Tri-X @ 200...

[BrianShaw]

But, Chris... no mater what... nice pics of props! Question: are the highlights (barnacles) blown or is it just that I’m looking at them on my phone?

 

[ChristopherCoy]

But, Chris... no mater what... nice pics of props! Question: are the highlights (barnacles) blown or is it just that I’m looking at them on my phone?

I dont know. I think they're blown. And that's what's largely making me question this. I think the barnacles are blown, and there may be TOO much shadow in the dark areas.

 

[BrianShaw]

Oh well... those barnacles need to go away anyway. LOL.

At some point it’s worth measuring the entire range - shadow and highlight - to determine if one or the other needs to be sacrificed. There’s a bit more to Zone System than just measuring the darkness and placing on Zone III.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

There’s a bit more to Zone System than just measuring the darkness and placing on Zone III.

I know, that’s the problem. I can’t get THAT involved in it because it’s too technical. Trying to understand it ruins the experience. I’ve been able to accept that. Now I’m just trying to find some method of doing of it that gives me what I need, even in its simplest form. When I tell you I’ve always shot everything with the TTL meter exactly in the middle, I mean I have shot every single frame on exactly the middle. I have never ventured out past middle gray. That makes everything that I’ve ever done that’s somewhat good, just an accident.

 

[BrianShaw]

To be honest, Chris... 90% of my photography does not involve spot metering or zone system.... maybe more. Getting beyond “the middle” is exciting experimentation and at times a necessity.

 

[MattKing]

I know, that’s the problem. I can’t get THAT involved in it because it’s too technical. Trying to understand it ruins the experience. I’ve been able to accept that. Now I’m just trying to find some method of doing of it that gives me what I need, even in its simplest form. When I tell you I’ve always shot everything with the TTL meter exactly in the middle, I mean I have shot every single frame on exactly the middle. I have never ventured out past middle gray. That makes everything that I’ve ever done that’s somewhat good, just an accident.

But Christopher, unless you live in a world where everything is middle gray, everything isn't going to turn out to be middle gray. It will turn out to be a wide and useful range of tones.
Take your TTl meter reading. Now look at what you metered from, and then decide how you want it to look in the final result.
A large proportion of scenes will average out nicely to middle gray, so if you are reading from a range of tones, the reading is probably usable without changes.
In some cases, the details of a subject that you are most interested (the ones that you decide to take meter readings from) are in an area that should average out (in the print) to something darker than middle gray. If so, take the reading (which would render that average as middle gray) and make the necessary adjustment to your exposure to make that area darker in the print.
The same analysis applies to those areas of a subject that are both of predominant interest and are predominantly lighter. The adjustment to exposure will be the reverse.
The parts of the subject that are of less interest, their tones will fall where the light and their nature has them fall. In some cases you can decide to use development controls to modify where they fall.
The absolutely most important and usable part of the Zone system is the visualization part. You need to look at the scene, and you need to visualize how you want the print (or projected slide, or screen image) to look. The rest is twiddling the dials a bit.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I know that not everything is middle gray. What I’m saying is that up until these experiments, everything was set to average or center weighted metering. If I’m shooting a portrait, I’ll meter on the face and try to get it as close to middle gray as possible. If I’m shooting a statue, same thing. And this is only with natural daylight stuff. I’m extremely confident in my studio lighting abilities.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hi Christopher,
One thing to consider is, how meters get fooled: reflected light metering (in camera and spot handheld) get confused from light sources included in the composicion or in the metered area, but if what's metered has medium scene reflectance, and there's no light source close, metering will be precise. That for soft light. Also for soft light, incident metering is precise, although if when you meter a scene that's totally in the shades, incident metering under soft light gets fooled too if close to your scene there are zones receiving strong direct sunlight: then the incident meter feels more light than there is: in such cases a reflected spot metering is better, and simple reflected in camera metering is better too: in those cases camera and spot ask you for a little more light, half a stop or a stop more, than what an incident meter says because of near strong direct sunlight areas.
So both types of meters get fooled easily.
The other thing to consider is direct sunlight is a different field: for slide film we meter incident light under direct sunlight, to use that incident metering to control highlight detail instead of washing it out... But for B&W film, that's not the optimal way to meter: for B&W negative we meter the areas in the shadows, because that's what we decide to place the way we want to, while direct sunlight is controlled not by exposure but by film's latitude and by development.
Each photographer should test how to place shadows. When we meter incident light under direct sunlight for B&W negative, we get gross underexposure: a few stops, as both worlds -soft and harsh light- are separated a few stops... What we need to do is to expose the soft light areas correctly, as in overcast days, and just let the film take the stronger direct sunlight, but with the appropriate development time and agitation: this way soft light negatives are softer -in the same roll- than sunny negatives, and we can print both of them with different contrast filters.
Film is capable of that.
To say it in a different way, we can use an ISO400 film for both types of scenes and a single development time, say 10 minutes... But we can also treat both types of scenes for precise exposure and development: say EI250 for direct sunlight and 8 minutes of development, or EI640 for overcast and 12 minutes of development... But metering under soft light, and metering under direct sunlight, are separate worlds, and both reflected light and incident light meters get fooled differently in presence of light sources or direct sunlight areas.
Incident metering under direct sunlight, for B&W negative, makes images with horrible, dark shadows, far from reality: that's why most sunny scenes we see around, don't convey the feeling of a sunny, luminous day: because the shadows are what really matters for sunny days.

 

[MattKing]

It works exactly the same with average or centre-weighted average metering. You just have to do a bit of averaging yourself when you evaluate the subject.
As an example, when I evaluated this scene, I evaluated it as being, as an overall average, something like one Zone/stop darker than middle gray. I took me meter reading with a 30 degree reflected light meter, and reduced the exposure by a stop.
That resulted in a negative that both permitted interest in the shadows, and retained the sparkle of the specular highlights.

 

[MattKing]

I differ from Juan (as apparently does Dr. Martin King). I consider highlights and mid-tones to be the most important parts of most subjects, whether I am using negative film or slide film.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

and reduced the exposure by a stop.

But prior to now, I wouldn’t have. I would have shot what the camera told me it was.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

It works exactly the same with average or centre-weighted average metering. You just have to do a bit of averaging yourself when you evaluate the subject.
As an example, when I evaluated this scene, I evaluated it as being, as an overall average, something like one Zone/stop darker than middle gray. I took me meter reading with a 30 degree reflected light meter, and reduced the exposure by a stop.
That resulted in a negative that both permitted interest in the shadows, and retained the sparkle of the specular highlights.
View attachment 271446

Great sunny scene exposure and development!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

I differ from Juan (as apparently does Dr. Martin King). I consider highlights and mid-tones to be the most important parts of most subjects, whether I am using negative film or slide film.

I didn't say the contrary, Matt.
Highlights and middle tones are the most important parts in prints of overcast scenes.
But shadows are of course very important for sunny scenes.
But I didn't talk mainly about that, but about the differences in metering under both types of light, using both types of meters.

 

[MattKing]

But prior to now, I wouldn’t have. I would have shot what the camera told me it was.

Understood. You just have to learn to listen to both the camera, and your visualization.
And it is okay to be fairly imprecise, if you are using negative film.
If you want to refine your skills, use slide film, keep notes on the adjustments you made, and carefully review the results.
It will become second nature after a bit.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Another fact:
We may want to expose, differently, the same scene, depending on our subjects placement: a sunny scene with all relevant subjects under direct sunlight, is not the same than the same sunny scene with the single relevant subject in the shadows. Then, I expose both cases differently. Not all sunny scenes require the same shadows placement.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I suggest not mixing exposure/development of negative film too much with the print tones you have in your head, which can often make things unnecessarily complicated. Just get everything recorded on the film, and concentrate on your printing (or editing if you are using a computer). That’s where you really control the reproduction of tones.

That’s why I’m not making any decisions until I get some test prints made. I can manipulate these images much more in Lightroom, the thing I don’t understand though is how much of that heavy editing translates to the darkroom. I can pretty much do anything I want to accomplish in the digital suites, I just don’t understand them. For instance, if I can open up the shadows enough, or recover the highlight detail with a slider maxed out, does that mean I’ll be able to do so in the darkroom?

 

[Pieter12]

That’s why I’m not making any decisions until I get some test prints made. I can manipulate these images much more in Lightroom, the thing I don’t understand though is how much of that heavy editing translates to the darkroom. I can pretty much do anything I want to accomplish in the digital suites, I just don’t understand them. For instance, if I can open up the shadows enough, or recover the highlight detail with a slider maxed out, does that mean I’ll be able to do so in the darkroom?

Yes. Dodging the shadows and burning the highlights. Works very well with split-grade printing. It only gets tricky if you are trying to work in small, isolated areas.

 

[MattKing]

That’s why I’m not making any decisions until I get some test prints made. I can manipulate these images much more in Lightroom, the thing I don’t understand though is how much of that heavy editing translates to the darkroom. I can pretty much do anything I want to accomplish in the digital suites, I just don’t understand them. For instance, if I can open up the shadows enough, or recover the highlight detail with a slider maxed out, does that mean I’ll be able to do so in the darkroom?

Patience Grasshopper
Put the worrying on hold for a while.
There are similarities, and there are differences. You need to have some experience in both environments before you can relatively easily make comparisons, and know what can be done relatively easily in both.
As for the apparent differenced between what I posted, and what michael posted, I expect part of the difference comes from my starting out using Kodachrome.

 

[Bill Burk]

So all of this work and research only to come back around to the most basic thing of metering my hand in the light I'm in??!? This has to be a cruel joke right? I've heard of the technique before but didn't realize it was just the zone thing in reverse.

Metering your hand and opening up a stop is effectively using your reflected light meter as an Incident Meter. It is a good sanity check.

And your barnacles are not blown out - they look great.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The weird thing that I'm finding is that I'm getting significantly more over exposures than under. They're only overexposed by a half a stop up to maybe a full stop, but they're still coming out much brighter than stuff in the past. I used to consistently get half a stop to a full stop under using TTL meters. Since I've started using this Sekonic hand held meter, and controlling things myself it's gone completely opposite of what I'm use to. It's definitely a learning curve.

You really need to get ALL your light meters, in and out of cameras, calibrated. Preferably by the same person.

Also you meter on what you want to be Middle Gray, unless you are using the Zone System.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I did some printing over the last few days, and finally put this frame on paper. As it turns out, it's quite a difficult print to make. The shadow areas come out WAY darker than the scan, and it took some dodging to actually get the detail to show up. That could have been because I was using a split grade approach though. Also, the barnacles aren't blown and actually show quite a bit of detail with some burning.

I'm not sure how I feel about this way of shooting just yet though. Metering at 200 in the darkest areas, and dropping it two stops creates quite a bit of contrast on the negative. It takes a bit of time and effort out of the darkroom process, which I'm not sure I like very much. I'll have to continue to experiment and see how things proceed from here.

 

[Bill Burk]

But prior to now, I wouldn’t have. I would have shot what the camera told me it was.

Before joining here I spent a lot of time on automatic with box speed. It works fine a lot of the time. But those underexposed shots make one really mad - they're always the important ones.
Even knowing what I know now, I might just set the speed 2/3 stop lower than box speed, and I still use auto or center the reading unless the picture is clearly not average.

But when I feel like I need an incident meter and have just an averaging meter, I will hold up my hand and read it, then open up one stop (to place it on Zone VI).

When I feel like I need a spotmeter, I will walk up close to the subject.

I have a few meters marked with Zone System zones, then I will use 2/3 stop lower than box speed. A Weston Master III is a good choice, you can always check its accuracy against any of the other meters you have, but it's easy to put Zone System stickers on them and they are really cheap.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Well, the Dr. Martin King referenced earlier in the thread recommended basing your metering decisions off highlight rendition, and determined that the white, textured subject was 3 1/3 Zones/stops away from Zone 5. If you use your hand, instead of it having an offset of 3 1/3 Zones/stops, it might require an offset of 2.5 Zones/stops instead. It will depend on how light or dark your skin tone is.
The advantage of using your palm is that tone doesn't usually change during the year.

....................and your palm is always with you!

 

[Sirius Glass]

....................and your palm is always with you!

When I shot slides I did that. When I took slides of people skiing I got great tonality showing the shapes of the snow and everything else as too dark for detail. When I used the palm of my hand the photographs improved greatly, but the best results came when I took the palm reading and closed down one f/stop.