Stained Glass Windows - a LOTTA light!!

Doc W · Oct 23, 2015

I mostly shoot b&w but was asked recently to photograph the interior of my church, in particular the stained glass windows. With the shining directly through the windows, the dynamic range was far too wide to consider shooting, but even with more subdued northern light, I was stunned by the dynamic range, up to ten stops in some cases. What do you colour guys do in situations like this? If it were b&w I would know how to control those highlights with development. Should I just tell the lab to develop accordingly, i.e., reduce development based on the range of stops? Are there other possibilities? I would love to hear from others who have dealt with the stained glass window problem. In some cases, I only need to get the window. In others, I need to get the window in its environment. For the latter, I am going to wait for very overcast days.

Dr Croubie · Oct 23, 2015

I'm presuming you want to capture the walls around the windows, and not just the windows with blackened walls around.
Any chance of using some fill-flash on the walls? Do it from the side as much as possible, so it doesn't reflect off the glass of the windows.

Doc W · Oct 23, 2015

Dr, in some cases, yes, I want to capture the window and part of the interior but for other shots. I want to capture just the window itself. I realize that these are two different situations. As for flash, I want to do this with available light only, thus I am probably going to have to check the light in the church at several different points in the day.

Dr Croubie · Oct 23, 2015

Churches can have a lot of candles, depending on the denomination. Is it Catholic maybe? And do candles count as 'natural light'?
Definitely worth checking out the orientation too, if you can get natural light in from one window to light the walls around another window you're shooting, that would definitely help. A few friends holding some reflectors may help too.

Back to your original point, some negs can be pulled down a stop or two for a slight DR increase, but they're all different. I seem to remember reading that Ektar doesn't like it (if I was going to be shooting highly-saturated stained-glass windows I'd be using Ektar, that is). I thing Portra is a bit more forgiving of overexposure.

There's always the opportunity to tripod and bracket a few stops apart, then with some very accurate masking you can combine the two when printing, but you have to be a really good printer to do that (of course, it's a lot easier if you're scanning...)

Sirius Glass · Oct 23, 2015

My experience is that you can expose for the windows or expose for the interior of the church. I have never gotten both but you could try the average of the two.

gone · Oct 23, 2015

Exactly. You will never get the darkened walls of the church interior AND the sun lit windows properly exposed. It will have to be one or the other. Color negative film should be good for 9 to 10 stops of exposure if you meter it right, but since your focus will be on the windows of course, that is where I would meter. Early morning or late evening sun should allow you to capture it better I would think, and still get some of the interior of the church in range.

In situations like this, bracketing is your friend, along w/ taking 5 times more film than you think you will need, and shooting in a variety of lighting conditions w/ different metering. Keep notes.

Bruce Osgood · Oct 23, 2015

I have not tried this but read some info a while ago. The idea was to spot meter the windows from the exterior then use those readings shooting the windows from the inside. The author was quite confident in the results.

Sirius Glass · Oct 23, 2015

Now I just shoot for the windows and let the rest lay where it falls.

MartinP · Oct 24, 2015

For interior and window together, it would probably make sense to photograph each window when it was not lit directly and when the interior was lit from another direction. That might involve some careful planning, multiple visits, lucky weather and a warming filter.

Alternatively, hire a crane to place neutral density filter on the outside of the window. This might well be the 'cinematic' option and rather expensive, but could still be do-able. Still bear in mind the colour of the light illuminating the window though, as the quantity of light is only one of the variables.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Oct 24, 2015

HDR Techique comes to my mind , shot as different as it was with some shots for windows , some for interior and match at computer , ugly enough but photographers invented it.

David Brown · Oct 24, 2015

The best time to shoot stained glass in churches (in my experience) is when it is solid overcast or even raining. The glass will generally still be bright enough in the photographs, but the balance between interior walls and the glass will be closer. Careful metering and then bracketing is the key.

Some churches have enough interior lighting to make a difference, too. However, often it can be very uneven in and of itself. The best results I've had with color film has been to shoot the window on slide film and let the window frames and walls go black.

It's actually easier with black and white film, and of course, digital ...

Lachlan Young · Oct 24, 2015

Don't over think the shooting part.

Use the biggest format you can afford.

Portra has massive latitude - you can go 3 stops over box and still have no trouble. Bracket sensibly & spot meter.

Print-wise probably best to get a high-end scan to get everything out of the neg unless you're experienced at darkroom masking.

Sirius Glass · Oct 24, 2015

David Brown said:
It's actually easier with black and white film, and of course, digital ...

If one has to use digital then the photograph is not worth taking.

Maris · Oct 24, 2015

Every day there are two short times when the illuminated interior of a church is the same brightness as the light coming through the windows: early in the morning and late in the evening. Forward planning is needed.

cliveh · Oct 24, 2015

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
HDR Techique comes to my mind , shot as different as it was with some shots for windows , some for interior and match at computer , ugly enough but photographers invented it.

Mustafa, wash your mouth out with soap and water.

David Brown · Oct 24, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
If one has to use digital then the photograph is not worth taking.

<sigh>

Sirius Glass · Oct 24, 2015

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
HDR Techique comes to my mind , shot as different as it was with some shots for windows , some for interior and match at computer , ugly enough but photographers invented it.

That is not an analog process. HDR is a crutch that digisnappers use because digital cannot cut the mustard. Thus my response:

Sirius Glass said:
If one has to use digital then the photograph is not worth taking.

HiHoSilver · Oct 24, 2015

'Not regular glass

This glass probably averages 2" thick - chunks of thick glass mortared into a mural. I metered (FE2 is a center-weighted meter) on the 2nd pane from left, knowing the more clear glass would either wash out or be close to it. 'Seems like it did, but still a fair representation. 'Hand held, resting on pew top at 1/15s.

You're probably used to a 1 deg. spot meter for placing a particular portion into a preferred zone. If you have experience w/ another format that could be used as a test to compare, maybe some scouting w/ the other format - or as AA did - use polaroid or digital to get a feel for how it reacts to the range. This is a humble shot, but did surprisingly well w/ such range. I wouldn't surprise me if gritting your teeth & letting the shutter fly returned a fine image.

MattKing · Oct 24, 2015

With really good technique, excellent equipment, and some good darkroom montage and masking skills, you too can make your own two negative, analogue HDR prints.

MattKrull · Oct 25, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
If one has to use digital then the photograph is not worth taking.

Oh nuts, and here I thought all those photos of Pluto NASA just released were worth taking...

Sorry Doc, I don't have anything helpful for you. All I can say is don't do what I did last time I tried to photograph a church's interior; I left the dark slide in. My dynamic range was incredibly flat *sigh*.

Sirius Glass · Oct 25, 2015

MattKrull said:
Oh nuts, and here I thought all those photos of Pluto NASA just released were worth taking...

Remote sensing is an entirely different type of photography than digisnapping. I had done remote sensing for decades starting in the early 1970's including Voyager 1 and 2 Jupiter Rotation movies and the Voyager 1 and 2 Red Spot movies. Also the Voyager 1 photograph taken three days after launch of the first photographs of both the complete Earth and complete Moon. Celestial mechanics unfortunately do not get paid for time and distance.

Athiril · Oct 25, 2015

Ektar, bracket if need be to make sure you get colour detail. Works out fine. Or I will shoot my A7s which has oodles of dynamic range, and more than enough for what you're describing.

Sirius Glass said:
That is not an analog process. HDR is a crutch that digisnappers use because digital cannot cut the mustard. Thus my response:

Then what you don't know about digital could fill a warehouse, and your fallacious opinion on digital is not worth noting.

Doc W · Oct 25, 2015

Lots of good info so far. Thanks a lot.

Please don't make this into a beef about digital vs film. I shoot film. Let's leave it at that.

Athiril · Oct 25, 2015

Colour neg should do it, and my choice would be Ektar for the richer colour, a polariser may also help in this situation possibly, see if you can use one to make the each panel a solid colour with it.

There's also various ways to tackle this - on a tripod and heavy ND filter, so you can get exposures long enough for long exposures - long enough to use a flash to light paint the walls with (away from the camera axis).

In film/tv, they would simply use ND gel and cut it out and stick it to the window - since you have been asked, I'm not sure how high the window are, but you could possibly ask if you could affix with some tape some ND gel sheet to the outside of the window (not on the glass, just over the entire windowsill area, taped to the brick work) - you could likely get some ND gel from video/film making supplier sites or shop.

The only other way to mask something out like that is with some kind of transition lens that darkers upon exposure - in between the lens and film plane somewhere - pre-expose for several minutes to auto-mask the shot, then expose the film.

David Allen · Oct 26, 2015

Having been a young lad at camera clubs in the UK during the late 1960s / early 1970s, I got to know a lot of the old RPS boys who only photographed church interiors. Years later when I worked commercially as a photographer, I had to do church interiors where they wanted colour images of the stained glass windows with detail of the interior.

To do this with colour, I employed a technique that I had learned from T. Herbert Jones years before:

Go to the church late in the day when the light is starting to fade.
Place camera on tripod and expose for the stained glass windows (using a meter reading from an averaging meter - such as a Weston Master)
Wait until dusk and then meter the interior and stop down one or two stops (depending upon how much detail you want)
Make second exposure on to the same piece of film (easiest with a plate camera of course but I also got good results with taking the back off my Hasselblad, recocking the shutter and then returning the A12 magazine back on to the camera.

Lovely results every time.

You said that you did not want to use flash but this also works very well provided you have a powerful enough flash (I used to use a Metz 60 for such jobs).

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

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