how to take photo's of stained glass?

[johan_de_groote]

I'm going to visit Le Mans cathedral this year, and it is famous fr it's

stained glass windows. I the past I have taken some slides of stained glass,

but it was always a hit-and-miss thing. Or very dark, or blown out or something

else. Always used the build in meter.

 

This time I'll be armed with a lightmeter (Sekonic L-758DR or Kenko KFM2100)

using Provia 400F slide film. So I'll have all types of metering available but

no clue as how to start metering such a thing. Can anyone give a hint?

[colin carron]

If you want the glass itself and not the surrounding window stonework then try metering close to the window. If you have a built in meter or spot meter then meter from an average brightness part of the glass.<div></div>

[johan_de_groote]

Just as an example, where would you meter on the photo you posted above?

[colin carron]

Using a spot meter I would meter the 'skin' tones as they look about average brightness. But I would also check lighter and darker parts to see what the exposure range is.

[david_henderson]

You will find it a lot easier to photograph windows that are not directly sunlit. Sunlight gives high contrast that may be impossible to capture on slide film with its restricted dynamic range. This might mean going back to a site several times to photograph when each side is at its best, or on an overcast day. On Mr Carron's picture, note that there are no hot spots or areas of glass that are completely black- in all probability a half stop either way would have blown the highlights or rendered the dark red areas as black.

 

For me, I'd spotmeter this, first judging what area of the picture I wanted to be a mid-tone- which say for sake of an example might be the area of cloak on the left of the subject (her right). Spot metering that will tell you what setting you need to make to render that as a mid tone. Then I'd spotmeter other areas to see how they'd be rendered at that setting. In particular I'd be looking to be sure that any bright area in which I wanted to see detail was no more than 1.5 stops brighter than my chosen mid-tone; and that the darkest areas in which I wanted to see colour and detail were no darker than two stops darker than my selected mid-tone. These assessments may force me to redefine my mid-tone to make sure that the scene fits onto my film.

 

Finally let me say its important to make your spot readings from the position you intend to photograph from , because the windows are clearly transmissive and altering the position may well alter the brightness.

[lauren_macintosh]

As david henderson states direct light will kill the shot, the best light I ve found is over cast light that gives you an ever light accross the stain glass! good luck and enjoy :

[Ed_Ingold]

If you were to spot meter areas representing flesh tones, you might want to open up one stop, much as when metering a person in direct light. Stained glass changes character a lot depending on the exposure. If you use matrix or center-weighted metering, it doesn't hurt to bracket your shots.

[johan_de_groote]

Thank you all for the lesson.

[xato]

With the exposure so critical and problematic, a DSLR might be the best for this job. I'd hate to come back and see that I've consistently under or overexposed the shots. Or I would take a DSLR or a digital P&S with full manual controls along as just sort of a fancy meter. Copy the shutter speeds and apertures that work and then use your MF.