MattKing
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More appropriately, I believe that Sirius' comment was more about the weather in Rochester than anything to do with photographic science.
White sky with Provia slide film
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Matt is correct. 18% gray is the usual color of the sky in Rochester. So given that "18% Gray is exactly the mid point between pure white and and absolute black" and therefore the normal ski color in Rochester the sky color is a convenient standard reference.
What is also not well known is that George Eastman founded Kodak in Rochester because Rochester is the largest natural darkroom in the World.
My original point was that overcast skies typical here in Scotland, like the ones I was referring to in my original reply, are typically flat diffuse light where a polariser would not be much use. And in any case, a polariser does not do the same job in 'evening out' a scene with large latitude that ND grads do...
Quite fancy a visit to Rochester someday...
Duplexing with simple averaging has worked very well for me with no extra thought.
The short range of a slide almost always makes you prioritize placement between different subject matter.
It is more critical with a slide because you go straight to positive but negatives face the same problem. The advantage the negative has in this case is that once we expose the paper for the sign/foreground properly we can stop the exposure for that subject matter and continue on to burn in the sky.
We're talking about shooting color transparency film. What are you talking about?
When I looked at the image my reaction was much the same except that reading his post, this is the Eggleston image that the OP wants to emulate, isn't it?. Presumably his image has a white sky and he'd like to know how Eggleston has managed to get a good sky in similar light conditions whereas his is white. This of course assumes that the OP image was shot in the same or similar light conditions
As far as I can ascertain he hasn't shown us his white sky image. It might help if he did
pentaxuser
My point is that whether shooting color or black & white, there is not a lot that can be done with color filters for black & white or color correcting filters for color slides or prints that can make a white or gray sky blue. Graduated Neutral Density filters can reduce the sky brightness but it will not change the sky from white or gray to blue, only a darker color gray.
Are you guys viewing his attachment on a calibrated monitor?
I am. There's no detail on the far right side of the clouds. They're "blown out". No detail. That's my take on it.
Sorry, but you're just wrong here Sirius.
The majority of my landscape photos are taken on dr5 reverse processed b+w slides.
I use a ND grad on the skies to even out the latitude, combined with a yellow or orange filter to bring out the tonality of clouds. See (there was a url link here which no longer exists) or here (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
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A blue filter will make the grey sky blue. Of course it will make everything else blue too.
I happen to have a blue grad for sale. Just what everyone needs
in this particular case of the OPs posted photo, I think that a little less exposure would have helped. But I have to say that the photo shows a strong brightnesss gradient from left to right and also some weird purpleish colour cast in top left corner which doesn't look right so I wonder how good the development was unless its actually reciprocity caused by very black clouds in that portion of the sky. Impossible for me to say but the slide looks far from optimal as its stands. Also I don't like the colour saturation but I don't know if thats due to the particular film or the development being wrong which could be the main problem.
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hey guys I think its best I clarify. The picture I put on there is not mine. Its from an artist called William Eggleston and the way he has exposed this scene is awesome in my mind. My shots in cloudy conditions usually end up with a blown sky while he has captured a lot of texture in his cloudy/stormy sky. I will try and post one of my own pics when I get home. I need to mention that I am not a beginner when it comes to exposure/shooting transparencies and in general they come out great but I have difficulty balancing capturing cloudy/moody look of clouds and still exposing my subject properly. I have tried taking two separate readings, one incident of the subject and one reflected of the sky, and averaging them out but then my subject came out too dark. Thanks for the advise and I will keep playing around with metering and maybe grad filters.
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Hey man I was totally wondering the same thing in terms of the dye transfer process helped him achieve this look, however I do not know much about the dye T process so it was just a speculation. It definitely is from one of his dye transfer prints.
rather than averaging the two meter readings I would meter the main subject (pointing meter at camera) and then meter the sky/clouds which tells you the contrast difference in stops and that tells you how much ND grad filtration you need (with some experience/judgement). i.e. expose for main subject and use grad to bring highlights down into range of film.
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From what I can tell of Mr. Eggleston's photograph, it doesn't look like a graduated ND filter because the sign in the photo is pretty much the same density. I wonder if he shot color neg film and used a contrast mask to hold back the foreground in the darkroom? Color transparency film doesn't have the dynamic range to capture all details in one shot or one exposure of the printing paper. From my experience of trying to contract the contrast by pulling the film, it doesn't really happen. When I push or pull film, only the over exposure changes, but the contrast doesn't change dramatically. It's from my experience of shooting for clients and shooting multiple sheets of film, processing one then "balance" the exposure through pushing or pullling. Today, it's easily done digitally with HDR.
I'd agree with this. After years of using slide film (albeit b+w reverse processed slides, but the principle for metering is the same, whether colour or b+w), the whole process becomes second-nature. 0.3 ND Grads (3 stops) are my most used.
That is workable as a general technique.
The struggle I have with grads is with subject matter like the Gulf sign, the gradation tends to make the top and bottom look oddly lit. There was a point where I considered using 4x5 B&W film to make grads with varied shapes to be able to deal with subjects like the gulf sign,, portraits with a vignette, --v-- shaped horizons... I decided it was better to split the exposure difference and live with the limits or to shoot negatives and burn and dodge rather than futz with grads.
well yes not all subjects suit the use of a grad but somewhere a compromise must be made if the contrast range of the subject is above what the film can handle. And soft grads if not put too low down on the image should work reasonably well. And yes a hard grad would make its use far more obvious if it cuts through something in the forground/middlegound main subject.
I am talking about heavy overcast skies which was what the OP showed in post #1. I use color filters for clouds whenever there is not heavy overcast.
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I've never used a neutral grad filter in my life, nor ever seen a photograph done using neutral grad that didn't look fake in some respect, though examples no doubt exist somewhere by somebody. I'll just state the the most widely known practitioners of them made images that
look really corny and fake to me. What counts in experience, both in evaluating the scene and sheer familiarity with your meter. I strongly
prefer spotmeters for their ability to measure compare distinct areas in the scene. But with regard to Eggleston, most of his earlier prints at least were done on dye transfer, where quite a bit of adjustment can be done in the printing operation itself, kinda the darkroom equivalent to today's Photoshop, just way more involved and expensive (he didn't print anything himself). So a lot of that came into play in this instance.
look really corny and fake to me. What counts in experience, both in evaluating the scene and sheer familiarity with your meter. I strongly
prefer spotmeters for their ability to measure compare distinct areas in the scene. But with regard to Eggleston, most of his earlier prints at least were done on dye transfer, where quite a bit of adjustment can be done in the printing operation itself, kinda the darkroom equivalent to today's Photoshop, just way more involved and expensive (he didn't print anything himself). So a lot of that came into play in this instance.
Slide film has tight range so you often can't a well exposed sky and well exposed subjects. Slide film goes white/clear at a little under +3 stops.
Put the sky, e.g. white clouds, at +2 or thereabouts if you want the sky correct. this will likely underexpose the land.
If you want sky and land at once you often need ND grad as people are mentioning.
Maybe the sky was quite dark in Egglestone's shot, allowing him to get it all in.
...edit - just saw the comment about printing adjustments. That makes sense!
Put the sky, e.g. white clouds, at +2 or thereabouts if you want the sky correct. this will likely underexpose the land.
If you want sky and land at once you often need ND grad as people are mentioning.
Maybe the sky was quite dark in Egglestone's shot, allowing him to get it all in.
...edit - just saw the comment about printing adjustments. That makes sense!
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