Snow...why not underexpose?

[BetterSense]

I have a question about shooting bright, but textured areas, such as snow.

Common advice is that a camera's internal meter will probably be fooled and expose the snow for middle grey. I can understand how this could be a problem if there were other elements in the picture, because they might be underexposed. But if you are just taking a picture of the snow itself, why not let the camera expose it for middle grey, where the film's curve is the steepest? I'm thinking this would help to bring out the texture of the surface, and you can then make the print the proper white tone by exposing it less.

I guess, since snow, sand, or other light, textured surface is a very low-contrast scene overall, I don't understand the point of purposely pushing it up to zone 7 or whatever, when it seems like you would be better off exposing it for middle grey and then printing it as dark as you want it.

 

[bobwysiwyg]

It's been I my experience with snow (lots of it here) under the circumstances you describe, you might see the 'texture' you desire, but I believe the first thought of the viewer might be, "Gee, that looks muddy." Just my thought.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have done this and the snow comes out a muddy gray. It then becomes a lot of work to get the prints to show the texture of the snow with the snow in general showing light enough to appear to be snow.

Opening up one or two stops will permit the texture to show and have the snow look like snow with out spending hours and lots of paper to get good print.

Sometimes sage advise is just what it appears to be => sage advise. Use it most of the time, but still experiment.

Steve

 

[Q.G.]

Harder paper will fix the tone, while you keep (much of) the texture.
Overexposing will lose detail/texture, compared to exposing it like a middle gray.
So i'd indeed do it like that, BetterSense.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Harder paper will fix the tone, while you keep (much of) the texture.
Overexposing will lose detail/texture, compared to exposing it like a middle gray.
So i'd indeed do it like that, BetterSense.

But if you are photographing the texture of snow, there is not a wide range of tone. This is not the same as photographing bright snow and deep shadows.

Steve

 

[Vaughn]

Good food for thought, BetterSense, though I have rarely ever shot just snow. I would think that Zone VII would still be within the straighter part of the curve and easy to work with, but I am not sure of that.

But the proof would be in the printing. It would be worth exposing both ways and do a printing comparison. Sirius has a good point, would snow with a full range of values still look like snow? Maintaining the separation in those high values is what I believe BetterSense is considering.

Vaughn

 

[eclarke]

An approach is to make sure and get full exposure, make multiple sheets and then experiment with delevopment options...Evan Clarke

 

[keithwms]

Okay but most snowy scenes have other components as well. The goal is (usually) to render the other things well while also rendering the snow a natural white. Yes it is possible to expose snow for middle grey and then rely on exposure and contrast in the printing stage to render it white, but if you 'protect' the snow highlights too much then you 've made yourself a very difficult printing task... other things (e.g. faces, a sky, foliage etc.) that will also be affected by how you print the neg. So the relative placement of the tones is what you have to watch out for. In other words, if you expose snow as middle grey then you might dump shadows off the curve.

Generally, with modern b&w films I see little or no need to protect the highlights, even in a snowy scene. My usual strategy is simply to meter for whatever else I feel is important and let the snow fall where it may. Most b&w films can handle that. Not need to protect the highlights with neg film.

 

[hal9000]

Pictures of just snow aren't usually very interesting

 

[Doremus Scudder]

If I were just photographing snow and trying to render the texture as the main interest in the scene, I would probably be confronted with a low-contrast, high-key situation in which case I would likely use a Zone System expansion (N+1 or N+2) to emphasize the slight contrast that was in the scene. This would mean "placing" the average snow value (as there would be no shadow value to place) in Zone VI or VII (assuming I'm after a Zone VIII print value). This in conjunction with the expanded development would give me a negative density that was similar to a Zone VIII density with Normal development.

If that's what you're trying to do, then the above may help.

Best,

Doremus Scudder
www.DoremusScudder.com

 

[Michael W]

I think the world would be a nicer place if snow was grey.

 

[bobwysiwyg]

I think the world would be a nicer place if snow was grey.

Here in Mich., generally 3-4 days after the offending event, it is.