Shadows in snow

Yes I realise now that you are all right about the shadows. I made an other copy 2 days ago that I exposed 4x2 sec. The one shown here was 3x2 sec. After drying down the new one was too dark. Highlights on the snow were still there but not as bright and the shadows were too dark.
It is thrue what they say, you really have to LEARN to see.

Thanks all for having the patience to teach.

r

shimoda said:

Yes I realise now that you are all right about the shadows. I made an other copy 2 days ago that I exposed 4x2 sec. The one shown here was 3x2 sec. After drying down the new one was too dark. Highlights on the snow were still there but not as bright and the shadows were too dark.
It is thrue what they say, you really have to LEARN to see.

Thanks all for having the patience to teach.

r

Click to expand...

Learning begins with asking.

There are no stupid questions.

Steve

There is nothing to be sorry about with that exposure/development. It looks infinitely better than your description !

Others have already suggested what I'd suggest - namely trying yellow, orange, red filters at the time of exposure. Assuming the barks are a warm brown then you might even lighten them too much, so also a yellow/green filter could make a different 'look'.

I'm pretty sure that your snow hasn't melted yet (at least definitely not in Rovaniemi, where I visited not so long ago, though there are not so many hours of light up there) so you have time for an experimental shoot to sort out the 'look' you want. I wonder how you can fit filters on the Seagull ?!

MartinP said:

There is nothing to be sorry about with that exposure/development. It looks infinitely better than your description !

Others have already suggested what I'd suggest - namely trying yellow, orange, red filters at the time of exposure. Assuming the barks are a warm brown then you might even lighten them too much, so also a yellow/green filter could make a different 'look'.

I'm pretty sure that your snow hasn't melted yet (at least definitely not in Rovaniemi, where I visited not so long ago, though there are not so many hours of light up there) so you have time for an experimental shoot to sort out the 'look' you want. I wonder how you can fit filters on the Seagull ?!

Click to expand...

I have some filters for the Cord. Yellow, green and orange. They will not fit the Seagull directly but you CAN handhold them before the taking lense. Of course you have to be careful not to take a picture of your index finger when doing this. Not that I would have had any such mishaps but I heard rumours about it :rolleyes:

Hopefully The German will be back next week and The Chinaman can go back to resting on the shelf.

r

Take the photo with a very deep yellow or orange filter to make the blue shadows darker. There is no eary fix after the fact unless you use digital.

Ronald Moravec said:

Take the photo with a very deep yellow or orange filter to make the blue shadows darker. There is no eary fix after the fact unless you use digital.

Click to expand...

Yes, then you can add rabbits or deer or rearrange the composition. Heck you can add or delete clouds ...

Change the image into a summer beach scene ...

My bad!

Steve

shimoda said:

Yes I realise now that you are all right about the shadows. I made an other copy 2 days ago that I exposed 4x2 sec. The one shown here was 3x2 sec. After drying down the new one was too dark. Highlights on the snow were still there but not as bright and the shadows were too dark.
It is thrue what they say, you really have to LEARN to see.

Thanks all for having the patience to teach.

r

Click to expand...

Hmmm... Those are pretty 'short' exposures you're using there.

I don't have a problem with the way you aggregate exposures (2+2+2 etc..). I don't do it myself - I add the test exposures together and give a long unbroken final exposure - your method can actually help exposure accuracy, especially if the bulb in your enlarger takes a long time to 'warm up'. (On the downside, it turns dodging/burning into a, somewhat less interesting, imitation of coitus interruptus...)...

The problem is that, by using 2 second increments for your tests and arriving at a 4 or 6 second final exposure, you aren't seeing a wide enough range of test exposures to make an educated choice - hence your original error in exposure. I think that it would be helpful if you reconsidered the way that you use apertures when enlarging.

In your example, the difference between your first and second exposures is almost a factor of two and that's a big difference in printing terms.
You can use your method successfully - I've seen it done by world class printers - but as a beginner, you may be missing some of the options open to you and, so, be making less well informed decisions.

If, when you do your test strip, you were to to close the aperture down by one stop more, then this would give an exposure in the region of 8 secs, giving you four (or more) comparison strips to choose from and allowing you to make a more informed choice for the final exposure.

And... If you closed the aperture by two stops, then you'd be getting an exposure in the region of 16 secs with eight or more exposure strips to choose from, thus enabling you to narrow down your final choice even more accurately.

In short, I'm suggesting you "optimise" your exposure times by using smaller apertures.
Longer exposure times allow you to accomplish dodging and burning more comfortably but, more importantly, it also means that you have a wider range of exposures on which to base your final decision - making it easier to choose the right one (plus, the 'reject exposures' can also be used to help me estimate dodge/burn times, too).

Personally, I try to choose an aperture that will give me exposures in the region of 15 - 30secs, sometimes longer...

Dry down is a separate issue. With experience you'll learn to gauge it visually. I did try the Ansel Adams method of using a microwave in the darkroom, but I had to throw it away after an assistant attempted to nuke a Ginster's Pastie...

Regards
Jerry

These types of shots are difficult dial in perfectly and they are the greatest teaching tool.

Keep up the good work!

Mike

I think your image is just spot on, the conditions you shot are very difficult to start with. The placement of the shadow looks fine for me, the highlights look alive and show texture, the overall brilliance of the image is great. There's nothing to discuss here IMHO, the print looks good (at least the image I see on my monitor).
I prefer a medium yellow (Nikon Y48) filter for snow, as I like to keep the delicate snow texture and brilliance under control, a deeper filter might lead to over-exaggetared effect and consequent loss of those beautiful qualities named above. Coarse and granulated snow isn't appealing to my eyes, but hey, that's just me, others might see it different and prefer to use deeper filters.

Keep up the good work, and yes, keep putting that shadowed snow value at zone V or VI.

Have fun!

The amount of knowledge you get for free on this site is amazing.
Jerry. You are most likely right that I should need to use a smaller aperture. I have been using f8 since I remember being taught that a long time ago. Start with full aperture for focusing and close 2 stops.
But of course I should use the aperture on the enlarger lense just as I use on the camera.

I will be back in the darkroom tomorrow and take another shot at this picture. How much fun you can have with just one negative. And I have at least 6 more from the same day.
I will try to close down to f16 and make a new teststrip. If I get a better copy I will upload it here and force you all to look at it again. Serves you right for encouraging me.

Seriously, the level of advice you get when there are real people giving critique, is amazing. On reading books there is always a point where you would like to ask the author "How do you mean?, Pls explain". This I can do here.

r

I find a lot of printers have been advised to use use f/8 at sometime in the past and then they stick to it forever.

It's probably true that your lens is optimised to work at f/8 but unless you're making huge prints, for instance, any flaws probably won't show : I've never had a client complain that I used the wrong aperture on a print. You're more likely to degrade the optical quality of an image by causing your enlarger to vibrate during exposure, by hitting the timer too hard. In part, I think that the use of f/8 dates back to a time when lenses were less reliable than they are now. Nowadays it's easy to find extremely good lenses at a very reasonable price and, although they may be "best" at f/8, other settings are perfectly acceptable.

If you're really concerned about losing optical quality you could use neutral density filters to extend exposure times, there's a current thread about it somewhere here.

Regards
Jerry

Shimoda, I am struggling just to learn to make any print works so take what I have to say "with a grain of salt". What I think I hear you saying is the same question I have struggled with! The photo does look like you have done an outstanding job, but...obviously it is not what "your" mind's eye saw when you took the photo and there is just that "something" that "you" want to see. Your vision...We all look at the shot and see a very good job but still you are looking for something different or you would not have asked the question.
If I understand your OP you are saying that the shadows of the trees on the snow has a gray sameness that is not your original vision????? To your vision the gray tones lack the "snap" you were trying to achieve?
Would another way to describe what you are looking for is a silvery look opposed to a gray look? This term comes off the bottle of "LPD" paper developer and when I read the description I realized that was the way to verbalize what I was seeing in my head.