Shadows in snow

Mats_A · Feb 16, 2010

Hi all,
we have had a beatiful winter here in Finland the last weeks. 60 cm of snow and blistering sunshine.

I have been taking some backlighted scenes with sun shining on the snow behind trees. I visualized a bands of shadows and highlights on the snow.

Just back from the darkroom I have a question for the mighty blog brain. The highlights look very nice on the print. Also the darker shades (trees). But the shadows on the snow are a uniform grey. Is the right approach to try a harder paper or did I make a mistake when I developed the film in -20% time. I have found before that this works best.

Film HP5+. Developer ID-11 1:3 solution.

regards

Rick A · Feb 16, 2010

I would need to see the prints to know what they look like. It really depends on what your original vision was, and how the finished product looks. When you say uniform gray, are they too light for you? Only you know what you want them to look like, so try a harder contrast, or just add a little time, or burn in.

Rick

Mats_A · Feb 16, 2010

ralnphot said:
I would need to see the prints to know what they look like. It really depends on what your original vision was, and how the finished product looks. When you say uniform gray, are they too light for you? Only you know what you want them to look like, so try a harder contrast, or just add a little time, or burn in.

Rick

They look like a grey card. The highlights look like I visualized them and also the trees. But the shadows on the snow lack texture. Maybe I will try a harder filter. Would not like to add time as the snow is white and nice now.

r

brian steinberger · Feb 16, 2010

shimoda, shadows in snow can be tricky. If you had a spot meter and read the scene at the time of shooting you would probably have seen that these shadows actually fell on zone V or IV. There's just so much reflected light in bright snowy conditions that it fills the shadows in. I also think the color of the shadows is deceiving to our eyes because the shadows in show are mostly blue and the contrast between them and the white of the snow in bright sun fools us into thinking they should fall farther apart on the tonal scale. Also, most modern films are more sensitive to blue light, so therefor the shadows are rendered even lighter on film.

My suggestion, try a yellow or orange filter. It will darken the blue shadows and can also add more drama to a bluish sky.

Mats_A · Feb 16, 2010

brian steinberger said:
shimoda, shadows in snow can be tricky. If you had a spot meter and read the scene at the time of shooting you would probably have seen that these shadows actually fell on zone V or IV. There's just so much reflected light in bright snowy conditions that it fills the shadows in. I also think the color of the shadows is deceiving to our eyes because the shadows in show are mostly blue and the contrast between them and the white of the snow in bright sun fools us into thinking they should fall farther apart on the tonal scale. Also, most modern films are more sensitive to blue light, so therefor the shadows are rendered even lighter on film.

My suggestion, try a yellow or orange filter. It will darken the blue shadows and can also add more drama to a bluish sky.

This makes sense to me. On the print they look middle grey which would be Zone V (as I understand the Zone system). I do not have a spot meter. I used my DSLR as a meter before the shot. This would explain why the snow (highlights) and the trees look really ok but the snow (shadows) lacks structure.

I will try with a yellow filter next time.

Thanks

r

jp498 · Feb 16, 2010

I've had good luck using an incident light meter for shooting snow. Barring that, bracket some shots.

Nicholas Lindan · Feb 16, 2010

You may want to try a different paper. Some VC papers have a dip in local gamma - contrast - in the light greys. Since there isn't much contrast in snow shadows to begin with any drop in contrast will be keenly felt. Using a non-VC paper may give quite different results.

The Darkroom Automation web site support files section has a paper on local gamma, with special emphasis on the problems of VC papers:
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/support/appnotevcworkings.pdf - see the graph at the bottom of page 7 (last page).

Mats_A · Feb 17, 2010

jp498 said:
I've had good luck using an incident light meter for shooting snow. Barring that, bracket some shots.

I would not like to use an incident meter in this case since that would require me to walk on the snow to measure it. It was unbroken and lovely. A spot meter I will get me one day (said Yoda).

I will try to make a scan of the print and post it.

For the moment I will have to make do with my trusty Seagull and Nikon as meter. My Rolleicord should be back from repair next week.

r

Mats_A · Feb 17, 2010

I will also try with a harder filter. Am still trying to (re)learn this printing business so I would like to keep the variables to a minimum at the moment.

r

Chuck_P · Feb 17, 2010

Shadows in the snow on a sunny day that are mid-toned is not necessarily a bad thing. Snow can be tricky to expose for and subsequently print. If you like the work of AA, look at a lot of his snow scenes on sunny days, you'll see that the print values in the snow shadows and the snow highlights are fairly close together. If those values get too far apart on the paper, you risk a chalky, lifeless snow scene with excessive contrast.

Mats_A · Feb 17, 2010

This is the picture in question. What I don't like are the sameness of the color in the shadows.

r

jerry lebens · Feb 17, 2010

The image is relatively small and hard to read but, to be honest, I think you've done a good job. The lighting conditions allied to blue sensitive film would suggest that the tone of the shadows is pretty accurate. Deep blue sky is also a 'mid tone' and it seems logical to assume that the snow would be reflecting the value of the sky quite closely.

As for improving the scene, you could try selenium toner. I find that ,sometimes, it seems to have the magic ability to clean up and separate muddy tones and highlights.

Regards
jerry

bobwysiwyg · Feb 17, 2010

I agree, I think the shadows look pretty good. It's hard to tell, but it appears this was shot in a bright, but thin overcast? If so, the overcast will scatter some light and soften shadows, or make them a bit more even.

Rick A · Feb 17, 2010

Well done. I think you've done a very good job printing this. You are right on with the high-lights, and the shadows look just right to me. Like Jerry said, possibly toning is the only thing to clean it up (if it even needs it)a little. In real life, the shadows values would be the same(would we see in B&W), not any darker or black, the reflection off the snow will not allow shadows to be any darker. Hech, I'd like a copy for my wall.

Rick

Mats_A · Feb 17, 2010

You guys are making me blush.
I thought the uniform grey (gray ?) area on the right was too dull but maybe you are right.
I will take it back to the darkroom next week and have an other go at it. Maybe try to burn the shadows a few seconds. Or maybe not. Don´t think I´m ready to try selenium toning yet. I'm slowly relearning this craft after having spent 8 years in the digital wilderness.

What IS really a shame is that the Rolleicord is on service so I had to take this with my Seagull and as you can see it is really soft on the lower half. Branch in the foreground is a good example.
Picture was taken with 125/f8. Should really have been better with 30/f16

I appreciate the good response one can get here. I hope I can contribute a small bit myself.

r

John Koehrer · Feb 17, 2010

shimoda said:
I would not like to use an incident meter in this case since that would require me to walk on the snow to measure it. It was unbroken and lovely. A spot meter I will get me one day (said Yoda).

You wouldn't have to walk on the snow. If you're in the same light, just point the meter in the direction of the camera.
If, when you visualize the print you want darker shadows, under expose 1/2-1 stop.

Mats_A · Feb 17, 2010

John Koehrer said:
You wouldn't have to walk on the snow. If you're in the same light, just point the meter in the direction of the camera.
If, when you visualize the print you want darker shadows, under expose 1/2-1 stop.

You are most likely right. I suppose I could have found a shadow like the one I was interested in and used that one. There is so much to learn and think about.

r

Sim2 · Feb 17, 2010

shimoda said:
This is the picture in question.

r

For what it is worth, I think that this is a good print of a tricky scene.

I think that if the overall contrast was to go higher the detail in the tree trunks would start to be lost in a solid black. The scene is backlight and you have *just* got detail in the tree trunks near the viewer, *just* got detail in the bright spots of light reflecting off the snow and in the sky. The shadows on the snow fall really nicely.

If they were much darker the scene might take on more of a threatening/foreboding atmostphere, as it is it looks like a "pretty" winter scene. Nice.

My only suggestion might be to do a high contrast burn at the base of the picture to add just a touch of weight to the base, as it is, most of the dark weight is in the upper half of the frame - but this is being picky.

With our recent spat of snow in the U.K. I have been printing some snow pics as well. They are not easy especially when the chances to practise exposure/development changes etc are limited. I am going to wait for another 20 years before the UK gets another decent snowfall and I can put into practice what I have learnt this time around! :rolleyes:

Good pic.
Sim2.

brian steinberger · Feb 17, 2010

shimoda, Nice looking print! I agree with others that the shadows look accurate and fine. If you really wanted more separation in the snow you could have exposed less, placing the shadows of the snow on zone IV or III and then brought your highlights back up by extending development, BUT you would lose the nice shadow detail in the trees. I personally think you exposed this perfectly and printed it nicely as well.

Mats_A · Feb 18, 2010

What about cool/warm paper? This is printed on a Ilford "normal" RC paper. Would a cool FP paper give a more "wintry" look? What would happen if I used a warm FP paper? There was mention of selenium toning earlier. There are several tonings available as I understand it. Selenium, gold, sepia....
Is selenium toning the easiest on to start with?

r

Rick A · Feb 18, 2010

Looks to me like you have some experimenting to do. All this fun from just one negative, its mind boggeling. You can try all your options, or just a couple, have fun. Dont forget to post results here for all to see. Happy printing.

Rick

Martin Aislabie · Feb 18, 2010

The exposure looks fine and the print looks well made.

If you want darker shadows, think of using a deeper coloured filter when you shoot.

Shadows are lit only from reflected blue sky light - so just as filters can darken skies with respect to the rest of the picture - so the same filters will darken shadows.

The clearer the sky the more the effect - some of those Scandinavian clear blue cloudless skies will give very blue shadows.

Try a range of B&W colour Filters (Yellow/Orange/Red) in various lighting conditions - heavily overcast, lightly overcast, hazy sun, crisp clear sky - and take careful notes.

IMO a little bit of filter goes a long way - you quickly tire of deep dark shadows, under a clear cloudless sky a mid or deep yellow will suffice but under heavily overcast conditions a deep red is required to retain any texture at all.

A Polariser can give interesting effects too

Martin

brian steinberger · Feb 18, 2010

shimoda said:
What about cool/warm paper? This is printed on a Ilford "normal" RC paper. Would a cool FP paper give a more "wintry" look? What would happen if I used a warm FP paper? There was mention of selenium toning earlier. There are several tonings available as I understand it. Selenium, gold, sepia....
Is selenium toning the easiest on to start with?

r

By FP paper I'm assuming you mean FB, fiber base? You won't get more of a wintry feel from using a FB vs an RC paper. You can however achieve a cooler tone in the final print by using selenium toner with MGIV paper RC or FB or gold toner with a warmtone paper. I would start with selenium toner. It's cheap and easy to use.

Mats_A · Feb 19, 2010

brian steinberger said:
By FP paper I'm assuming you mean FB, fiber base? You won't get more of a wintry feel from using a FB vs an RC paper. You can however achieve a cooler tone in the final print by using selenium toner with MGIV paper RC or FB or gold toner with a warmtone paper. I would start with selenium toner. It's cheap and easy to use.

Yes FB. Stupid me. My fingers are always faster than my brain.

r

Sirius Glass · Feb 19, 2010

Excellent photograph. Great exposure and great print. It shows the detail in the tree bark and shadows in scenes like these do look uniform. I know I have skied and photographed enough to have a lot of data to base that on.

Steve

Shadows in snow

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