What's Your Preferred MF Transparency Film Metering Method?

[j.w.]

I recently shot a roll of Fuji RDP III in my Bronica ETRS, using a

handheld Gossen Luna Pro meter. Most of the shots came out with good

exposures; however, several were underexposed, which I attribute to

my metering method, which was incident.

 

How do you prefer to meter scenes with a handheld meter, taking into

account the narrow latitude of transparency film?

 

In the shot in question, the light was to the right front quarter of

the scene, bright sun diffused with a thin scud of cirrus clouds, and

there was an overhanging tree branch in mid-foreground of which I had

hoped to get a little shadow detail. The shot came out with the

branch in sillouhette.

 

Instead of incident or wide-angle reflective metering, should I have

taken a local reflective reading off the shadow of the branch,

then 'placed' that on zone III?

 

Which gets to the point: do any of you use 'zone-type metering' in

MF , placing individual areas of the scene at certain exposure zones?

If so, has this been helpful in shoot slides with MF?

 

Thanks.

[wim_van_velzen]

Hi Joe,

<p>

I always use the camera in spotmetering mode, when shooting slide film. Sort of zone system indeed. You can read more about my workflow <a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl/webarticle16c.htm">here</a>.

<p>

<a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl">Wim</a>

[tarashnat]

Joe,

 

You could take incident readings in multiple areas in the composition, making sure to take

readings in the shadows and the brightly lit areas. Choosing an intermediate (average)

value will often be the best compromise, or you can try bracketting your exposures, one at

the light end, one at the dark end and how ever many steps it takes to bridge the two. If

the difference is too large (more than 5 stops) you may want to consider the scene as

having too large a range for slide film, unless you are going for a certain effect/

composition that you must have on a slide. If the composition is a "keeper", then it is

worth shooting it more than once. For these difficult scenes I try to have my Polaroid back

with me to test the contrast range of the scene, as well.

 

I mostly shoot Velvia 50 and Provia 400 with my Hasselblad, and usually just do an

incident metering of the scene. Last weekend I was taking a photo of an electric pole

through the trees, where the pole was in daylight with a harsh" shadow" on its unlit side,

and the branches were all in shade. To get a good color sky, the bright side of the pole is

overexposed. To compensate and get the pole correctly exposed, the sky turned a milky

off-white. Maybe a composition like this would be better off with fill flash. Your branch

may have benifitted from a fill flash, while you meter for the brightly lit portions of the

scene.

 

Taras

[ron_jonson]

Joe - I meter differently depending on the scene/subject, and take into account the format I'm shooting (color/bw negative film or transparencies). Whether it's LF, MF, or 35mm doesn't matter. I use either a handheld incident or spot meter, or for 35mm stuff, the camera's built-in meter for more casual shooting. It really depends on the subject.... for people/portraits it's usually incident readings, for landscape stuff usually reflective spot metering. <br><br>

For the scene you describe, I think your "should have/zone" method would've worked okay. But as you imply, the highlights probably would've been blown out due to the reduced latitude of chrome film. So it depends on what part of the scene you want to preserve in the final image. Another thing you might want to try if there is too much contrast is to use that "Zone III" method, but pull the film (overexpose a stop and tell the lab to do "minus one" development). That would help reduce the overall contrast with less-blown out highlights. Also, when unsure, it's always a good idea to bracket.

[dan_fromm1]

Where were you standing when you took your incident meter reading? At the shooting position, back to the scene you intended to shoot? Or deep inside the scene?

 

I ask because I've had similar failed shots that were, on reflection, due more to my thoughtlessness than to the metering method. Example: a stream through fairly dense woods. I stood at the entrance to the tunnel, measured the light that might enter it. If I'd been some distance inside it, that bright spot where the light entered would have been a much smaller fraction of the scene the meter saw. See what I mean?

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[david_henderson]

Incident readings are not the optimum method of metering for landscapes, especially if you're using slide film. Neither is any method of metering that involves taking a single reading from your scene or from a grey card. To expose slide film correctly in virtually all circumstances - and not just the easy low brightness range shots where pretty much any method will work- you need to fit an understanding of the range of brightness present in your scene with the capability of your film to hold it. You can't do that with one reading.

 

I use a spot meter to take readings from the brightest, darkest areas and an approximate mid-tone to establish whether the scene falls within the capability of my film or whether I need to change something by using a ND grad or maybe even a different film. Setting a provisional reading on this basis I check round the main elements of the composition to check where they will fall relative to a mid-tone, and decide whether I'm happy with that, or whether I need to change my decision. So for me, I'd have known that the branch would have insufficient detail because it would have measured at more than two stops ( for Velvia, a little more for some other films) darker than the setting I was about to use.

 

Would that have helped? Well not if the consequence of placing the branch at a point where detail would show would result in the rest of the photograph being overexposed. The best metering in the world will not help you to stretch the ability of the film to handle contrast. Some combinations of scene/conditions/film just don't work. Knowing this you can often take a step to alter the contrast to something you can cope with. If you use a single reading metering process then you'll never know it.

 

Bear in mind also that just because a film will hold a brightness range of five stops doesn't mean you get to use all of that for every shot. Suppose (hypothetically) your subject is high key with a five stop range but all at a mid-tone or lighter and you film is Velvia. If you expose to make the scene appear as to the eye then you will blow out the lightest areas by a mile because your available brightness range from the film isn't five stops but three. To use all the films capabilities you'd need to underexpose this hypothetical scene by two stops and this might create an image far from what you wanted - But at least you'd know.

[andre_noble4]

For cloudless skies: Sunny 16 Rule and bracket.

[chanj]

I use both incident and spot. I take 1 degree spot readings for what I think is zone 5, zone 3, and zone 7 then average them on my Sekonic 508. This is "my" zone 5. I then take an incident reading which will be the grey card zone 5. If there is no discrepancy between the readings I will bracket -1/3, 0, +1/3. Any discrepancy will influence my subsequent bracket decisions. 0, +1/3, +2/3 or -2/3, -1/3, 0... etc.

[syd]

This may sounds strange but I always meter with reflective on a Sekonic L358 and bracket, opening up by one stop in half steps. I shoot (Transparencies)landscapes and have never had over or underexposed images using my methods. I must say however that I think I have my metering technique down pat. I virtually never use incident metering.

[j.w.]

Thanks for all the great replies. Yes, there's more than one way to meter a scene, but what counts is the actual exposure chosen.

 

When incident metering, I had the meter pointing back toward the camera, so I wasn't taking into account what light was falling on the shadow area of the branches.

 

Even so, in this case, I suspect the scene's brightness range would have exceeded the film's exposure range.

 

In circumstances such as this again, I will remember to bring a flash, and do some fill. That's another great MF feature - fill flash at all speeds with a leaf shutter.