White sky with Provia slide film

rowghani · Jan 25, 2016

I know the dynamic range on slide is smaller than negs and when I shoot cloudy scenes I seem to always blow the sky. I either do an incident reading on the subject that I want to shoot or sometimes use the reading from my camera. Here's an Eggleston example and im pretty sure he would have shot this on KodaChrome. How would you meter this scene if using slide film so that the sky would show well?

thanks in advance for any advice.

Hatchetman · Jan 25, 2016

- First, put in a projector or loupe to evaluate, scan could be lousy
- in 35mm something like f5.6, 1/200
- Bracket
- Maybe meter or shutter is inaccurate

gone · Jan 25, 2016

If you are after the sky, then you need to meter it, and just let the other values fall where they may. Maybe give it another 1/2 stop of exposure to saturate it. If it's your subject you're after, then meter it and deal w/ the sky. Something is going to have to be compromised, unless you want to use split filters.

Nice colours in that shot, but the horizon line is really wacky, along w/ other areas of alignment.

MultiFormat Shooter · Jan 25, 2016

If you're doing landscapes, a graduated neutral density filter is the way to go. I would meter the scene with the built-in camera meter to determine the correct exposure and set it manually, then put the graduated neutral density filter on. Exposure for the foreground will be proper and the filter will keep the sky from "blowing-out."

wildbill · Jan 25, 2016

hand held spot meter. soft edge grad if necessary.

RobC · Jan 25, 2016

how did you meter, i.e. where was the meter pointing?

with slides/transparencies you must meter for the highlights which are the clouds so a spot meter would help a lot if you know how to use it properly with any particular film.

coigach · Jan 25, 2016

MultiFormat Shooter said:
If you're doing landscapes, a graduated neutral density filter is the way to go. I would meter the scene with the built-in camera meter to determine the correct exposure and set it manually, then put the graduated neutral density filter on. Exposure for the foreground will be proper and the filter will keep the sky from "blowing-out."

+1.

I use hard-edged ND grads, but sometimes soft-edge too. I find it easier to accuately place the hard-edged grad. My most used grad is 0.9 - ie 3 stops on the sky.

rowghani · Jan 25, 2016

MultiFormat Shooter said:
If you're doing landscapes, a graduated neutral density filter is the way to go. I would meter the scene with the built-in camera meter to determine the correct exposure and set it manually, then put the graduated neutral density filter on. Exposure for the foreground will be proper and the filter will keep the sky from "blowing-out."

hmm what about the sign in the middle? Half would get more exposed than the other no?

RobC · Jan 25, 2016

rowghani said:
hmm what about the sign in the middle? Half would get more exposed than the other no?

That is the whole point. The filter is graduated so the very top would get less exposure than the middle and from the middle to bottom gets more exposure than the top which evens out the exposure across the whole image.

see

http://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera-directory/camera-dir-list/category/landscape-set

http://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera/ndgrads

Xmas · Jan 26, 2016

Shoot on dull days 1/3 stop brackets.
Try a pola filter.

coigach · Jan 26, 2016

If you're interested in ND Grads, the Hi-tech filters fit the Lee holder.

I've got both Lee and Hi-Tech but find the Hi-tech better quality. They're both optically correct with no ND colour cast like cheaper grads, but, although the Hi-tech material is thinner material, in my experience it's more scratch-resistant.

Dead Link Removed

markbarendt · Jan 26, 2016

rowghani said:
How would you meter this scene if using slide film so that the sky would show well?.

First, I think of the sky and the foreground as separate subjects when metering.

Ok so with your incident meter if you point the meter at the brightest part of the sky and take a reading it should suggest a reading that will generally protect the highlights well. It really is that simple.

The problem is then getting the rest of the scene "right".

When you point your incident meter at the camera and take a reading that measures the light falling on the scene from behind the camera. It disregards the light it can't see. In this case the scene looks like it is somewhat back lit (the sun is somewhere past 90 degrees from the direction the camera was pointed. This type of reading gets the white pole of the gulf sign and the detail in the telephone pole looking great. If there were a person in the scene looking at the camera their face would be exposed well.

The challenge here is getting the sky to look good too.

Duplexing or averaging those readings is often a very workable compromise. It doesn't need to be the exact average you can split the difference based on what subject is more important.

The magic of having the two readings is that you know what's "perfect" for each of your two subjects and can decide how you prefer to expose & shoot. Having this knowledge can also mean that you consider other camera angles in addition to the one shown, maybe standing on the highway centerline or ...

rowghani · Jan 26, 2016

RobC said:
That is the whole point. The filter is graduated so the very top would get less exposure than the middle and from the middle to bottom gets more exposure than the top which evens out the exposure across the whole image.

see

http://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera-directory/camera-dir-list/category/landscape-set

http://www.leefilters.com/index.php/camera/ndgrads

not quite in this shot. you don't want the sign in the middle to be exposed any differently but as all shots you need to compromise. ill give the grads a try thanks.

rowghani · Jan 26, 2016

markbarendt said:
First, I think of the sky and the foreground as separate subjects when metering.

Ok so with your incident meter if you point the meter at the brightest part of the sky and take a reading it should suggest a reading that will generally protect the highlights well. It really is that simple.

The problem is then getting the rest of the scene "right".

When you point your incident meter at the camera and take a reading that measures the light falling on the scene from behind the camera. It disregards the light it can't see. In this case the scene looks like it is somewhat back lit (the sun is somewhere past 90 degrees from the direction the camera was pointed. This type of reading gets the white pole of the gulf sign and the detail in the telephone pole looking great. If there were a person in the scene looking at the camera their face would be exposed well.

The challenge here is getting the sky to look good too.

Duplexing or averaging those readings is often a very workable compromise. It doesn't need to be the exact average you can split the difference based on what subject is more important.

The magic of having the two readings is that you know what's "perfect" for each of your two subjects and can decide how you prefer to expose & shoot. Having this knowledge can also mean that you consider other camera angles in addition to the one shown, maybe standing on the highway centerline or ...

yes good advice. ill definitely give this a go the only problem is that slide latitude is very small so I'm not sure how well the pole will look once you deviate from the reading you get pointing it at the camera.

Sirius Glass · Jan 26, 2016

MultiFormat Shooter said:
If you're doing landscapes, a graduated neutral density filter is the way to go. I would meter the scene with the built-in camera meter to determine the correct exposure and set it manually, then put the graduated neutral density filter on. Exposure for the foreground will be proper and the filter will keep the sky from "blowing-out."

Better yet use a polarizing filter. It will darken the sky and bring out the clouds dependent of the sun angle. The only down side is that it will kill reflections off water, but you can cross that bridge or wade through the water when you come to it.

coigach · Jan 26, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
Better yet use a polarizing filter. It will darken the sky and bring out the clouds dependent of the sun angle. The only down side is that it will kill reflections off water, but you can cross that bridge or wade through the water when you come to it.

Ha, you don't live in Scotland where grey days are the norm and sun a less common visitor...

Sirius Glass · Jan 26, 2016

The reason the Kodak choose the 18% gray card as a light meter standard is because that is the usual color of the sky in Rochester New York.

wildbill · Jan 26, 2016

A polarizer wouldn't help to bring down the value of the clouds in this situation or most others. A polarizer has its place but is certainly not a substitute for graduated nd's.

coigach · Jan 26, 2016

wildbill said:
A polarizer wouldn't help to bring down the value of the clouds in this situation or most others. A polarizer has its place but is certainly not a substitute for graduated nd's.

That's really what I was trying to say above. A polarizer isn't a great deal of use when there's not much sun.

Sirius Glass · Jan 26, 2016

Overcast skies are overcast skies and do not look different with yellow, orange, and red filters. They will still look white or gray.

Poisson Du Jour · Jan 26, 2016

To my eyes there is nothing at all wrong with the image. However, if you are using Provia or Velvia, metering ideally should be in 0.3 steps rather than 0.5 so that high and low values are moderated. Alternatively, multi-spot the scene (this includes dark, but not the darkest points of the sky, and none of the bright areas). Yes, a polariser could help, but you would need to lift the overall exposure to compensate for the filter factor (typically +1.5 to 2.0 stops), thus at the very real risk of bleaching a lot more sky, among other problems.

Graduated filters are not necessary at all. But a multispot meter will get you over the line in even the most irksome circumstances.

RobC · Jan 26, 2016

rowghani said:
not quite in this shot. you don't want the sign in the middle to be exposed any differently but as all shots you need to compromise. ill give the grads a try thanks.

You won't notice with a soft grad unless you are looking for it. The hard grads really need a levelish cutoff point in the subject. And note that the grads slide up and down in the holder so you can postion it according to the subject and your requirement.

benjiboy · Jan 26, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
The reason the Kodak choose the 18% gray card as a light meter standard is because that is the usual color of the sky in Rochester New York.

Not really Steve, 18% Gray is exactly the mid point between pure white and and absolute black.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jan 26, 2016

I wonder if the color photo is from one of Eggleston's dye transfer prints? If it is, I'm guessing if he took two exposures. One for the foreground and one of the sky? To blend the two, the dye transfer printer would blend the sky and the foreground in the printing matrixes?

Poisson Du Jour · Jan 26, 2016

benjiboy said:
Not really Steve, 18% Gray is exactly the mid point between pure white and and absolute black.

Except that the majority of modern cameras now with matrix/evaluative/multipattern metering are calibrated to 1215%. The statement you made is fine for the purposes of reference on a scale, but it does not reflect the big changes in meters that have come about since at least 1990 which do not adhere to the gospel 18% grey. All of those meters do an excellent job in the majority of scenes and all are set along a modified Zone System matrice.

White sky with Provia slide film

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