Place the shadow. Place the highlight.

DREW WILEY · Feb 26, 2025

Yeah, AA stated the same thing in some of his filmed interviews too. It was all about his inability to "manipulate" it. But his friends were manipulating color all kinds of ways; dye transfer was basically "Photoshop" prior to photoshop. I think the die was simply cast in his case. He also stated how he always had to start with a quieter or less contrasty image project in the darkroom before a bolder one, rather than visa versa, or his tonal sensitivity would get messed up. Personal peculiarities. Maybe just too many finicky "longhair" musical genes in him.

I don't have any problem going back and forth, nor working with both color and black and white - nor can I play music! My piano teacher as a child gave me dirty looks every time he saw me, until he finally died when I was over 50.

wiltw · Feb 26, 2025

Although I do not employ Zone system for B&W, I do employ the thread title for exposure of color emulsions and digital...

Place the shadow (for exposure of color negative)
Place the highlight (for exposure of color transparency and digital)

...because color negative gets muddy color when underexposed, and color transparency (and digital) lose detail when overexposed.

DREW WILEY · Feb 26, 2025

It might be wise to measure your shadow and highlight color repro limits when shooting any kind of color film, but this needs to be done with respect to both directions, shadow versus highlight, and in relation to the exact film type being used, not just in a generic color neg versus transparency sense. They're not all the same, even within those two respective categories. Those old stereotypes don't work very well anymore, and never really did. One has to know at what place along the scale specific hues saturate, and what priority to give to those when strategizing exposure.

GregY · Feb 26, 2025

Re the opening post, the discontinued & much-lamented Polaroid PN55 4x5 provided the user both a positive & a negative. If you wanted a good negative to print with afterwards (what many aficionados loved about PN55)..... you exposed for the negative.... (expose for shadows)....if your desire was a lovely 4x5 instant print...then you exposed for the highlights. It was a superb now-gone fim.

Chuck_P · Feb 26, 2025

Sirius Glass said:
Ansel Adams wrote in some of his books that manipulating color was more limited than black &n white, and that color would go unrealistic once outside a narrow band. Therefore he preferred to concentrate black & white.

I believe it was something like this..................there's only so much I can do with color before it becomes obviously unreal.

DREW WILEY · Feb 26, 2025

Yeah, that was a memorable phrase from a documentary about him, spoken directly by him. Of course, unreal looking color scenery run amuck is the rage of today.

Sirius Glass · Feb 26, 2025

Chuck_P said:
I believe it was something like this..................there's only so much I can do with color before it becomes obviously unreal.

DREW WILEY said:
Yeah, that was a memorable phrase from a documentary about him, spoken directly by him. Of course, unreal looking color scenery run amuck is the rage of today.

Thats the words he used.

Vaughn · Feb 27, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Yeah, that was a memorable phrase from a documentary about him, spoken directly by him. Of course, unreal looking color scenery run amuck is the rage of today.

As well as unreal contrast in deep shadow areas (begins to look like a photograph of a museum diorama).

DREW WILEY · Feb 27, 2025

Once those kinds of digital snapshots with their watered-down shadows started showing up in National Geographic, especially on their new matte paper, I cancelled my subscription. It was the latest app rage at the time, though at the moment I forget the exact term for it.

Chuck_P · Feb 28, 2025

Are you guys referring the HDR.........High Dynamic Range capability, that's when I see clearly unrealistic shadows in digitally processed black and white..

DREW WILEY · Feb 28, 2025

Yeah, I remembered the term later last night. HDR has several relevant definitions : Overdone fad, Obnoxious waste of a camera, One more silly App. Of course, I'm not referring to the tool itself, which is capable of being intelligently employed in the right hands, but of the all too predictable over-the-top new toy mentality which plagued our eyes when it first became overtly popular.

pbromaghin · May 8, 2025

I tested the incident and spot meters and the X-570 and they all agreed.

My final decision is to take the Rolleiflex with Ektachrome for walking around and the Voigtlander 6x9 with Rollei IR400 and R72 filter for solo down time. Metering will be done with the incident meter. And that's final. Unless I change my mind again.

Thank you all. This was a very interesting and educational discussion.

BrianShaw · May 8, 2025

Which meter will you be using?

cliveh · May 8, 2025

If you are using colour slide film, you should base your exposure on incident light readings. If you are using colour negative film, or black & white negative film, you should base your exposure on reflected meter readings. Deep black shadows are far more acceptable to the eye than ultra blown out highlights. The eye always goes to the brightest part of the image.

DREW WILEY · May 8, 2025

Since the original question was about color film, what on earth does the Zone System have to do with any of that? And why would Minor White know much of anything about modern color films?

With color photography, you're not dealing with a gray scale, but how certain hues saturate at certain points on scale. It's basically mid-point outwards both directions until the color repro is simply unacceptable. And color films differ a great deal, especially the distinction between color neg films and transparencies; but even within each of those categories, there are significant distinctions.

I use a spot meter for everything : b&w, CN, chromes. An incident meter doesn't have any special advantage for chrome work. I've never even owned one. But if that's what one is accustomed to, why not?

pbromaghin · May 8, 2025

BrianShaw said:
Which meter will you be using?

Gossen Luna Pro F incident meter.

pbromaghin · May 8, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Since the original question was about color film, what on earth does the Zone System have to do with any of that? And why would Minor White know much of anything about modern color films?

Drew, the original question was about metering color positive film. The statement happened to be encountered while reading Minor White's book on The Zone System.

DREW WILEY · May 8, 2025

Positive film generally means color chrome film (transparencies, slides), although it is possible to make black and white slides too. With all color films, you're basically using the center-point of box speed and taking a reading comparable to an 18% gray card, then seeing if your desired highlights and shadows fall within that range or not. Over time, one learns to seek out scenes ratios which cooperate; or in a studio, lighting ratios can be artificially balanced.

The problem is that different colors tend to saturate at different points along the gray scale, so you sometimes have to prioritize. It's not a matter of shadows to highlights like with b&w photography.
Of course, one could get away with quite a bit in an old fashioned slide projector show. But if one wants good color prints, the metering needs to be more thoughtful. But that comes with experience.

Very high contrast slide films like Velvia have quite a limited range of acceptable exposure. Ektachrome has somewhat more.

Place the shadow. Place the highlight.

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency