Metering at night

CHHAHH · Feb 6, 2014

I might overthink something here and you'll give yourself a face palm right now but i am stuck with metering my exposures at night scenes.
With a DSLR i can get myself close by making test images and reviewing them on display...but now i have my first fully manual camera and a handheld lightmeter (with bulb and spotmeter).
I would love to take my camera out for a walk at night, but i just can't figure out how to meter correctly for Tri-X...

Any suggestions?

Jim Noel · Feb 6, 2014

Use your spot meter on the important highlight with very good detail and place it on ZOne VII. Let the rest fall where it will. The shadows should end up near black and that is the way night is.

MartinP · Feb 6, 2014

If you get stuck with a meter that doesn't read properly in low light you can gain a few stops of use by taking a reflected reading of a piece of white paper (instead of a grey-card) then giving 2 1/2 stops more exposure than indicated. I've been using a Lunasix-3 meter which will read very low light levels, but most meters won't do that of course.

It's useful to consider the very high contrast of many night scenes too. Any man-made light source will be extremely bright compared to unlit areas. For a realistic look the high-contrast can be maintained in the image, so perhaps meter the highlights and sacrifice the shadows. Alternatively, don't shoot in total night conditions, but use the natural 'fill-light' from a dusk or dawn sky to lower the contrast and then print the picture to look more like the range your eye sees, using the extra detail where appropriate.

Don't forget to check the reciprocity failure of the film you are using too, and make appropriate allowance when calculating your exposure.

CHHAHH · Feb 6, 2014

Thanks! I was thinking about that too! Will give it a try!

alienmeatsack · Feb 6, 2014

I've run into the same problem before when out with meterless cameras and meters that are finicky. I like the slightly overexposed stuff at night, so I end up way over exposing trying to compensate.

I think what I've resorted to the most is using a meter app on my phone to get closer to the right place, then using the handheld meter from scene to scene based on what I know the phone told me, adjusting and going from there.

My first response was to bring a small digital that can meter with you and aim/note the settings. But that defeats the purpose and the learning experience. I've been trying to learn to visually meter and then backup my visual guess with a hand held meter. I need to replace my meter as it's old and no longer very accurate which makes a frustrating time for sure.

pstake · Feb 6, 2014

Jim Noel said:
Use your spot meter on the important highlight with very good detail and place it on ZOne VII. Let the rest fall where it will. The shadows should end up near black and that is the way night is.

This is the best advice. Depending on your skin tone, you can also meter off your palm and place that at zone V or VI and use thatbut Jim's method is more precise.

Do either of these things a few times and you'll get a ballpark idea where to set your shutter and aperture when photographing the areas you go to at night.

I use Tri-X at 1600 and in street-lamp heavy areas like outdoors downtown, I am usually between F2-F4 at 1/125. I meter once or twice at the beginning of the night and then ballpark it so my other hand is free to hold a beer. Inside bars I take another reading, usually setting it around F2 or F1.5 at 1/60 unless it's one of the really seedy places. Then it's wide-open at 1/30 and hopefully a very steady hand.

Sirius Glass · Feb 6, 2014

This has NEVER failed me even with slides.
http://www.stacken.kth.se/~maxz/programming.html Down near the bottom
New Jiffy Calculator

While searching for data on exposure estimation in nighttime photography I stumbled upon a scan of the "Jiffy Calculator" by S.P. Martin. This was apparently published in a photographical magazine in the sixties. The scan wasn't too good and it was hard to get the numbers aligned. Also there were some strange numberings on the jiffy calculator. I combined this with data from the Ultimate Exposure Computer regarding EV:s.

The New Jiffy Calculator (PostScript or Acrobat PDF)

rbender · Feb 6, 2014

I use this with good success http://www.blackcatphotoproducts.com/guide.html and my Luna Pro. Always bracket and keep notes for the future.

Tom1956 · Feb 6, 2014

Thank you Sirius for the link. Although I am in question as to what the tungsten speeds are for today's B&W films. I haven't seen a tungsten speed in at least 40 years listed on or in the materials packaged with film.

Sirius Glass · Feb 6, 2014

Tom1956 said:
Thank you Sirius for the link. Although I am in question as to what the tungsten speeds are for today's B&W films. I haven't seen a tungsten speed in at least 40 years listed on or in the materials packaged with film.

I always used ASA with the Jiffy Calculator even with Type B film.

RalphLambrecht · Feb 6, 2014

just take an incident reading with a goog low-light meter such as any of the gossens.assume that to be on Zone IV and let the rest fall whereever it may.Also,I find myself trustingthe NikonDSLR lightdisplay more and more.Their matrix metering is nothing short of amazing.

Tom1956 · Feb 6, 2014

RalphLambrecht said:
just take an incident reading with a goog low-light meter such as any of the gossens.assume that to be on Zone IV and let the rest fall whereever it may.Also,I find myself trustingthe NikonDSLR lightdisplay more and more.Their matrix metering is nothing short of amazing.

What's a Nikon DSLR?

David Allen · Feb 7, 2014

It all depends upon whether you are wanting to do hand-held action shots or want to work with a tripod and achieve a full range of tones.

The latter is my preference for night photography. For this type of work, I meter (as usual) the darkest shadow where I wish to retain detail and then place that on Zone III (this means closing the aperture by two stops from what the meter says or increasing the shutter speed by two stops from what the meter says) and then use this as my base exposure and then apply correction for reciprocity failure. With Ilford Delta 400 the following corrections work for me:

5 seconds use 10 seconds
10 seconds use 25 seconds
15 seconds use 45 seconds
20 seconds use 80 seconds
25 seconds use 125 seconds

I then process in a two-bath developer (stops the highlights blowing out). For me this works reliably every time, no need to bracket or play around with push processing. Here is an example:

If, on the other hand, you want to shoot hand-held and capture action you will need to shoot the film at a higher ISO (accepting loss of shadow detail) and then compensate with extended processing in a suitable developer.

Bests,

David
www.dsallen.de

Regular Rod · Feb 7, 2014

CHHAHH said:
I might overthink something here and you'll give yourself a face palm right now but i am stuck with metering my exposures at night scenes.
With a DSLR i can get myself close by making test images and reviewing them on display...but now i have my first fully manual camera and a handheld lightmeter (with bulb and spotmeter).
I would love to take my camera out for a walk at night, but i just can't figure out how to meter correctly for Tri-X...

Any suggestions?

Use your spotmeter exactly as you would in daylight. There is no difference in principle. Place things on the Zones you want them to be and calculate your exposures accordingly.

This was made by deciding on Zone III for the steps up to the Castle Inn.

RR

markbarendt · Feb 7, 2014

Regular Rod said:
Use your spotmeter exactly as you would in daylight. There is no difference in principle. Place things on the Zones you want them to be and calculate your exposures accordingly.

I agree that metering theory doesn't change. I use an incident meter very much as I would during the day and, like you, choosing my metering point carefully.

Visualizing this is the challenge.

jojonas · Feb 7, 2014

good thread, this. I've got a gossen lunasix 3 that I heavily rely on but this has given me some insight that I needed.

RalphLambrecht · Feb 7, 2014

CHHAHH said:
I might overthink something here and you'll give yourself a face palm right now but i am stuck with metering my exposures at night scenes.
With a DSLR i can get myself close by making test images and reviewing them on display...but now i have my first fully manual camera and a handheld lightmeter (with bulb and spotmeter).
I would love to take my camera out for a walk at night, but i just can't figure out how to meter correctly for Tri-X...

Any suggestions?

I'm afraid, reciprocity failure compensation is going to be the bigger issue.
good luck and start with incident meteringand doublingexposure time for reciprocity failure.

StoneNYC · Feb 7, 2014

RalphLambrecht said:
I'm afraid, reciprocity failure compensation is going to be the bigger issue.
good luck and start with incident meteringand doublingexposure time for reciprocity failure.

I was waiting for someone to mention reciprocity...

If you have an iPhone I would suggest this app! It's amazing! And was made by one of the guys on the Large Format Forum. It's very accurate. It's been recently updated with a ton more films.

Reciprocity Timer...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reciprocity-timer/id459691262?mt=8

pstake · Feb 7, 2014

StoneNYC said:
I was waiting for someone to mention reciprocity...

If you have an iPhone I would suggest this app! It's amazing! And was made by one of the guys on the Large Format Forum. It's very accurate. It's been recently updated with a ton more films.

Reciprocity Timer...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reciprocity-timer/id459691262?mt=8

Wow that's awesome. Thanks, Stone!

E. von Hoegh · Feb 7, 2014

If you're using a CDS meter for very low light, be sure to keep the cell covered when in bright areas - the CDS cell has a memory, like our eyeballs it takes some time (not as much) for it's low light sensitivity to recover.

StoneNYC · Feb 7, 2014

pstake said:
Wow that's awesome. Thanks, Stone!

Welcome, it was just updated with a ton more films and more accurate adjustments, as well as a "pro" version that has integrated zone system recording etc. Pretty advanced stuff. But try the regular version and see how you like it.

pstake · Feb 7, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Welcome, it was just updated with a ton more films and more accurate adjustments, as well as a "pro" version that has integrated zone system recording etc. Pretty advanced stuff. But try the regular version and see how you like it.

Really handy tool. I've been playign with it about 10 minutes.

I find the compensation times for Foma and Arista films pretty interesting. A 10 sec exposure compensated for reciprocity failure, jumps to 1:02 with Fomapan whereas only between 15-30 secs for all other films.

Makes me wonder what's so different about Fomapan that reciprocity is that far off.

StoneNYC · Feb 7, 2014

pstake said:
Really handy tool. I've been playign with it about 10 minutes.

I find the compensation times for Foma and Arista films pretty interesting. A 10 sec exposure compensated for reciprocity failure, jumps to 1:02 with Fomapan whereas only between 15-30 secs for all other films.

Makes me wonder what's so different about Fomapan that reciprocity is that far off.

FOMA is just bad with reciprocity, it's a very well know film for having horrible reciprocity characteristics.

I once shot a 2 hour exposure with FOMA and got no image because apparently it should have been 6 hours... Any other film would have been over exposed at 2 hours lol

removed account4 · Feb 7, 2014

CHHAHH said:
I might overthink something here and you'll give yourself a face palm right now but i am stuck with metering my exposures at night scenes.
With a DSLR i can get myself close by making test images and reviewing them on display...but now i have my first fully manual camera and a handheld lightmeter (with bulb and spotmeter).
I would love to take my camera out for a walk at night, but i just can't figure out how to meter correctly for Tri-X...

Any suggestions?

get yourself a exposure guide

http://www.blackcatphotoproducts.com/guide.html

works like a charm, every time

then it is the internal light meter

George Collier · Feb 10, 2014

Just saw this thread - one other reference about night exposures, per AA - if the moon is in the image, the exposure for it would be the same as sunny daylight for the given film, as this is the illumination it is getting.

Metering at night

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