night exposure and fog/mist

danielc · Nov 20, 2008

morning all,

I was wondering on how to approach metering a night scene that has medium to heavy fog and mist.

The scene in question is a petrol station, which is on top of a hill, so the surrounding area is very dark. The lights from the station illuminate the small area and when the fog hits, it adds to the scene.

Last night I went up to fire off a few frames and metered using an incident reader, which was placed in the lights. The camera was then setup out of the lights and I took the frame.

It was around F8 for 4s on average, but outside of the area we were looking at F16 for 30s

Was this the right approach? (film isn't back from the lab yet)

Any guidance or experience would be greatly appreciated

thanks

bwakel · Nov 20, 2008

Are you shooting colour or black and white? Remember that there will be severe reciprocity failure with B&W film so a 4s exposure will become 10s and 30s will become 154s. Colour films vary in their reciprocity failure and you should check the technical details for your film.

The meter will obviously give you the exposure for a mid-tone so if you want the forecourt to be a mid-tone then you've got the right exposure (ignoring reciptocity failure). However, if you're shooting slide film then the dark area may be pretty much black and you might want to increase the exposure to make the forecourt brighter than a mid-tone and bring out some detail in the shadow.

Those are my thoughts.

Barry

danielc · Nov 20, 2008

Sorry I should have mentioned that, I'm shooting Portra 160NC

2F/2F · Nov 20, 2008

If you want a quick reading that will give you a textbook perfect exposure, there is nothing better than an incident meter, but don't forget about reciprocity failure. Every film is different, so I would read the data sheet to start, and go from there with your own tests if something ends up wacky. If I hear you correctly, your dark areas are reading only one EV lower than the lit areas. F/8 at 4 sec. = EV 3-1/3 and f/16 at 30 sec. = EV 2-1/3. Are you sure about that?

danielc · Nov 20, 2008

There was a large amount of spill from the forecourt lights and the fog, hence the small difference. I could, however, have read it wrong. I'll head back up this this evening and try again

I need to find a table of reciprocity failure for kodak films

Dan Henderson · Nov 20, 2008

Turning the zone system on its head has worked well for me for metering night photography. Assuming that the scene has some bright highlights such as streetlights, I meter them with a spotmeter and place them on zone VIII or IX, allow for reciprocity if needed (or more likely use Acros and don't worry about reciprocity) and let the shadows fall where they may. Midtones in the scene get enough exposure to show detail. Some of the shadows are empty, but it is, after all, a photograph of the night, and black shadow area seems acceptable to me.

danielc · Nov 20, 2008

that makes sense!

Martin Aislabie · Nov 22, 2008

Bracket like crazy

Start with an incident light reading in the brightest bit of the scene and go up in exposure from there and throw in some extra for the films reciprocity failure

Have fun

Martin

Kvistgaard · Nov 22, 2008

FirePhoto said:
...(or more likely use Acros and don't worry about reciprocity)...

HI FirePhoto - does Acros not have rec. failure? If that is the case, then it sounds like Acros is my film of choice going forward.

Thanks,
Søren

Dan Henderson · Nov 22, 2008

Soren: according to the spec sheet for Acros, no reciprocity correction is required for exposures up to 120 seconds, and only 1/2 stop is required for exposures beyond that. Until I looked it up just now I thought that no correction was required regardless of time, and I am quite sure that I have exposed Acros for longer than 2 minutes without correcting, and do not recall underexposed negatives.
Dan

Kvistgaard · Nov 22, 2008

Dan - this is great news indeed. I've previously used Acros for portraits and really liked it. the lack of RF is an added bonus!
Thanks,
Søren

night exposure and fog/mist

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