in dev. I like to think you want to work within the latitude.

How would you meter/expose for these 2 shots?

hoakin1981

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