Looking to improve my exposure method and get better negatives...

John Koehrer said:

Hey trendland, Where did you get the impression the OP had 20-30 years experience?
Anyway, Whether you use spot, average reflected or incident with a bit of experience you can
judge what the shadows will do with any of them after taking a reading. Similar to sunny 16,
look & recognize what will happen.

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trendland said:

I get the impression the OP has good potential to come to best results in 3 - 4 years!!!!
More than others with 20 - 30 years experience!
Exposure is no dissertation - beside the fact that some come to thesis at the university!
One simple example :
View attachment 222918

...here exposure automatic did it not to best results! But how to correct?
spotmetering on dark shadow area and spotmetering to highlights could have been missed
here?????
You have to know from visual inspection of the light situation - what will hapen!
1/3 E.V. correction would have been enough!
But why should one do this shot better with - 1/3 E.V. The contrast in general is to much for film!!!!! What about the shadow areas ????
The difference from a technical sight and from the complete sight as a photographer is imense!
So throw away any spotmeter here! Let the highlights come + 1/2 EV to much - don't care about
details in shadows! You have to know - but if you know look at things of priority!

Don't miss the right moment!

with regards

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Sirius Glass said:

Because of the high range of brightness this is a good situation to use and incident meter. Or a gray card. Or a spot meter with the Zone system.

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Ces1um said:

I think the point was if you took the time to meter the scene, you'd miss the moment.

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Sirius Glass said:

When I arrive at a place that I may want to take a photograph I take a light reading any way. If in a rush I use Sunny 16.

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avizzini said:

I'm new-ish to film, I've been doing it for a year or more now. I've gone through about 50 rolls. I've been shooting with digital as a hobby for 7 or so years.

I can't forget about metering because the camera doesn't have an automatic mode. It's a Mamiya 645 1000s. The prism view finder has a meter but I never use it since it adds too much weight when hiking (and at its age I can't imagine it being more accurate than a dedicated meter or an app). So, I stick to the waist level view finder. At this point would automatic be an improvement anyway? Don't automatic modes function the same way as say taking an average reflective reading of the entire scene and spitting out settings. Mostly what I'm doing now minus the metering app "middle-man".

I'll make a note to keep the sky to about 1/3rd the frame.

I'm confusd or miss understanding something, when you talk about using the film at EI 200. If meter the film for 200, wouldn't I want to pull development?
Or are you saying meter at EI 200 or 320 or whatever I may choose and develop it "normally" (In the case of Delta 400 @ 400 ISO w/Ilford DD-X, it'd be 8 minutes)? And in this case it'd be pushing...

I tend not to shoot facing the sun. I do have cases where I want something that puts the sun in dangerously close to causing glare and exposure issues but I do my best to compensate for it. And as I've mentioned before when I'm shooting in the snow I'll add two stops of light based off what I'm metering it at. Perhaps I want to compensate with 3 stops for snowy landscapes? I'll also add maybe a stop or so in other bright/reflective conditions.



In summary my development method sounds similar to yours. I use Ilford DD-X, I like the results I get with it and it's what Ilford recommends. I pour in the developer (1:4 solution) and agitate for the intial 10s (slow rotatons/inversions) then for each minute of development I do another 10s of inversions. Then ~10s before development ends I slowly dump out the developer. I never reuse the developer.

When you add 30% time to your developement, how greatly does it affect the grain/tones, do you notice a large increase in grain or modest/none? I don't mind grain, but I don't want a whole lot in my landscapes (I know there's going to be some especially with 400 film).

I suppose I could do half of box or maybe 320 and in this case I could still develop normally as if it were 400 (For DD-X it's 8mins) and see some increased contrast, no?

I'll check out that link you gave me.



I wasn't sure how best to share the negatives/scans/prints as any method would add additional unrelated variables (digital camera, scanner, computer screen settings, etc). In any case I'll share with you the negative-scan-print of the photos that "worked", "Kind of Worked" and "Didn't work as intended" (from the perspective of the final darkroom print not what I can get via a scan + Lightroom).

First image in each album is the negative itself, second image is the unadjusted scan using an Epson v600, third image is a darkroom print of the image. Hopefully this all makes sense and you can get an idea of what I'm doing.

Worked: Clean grain, I like the tones, not too had to print nicely (in my opinion)
Later Afternoon, sunny - Delta 100 @ 100 F32 1s (no filter)
Sample 1 Photos (No darkroom print just yet)

Mid Afternoon, mostly sunny - Delta 400 @ 400 [Lost the settings on this one] (Red Filter #25 - 3 Stops added, Snow 2-3 Stops Added)
Sample 2 Photos

Mid morning, partly cloudy - Delta 400 @ 400 F16 1/60 (Red Filter #25 - 2 Stops added)
Sample 3 Photos

Kind of Worked: Not too grainy (but some), I like the tones for the most part, not too hard to print (in my opinion)
Early Sunset, mostly sunny - Delta 400 @ 400 F8 1/60 (Red Filter #25 - 3 Stops added)
Sample 4 Photos

Didn't Work as Intended: Really Grainy and harsh looking, hard to print (in my opinion)
Early Morning, partly cloudy - Delta 400 @ 400 F16 1/15 (Red Filter #25 - 3 Stops Added, Snow 2 Stops Added)
Sample 5 Photos

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avizzini said:

I shoot mostly Delta 400 (when I don't want to bring along a tripod) and Delta 100. I use it at box speed and develop at Ilford recommended times using DDX. I invert the tank 4 times every minute for 10 seconds.

I feel like my negativs lack contrast at times. They are usually good to scan but their flatness feels a bit more problematic sometimes when making darkroom prints. I sometimes have to add a good bit of contrast to get what I want and at that point the print loses tones and gets harsher grain. Nothing crazy bad but, there's room for improvement. I usualy do split grade printing, if this makes a difference.

At the moment I’m using an iPhone metering app that functions as a reflective light meter getting an average of the entire scene. I try to meter the scene taking into account what it’s pointed at so that it’s looking at shadows, mid tones, and highlights so that it’s a good average… Should I avoid the sky altogether when metering this way?

Most of the time I’m use a light red filter (#25). I used to add 2 stops of exposure for this but, I decided to go with 3 when using the red filter. It seems to have helped a bit. When I’m in bright areas or scenes with a lot of snow, I’ll add 1-2 stops on top of what the meter is giving me.
as photoraphrs have been teaching for many decades now:to increase contrast extend development.
What is a good straightforward way to meter landscapes when working with roll film (120). As I understand it, methods such as the Zone System are not as practical with roll film as you can’t develop each negative uniquely and especially for landscape where each scene being photographed can vary a lot.

Let me know if either of these scenarios would give me better results:

Scenario 1

With the adage « Meter for the shadows develop for the highlights… » can this be translated when shooting roll film where I can’t differentiate development for each image?

Say I’m using Delta 400 @ F16 and I spot meter important shadows and I get a shutter speed of 1/30s. Since this would give me « grayish » shadows, I would actually shoot it at F16 for 1/250s or 1/500s taking them down 2 - 3 stops. At this point if I develop normally would I get better negatives more often than if I just took an overall reflective average? Would this give me bad highlights since I can’t really do much in development for my highlights due to changing lighting conditions?

Scenario 2

I also see that some recommend not shooting the film at box speed but rather slower. In the case of Delta 400 would I treat it as ISO 320 or even 200? What about Delta 100, treat it like 80 or 50?

Assuming I rate Delta 400 at 320 would I still develop it normally as if I were shooting it at 400 (8 mins with DDX) or would I pull it?

...

I’m not looking for perfection just improvements on what I’m currently doing. I don’t want to get too lost in the technical details and theory. Just some straightforward suggestions that might help.

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avizzini said:

In summary my development method sounds similar to yours. I use Ilford DD-X, I like the results I get with it and it's what Ilford recommends. I pour in the developer (1:4 solution) and agitate for the intial 10s (slow rotatons/inversions) then for each minute of development I do another 10s of inversions. Then ~10s before development ends I slowly dump out the developer. I never reuse the developer.

When you add 30% time to your developement, how greatly does it affect the grain/tones, do you notice a large increase in grain or modest/none? I don't mind grain, but I don't want a whole lot in my landscapes (I know there's going to be some especially with 400 film).

I suppose I could do half of box or maybe 320 and in this case I could still develop normally as if it were 400 (For DD-X it's 8mins) and see some increased contrast, no?

I'll check out that link you gave me.

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Paul Howell said:

Contrast is dependent on the taste of the shooter. What can look fine to me may look flat to someone else. As you are scanning and processing in PS or LR, have you toyed with increasing contrast? If you feel that your negatives are as a rule flat increase development by 10 to 20%. Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlight, well learn the Zone System or Beyond the Zone System. In terms of Sunny 16, it can work once you train you eye to tell difference between open shadow and deep shadow, and with practice and decide the shadow tones for subjects at a distance. I use Sunny 16 at times with my older cameras with broken meters, best in good lighting. But there is a reason most pro photographers use a light meter and many use incident meters, they work better than guessing.

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jeffreyg said:

Instead of trying different approaches until you find what might work, why not standardize your trial. Take a gray card in shadowless even light. Set your ISO to the mfg's recommendation for your Delta 400 @400. Without bothering to focus fill the frame with the gray card. Click off a couple of frames with the lens cap on then expose +3 stops then reducing by half stops until you expose at the original reading then go minus 1/2 up to minus three. ( with 120 it may take two rolls) Develop according to mfg's time/temp. When the film is dry make a step test print using the unexposed frames @ enlarger lens f8 raised to 8x10. When that print is dry, see where it just stops being pure black. Cut pieces of the paper you will print on and label and print each of the other negatives at f8 with the enlarger raised to 8x10 coverage at the time it just left black. After processing, washing and drying see which exposure is closest to the tone of the gray card. That is the ISO for your gear with that film. For example if the closest to gray requires more time say one stop it means your ISO could be 200 or whatever the difference you find with the samples You can adjust the time of development to get more or less contrast as desired for the subjects you photograph. Printing the unexposed test was to accommodate film fog. The rest takes into account possible differences in actual shutter operation. you should repeat this for each different film. A couple of rolls is better than missing what you want from a shooting outing. There are similar tests with slight variations.

Unless you want dark blue skies avoid a red filter. Try no filter, a yellow, light orange or orange they will render a more natural appearance. I generally would stick with a yellow or light orange. You can always burn the sky or split print with filters when printing.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://www.sculptureandphotography.com/

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winger said:

Not necessarily. When you decide to shoot at something other than the box speed, you can still develop at the regular times. Personally, I shoot Delta400 at 320, but develop at about the norm. I shoot Delta100 at 80 and develop at the norm as well. But that's me. And I use an incident meter, not a reflective one. It would be good for you to bracket when you shoot and keep track of what the meter reading was and which shot it is so that you can decide which frame is the way you wanted it. Develop all at the standard time for the temperature.

What you're seeing in the printing may be the issue of printing rather than the exposing of the negative. It's easier to add contrast than it is to remove it. ie. if your negative seems flat, then you can still make a fairly punchy print. If your neg is contrasty, you won't have detail in either the highlights or the shadows (or, worse, both) no matter what you do in printing. You didn't say if you're using multigrade paper and how you're doing the printing (time in developer, etc..). You don't have exactly where in the US you are, but if there's a Photrio-er near you who knows how to print well, maybe you can set up a mini class with them? I know I'd be willing to go over stuff in person with anyone near me learning how to print.

+ everything MattKing said.

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John M Austin said:

It seems like these prints (but since you didn't describe your printing procedure... I'm only guessing) were not dodged in the shadows at all. Dodging lets you raise the values (by reducing the paper exposure in shadow areas) that are too dark and don't reveal sufficient detail. For example, the sky/clouds are fantastic. The sunlight snow is quite good, The deep shadow area in the depths of the "gullies" are almost too black. Imagine dodging those gullies. You could raise the amount of detail there to give your print a more balanced appearance. Think about some of the more famous Ansel Adams images. If you read his book "The making of 25 Images" - I believe that is the title, he walks through the film development and printing for each of them You get to see the flat print and the print he makes after all of the darkroom antics needed to produce a fine image. You'll see that your "worst" image is still very printable. You just gotta sharpen your print skills.

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L Gebhardt said:

I pulled your Sample 1, 4 and 5 "contact sheets" into Photoshop and looked at your shadow details to judge exposure. This relies on the idea that the clear part of the film between frames will be the max black in a print. Nothing in your frame will be able to print blacker than this. It also implies that there is no detail in this area.

What I do with Photoshop, though many editors will work the same, is to first invert the images to positives. Then adjust the curves or levels and move the black point while holding down the option key (Mac, alt on WIndows?). This shows the areas that are being clipped to black. As you move the black point you will see the unexposed areas show as clipped. With the Sample 1 photos I see significant areas in many frames turning black at the same time as the blank areas around the frames. This tells me you are underexposed on this frame. You should probably rate your film slower if those areas should have detail (looks like they should to me).

Doing the same with Sample 5 I see the opposite issue. Nothing in the frame is even close to as clear as the blank frame. This indicates you over exposed. This will cause the grainy image issue you are seeing. I would guess that your iPhone meter is already taking the snow into account and you didn't need to add all the extra for the snow. The nice thing with the iPhone metering app I use is you can see the exposure effect on the phone and adjust the metering point to account for that.

Looking at Sample 4 these look perfect. Small areas of max black start emerging in the frame at the same time the interframe areas clip. This is what I want to see as it gives good shadow details with minimal grain (and lets you maximize shutter speed to reduce subject movement).

I would first correct your exposures by adjust the film speed for your working conditions (mainly developer and metering technique). I found Delta 100 was closer to box speed than Delta 400 with XTOL (similar to DD-X) so just be aware that a one sized fits all approach of halving the speed isn't perfect. You might find Delta 100 is really best at 80 and Delta 400 is best at 200. But halving box speed is usually where I start and then work up from there as it's safer. You can use the photoshop technique or just a loupe on the light box to evaluate underexposure, but I find the photoshop black point is the easiest way to gauge the degree of significant over exposure.

I see nothing wrong with the iPhone light meter app I use (Pocket Light Meter), but you need to be aware of how it works. I tend to avoid including bright clouds in the metered area. It behaves like a cross between and incident and spot meter. I still prefer my Pentax spot meter, but like you I appreciate not carrying it (or pointing it around a city as it looks like a gun to some people).

After you are happy with the exposure details you are getting see how the negatives print. I aim for a nice print on grade 2 paper as this gives you room to correct in either direction. My guess is you are close on the development. But if you need a higher grade to make a nice print add more development, and if it's too contrasty subtract some. 10% time adjustments are usually about right (convert to seconds to make the math easier).

One other observation, you seem to shoot whole rolls in the same light. So you really could use zone system development techniques in your landscape work. Just try to finish the roll before the changing the light significantly.

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jnantz said:

One thing you have to remember is the light meter will just tell you what middle grey is. If there is too much sun or water or sand or reflected surface in, near or around what you are photographing it will fool your meter, so you need to compensate using your own experience. ( what the link I provided might help you do ). I can't really tell you what those methods will do to your film or landscapes, Typically Delta films, have finer grain than other emulsions so I don't really think you will have much to worry about, just give it enough light and don't under develop it. I can tell you that I've used TMX+TMY which are similar to the films you are using, I have processed them in stuff a lot more potent than the developer you are using and I've never really had troubles with grain ( enlarged to 11x14 even ). I've also done all sorts of things that made these somewhat grainless film kind of grainy, but I don't think you will be doing like I sometimes do. In other words, after its all said and done, it's kind of hard to make films that aren't supposed to be grainy, grainy. I'd just bracket your exposures and processing, make your enlargements to whatever size you like and enjoy yourself. What size are you enlarging to? Some believe 35mm shouldn't be enlarged past 8x10 ... not me, I'd just find your sweet spot, rinse, wash and repeat. ... and don't listen to the people that tell you you have to have 30 years or 40 years or 5 or 10 or even 1 year experience to make good photographs, or photographs you like making are all wrong because of xyz, cause plenty of people pick up a camera and use it as if it was part of their being for 60 years, and they are 13 years old and using great grandpa's old junker found in the closet with tri x ( or hp5 ) and d76 ( or ID 11 ).

Don't forget to have fun !

As always YAMMVFTSITW ...

John

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avizzini said:

I'm not sure if this would have altered your test but my "contact sheets", I was a bit lazy in sharing them. I left them in the plastic sleaves and lade them over a white comptuer screen. They weren't pressed flat either. I simply photographed them with a camera. The 2nd photo is a digital scan of the negative that is "neutral" (no alterations made in the scanner software or lightroom). In any case that can be another way to evaluate the negatives. I imagine scanning the whole strip (to include the unexposed areas between frames) can be used in such tests to achieve the same results.

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Sirius Glass said:

When I arrive at a place that I may want to take a photograph I take a light reading any way. If in a rush I use Sunny 16.

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trendland said:

Well I would not bash the IPhone app - I would bash light meters in general (and spotmeters)!
From what reason? You should have a feeling for right exposure (not at the beginning)!

I would better not state but if you ask me the answer is clear :
With an experience > 20 years you should use exposure tools for controlling your decision of
exposure! And ten years later you should through away your meters!
Every discussion of spot metering highlights and deep shadow areas is a discussion for newbees
so I wonder about much too often!
But it is fine to think about the basics in general! But basics in photography should not be
basics about exposure! If they are from exeption they should not be about exposure tools!
EXCEPTION SOMEONE IS NEW - LIKE OUR MUCH FRIENDLY OP HERE - OF COURSE!

IF I REMEMBER LATEST POSTINGS -Here are so many new from joined date > 8 years..???

So I more and more wonder about?????!

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