Using an external meter by choice

[markjwyatt]

The only [minor] issue I have with Velvia is that it sounds like (and has similar origins in naming/marketing) to Velveeta. Velveeta is a ' "velvety smooth" edible product'. Velvia is a 'portmanteau of "Velvet Media", a reference to its smooth image structure'. Both quotes from the corresponding Wikipedia (aka oracle of internet knowledge, Oo IK) articles.

 

[Craig]

I assume you're setting the digital cameras exact settings. Do you check clipping at either end? How do you deal with it if there?

The F6 is a film camera, so no histogram.

I do also have a Nikon DSLR, and I find the meters are calibrated differently. The reading I might get at ISO 100 on a film camera is not necessarily the same as with a digital camera. So I only use a film SLR, not a DSLR as a meter when using film in a meterless LF camera.

 

[Craig]

Just curious............i have only shot Provia. It is fine for my needs.
Do you prefer Velvia quite a bit more.?

Velvia has greater contrast and saturation than Provia. It's a film that needs to be matched to the subject, and it seems to have less exposure latitude than Provia. If the subject brightness range isn't large, and you need the colours to pop, Velvia is the film.

 

[Craig]

So in that sense you probably still have to you probably need to go through at least part of the zone system process and determine for a specific camera/lens/film/development method what ISO number to put in.

The initial film testing and densitrometry tells me the ISO for my choice of developer and developing method, once I know that, then I can put it to the meter. The initial testing is exposing step wedges and then measuring the density of each strip of grey. I ended up needing to measure the density of 105 exposures for each film/developer combo to obtain enough data to input into the computer program to generate the charts. Once all that is done, then the charts tell me my personal ISO and can use that in any meter.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Just curious............i have only shot Provia. It is fine for my needs.
Do you prefer Velvia quite a bit more.?
Thank You

Yes.

 

[wiltw]

I ended up needing to measure the density of 105 exposures for each film/developer combo to obtain enough data to input into the computer program to generate the charts. Once all that is done, then the charts tell me my personal ISO and can use that in any meter.

Oh gawd, 105 sheets of 4x5, and developer to process all that...I do not wonder why I never bothered with ZS beyond exposure determination methodology.

 

[Bill Burk]

Oh gawd, 105 sheets of 4x5, and developer to process all that...I do not wonder why I never bothered with ZS beyond exposure determination methodology.

Wait, I thought you did all kinds of testing?

 

[Craig]

Oh gawd, 105 sheets of 4x5, and developer to process all that...I do not wonder why I never bothered with ZS beyond exposure determination methodology.

No no, 105 measurements with the densitometer. It's contact printing a 21 strip step wedge onto a sheet of 4x5. I expose 5 sheets identically, then develop at 4min, 5:30 min, 8min, 11min, and 16min - a familiar sounding progression, isn't it? 21 measurements per sheet, over 5 sheets.

 

[wiltw]

Wait, I thought you did all kinds of testing?

Comparing multiple meters is very different than doing comprehensive ZS testing. I am not a masochist.

 

[Chan Tran]

The F6 is a film camera, so no histogram.

I do also have a Nikon DSLR, and I find the meters are calibrated differently. The reading I might get at ISO 100 on a film camera is not necessarily the same as with a digital camera. So I only use a film SLR, not a DSLR as a meter when using film in a meterless LF camera.

Which Nikon DSLR and film SLR you use to compare the meters? Mine do read the same.

 

[Craig]

Which Nikon DSLR and film SLR you use to compare the meters? Mine do read the same.

In film I have F4 and F6, in digital I have a Df. It's very close, but you might notice a difference with slide film, doubtful on B&W.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The F6 is a film camera, so no histogram.

I do also have a Nikon DSLR, and I find the meters are calibrated differently. The reading I might get at ISO 100 on a film camera is not necessarily the same as with a digital camera. So I only use a film SLR, not a DSLR as a meter when using film in a meterless LF camera.

Craig, Do you recall the differences?

 

[Craig]

Craig, Do you recall the differences?

It depends. I just did a measurement out my front window,. and the difference was about 1/3 of a stop. However, digital is much like slide film, if you blow out the highlights they are gone forever, However, much can be pulled out of the shadows, so I usually leave the Df exposure compensation set to -2/3. If I was using the Df meter with film, I'd have to remember to adjust for the compensation.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Mark - Velveeta is an almost inedible fake junk cheese. I hate it. So when people refer to Velvia as Velveeta, it's not in the sense of flattery. But most of this is becoming moot, because in sheet film version at least, Fuji color films are all getting close to the brink of either unaffodability or outright extinction. Nearing the end of an era. Hopefully, the newly introduced Kodak E100 will survive as an excellent mid-range chrome film option.

 

[wiltw]

It depends. I just did a measurement out my front window,. and the difference was about 1/3 of a stop. However, digital is much like slide film, if you blow out the highlights they are gone forever, However, much can be pulled out of the shadows, so I usually leave the Df exposure compensation set to -2/3. If I was using the Df meter with film, I'd have to remember to adjust for the compensation.

Differences in metering patterns, differences in programming of matrix/evaluative metering and how metering zones are biased...create differences when pointing different meters at a scene.
The only way to really compare meters is by using an EQUAL target...a uniformly illuminated and featureless wall (blank wall) should result is true comparisons of meters, regardless of 1-degree spot vs. 5-degree spot vs 45 degree vs. simple averaging vs center-weighted vs. matrix/evaluative.

 

[Alan Gales]

Hmmm. I can't even remember when I last used the TTL meter on my Pentax 6x7. In fact, I have to pause to remember which 6x7 body has the meter prism and which the plain one. Pentax 645's are somewhat different animals because they were marketed to the wedding crowd to a certain extent, who often needed those quickie exposure bells n whistles. Journalism, spots, and wildlife photography is often analogous, though I suspect digital has largely taken over in all those categories. Wish I had a small convenience roll film camera with me today just driving around town a for scheduled minor chores like the bank and picking up some C41 developed film; the light was fantastic.

I stopped subscribing to Natl Geo once the pictures started getting patently digitish, including HDR, and the editorial content got just too predictably politicized. Don't want to see and hear it all again there too. The combination of flat versus glossy paper made it even worse. They've never been much in terms of serious "art" photography, but at least the pictures in the past matched the journalistic stories reasonably energetically. Now the look resembles week-old soggy milk toast.

Yes, the Pentax 645's were marketed to the wedding photographer crowd. Especially, the part time wedding photographers who had a full time job during the week and occasionally did weddings on weekends. I used mine for events. It was great for walking around shooting hand held. I also owned a Mamiya RZ67 at the time for portraits. I used an unmetered waist level finder, flash meter, and studio lights most of the time.

When I first started out with 35mm, I became a member of the St. Louis Camera Club for a couple years. Everyone shot 35mm except for one fellow who owned a Hasselblad and shot super slides. He often travelled to Africa. He had a lot of his animal photographs published in National Geographic. I would have thought that a Nikon F2 would have been a better tool for that but his photographs were gorgeous. A couple years ago my wife bought a subscription to National Geographic. I agree with you, Drew. I prefer the photography back then.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Mark - Velveeta is an almost inedible fake junk cheese. I hate it. So when people refer to Velvia as Velveeta, it's not in the sense of flattery. But most of this is becoming moot, because in sheet film version at least, Fuji color films are all getting close to the brink of either unaffodability or outright extinction. Nearing the end of an era. Hopefully, the newly introduced Kodak E100 will survive as an excellent mid-range chrome film option.

Hey, I resent that. I like Velveeta! Velvia 50 too. Ektachrome just doesn't have the same punch.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Hmmm. I can't even remember when I last used the TTL meter on my Pentax 6x7. In fact, I have to pause to remember which 6x7 body has the meter prism and which the plain one. Pentax 645's are somewhat different animals because they were marketed to the wedding crowd to a certain extent, who often needed those quickie exposure bells n whistles. Journalism, spots, and wildlife photography is often analogous, though I suspect digital has largely taken over in all those categories. Wish I had a small convenience roll film camera with me today just driving around town a for scheduled minor chores like the bank and picking up some C41 developed film; the light was fantastic.

I stopped subscribing to Natl Geo once the pictures started getting patently digitish, including HDR, and the editorial content got just too predictably politicized. Don't want to see and hear it all again there too. The combination of flat versus glossy paper made it even worse. They've never been much in terms of serious "art" photography, but at least the pictures in the past matched the journalistic stories reasonably energetically. Now the look resembles week-old soggy milk toast.

NatGeo has become anti human, a strange position for a natural science magazine to take. Man is bad, destroys the environment and can't be trusted with a gun or a gallon of gasoline. They were more even handed in the old days when the showed naked women from the waist up. And the photos were better.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hey, I resent that. I like Velveeta!

Total lack of taste!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, Alan, my Great Grandfather founded Bay City where the famous Tillamook Cheese factory and empire is based, and my Step-Grandfather built most of the machinery, so I'm kinda biased toward real cheddar cheese. Out of curiosity, during a business trip I and a few co-workers from the same office took, we stood in a long line at what was allegedly Philly's best and most authentic cheese steak stand. After I tasted it, concluded that it was basically dripping with hot axle grease and melted Velveeta atop subway sandwich bread, indeed with thinly sliced pastrami in the middle, but otherwise ruined by the "organic" added ingredients, as in Organic Chemisty and its petroleum-derived toxic compounds. My stomach churned all afternoon afterwards. But it probably helps the nearby Amish leather craft trade by creating the need for longer and longer belts to accommodate all those bulging waistlines. Can't they just order up silicone gut injections by the 55-gallon drum load instead, to avoid the greasy taste of that stuff?

 

[markjwyatt]

Hey, I resent that. I like Velveeta! Velvia 50 too. Ektachrome just doesn't have the same punch.

Maybe compose an interesting photo of Velveeta using Velvia! After taking the photo, you can eat the Velveeta and develop the Velvia.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, I honesty miss the former trio of Astia / Provia / Velvia, which covered a better span of potential chrome contrast issues than any single product can. But what I don't miss is that miserable decade when nearly all chrome sheet films from both Fuji and Kodak were on miserable floppy, dimensionally-unstable triacetate base instead of superior polyester stock. That is still the case with Provia.

So yeah, maybe Velveeta, the floppy cheese substitute, was named after the floppy version of Velvia, instead of the other way around.

 

[Bill Burk]

Is it true they call them nachos because it’s Na3C6H5O7 or was that just a funny coincidence someone pointed out?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well, I honesty miss the former trio of Astia / Provia / Velvia, which covered a better span of potential chrome contrast issues than any single product can. But what I don't miss is that miserable decade when nearly all chrome sheet films from both Fuji and Kodak were on miserable floppy, dimensionally-unstable triacetate base instead of superior polyester stock. That is still the case with Provia.

So yeah, maybe Velveeta, the floppy cheese substitute, was named after the floppy version of Velvia, instead of the other way around.

Maybe Velveeta is more like bland Provia.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Maybe compose an interesting photo of Velveeta using Velvia! After taking the photo, you can eat the Velveeta and develop the Velvia.

Well, I moved up to American cheese, However, I understand that foreigners don't even consider that real cheese either.