How do YOU meter for transparencies?

[PViapiano]

I'd love to see all the different methods that people use when metering for transparencies.

Some folks like to spot meter off a middle gray value, like shaded grass, blue sky or even their palm. Others spot meter and use the average as long as the brightness range is tame...so what exactly do you do to yield wonderful transparencies?

Thanks, everyone!

[Doug Dolde]

Meter the brightest area (usually a white cloud) then open up 1.5 stops for Fujichrome films.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Meter the brightest area (usually a white cloud) then open up 1.5 stops for Fujichrome films.

I do pretty much the same thing. If the light is flat, I might push the film one stop to improve contrast.

[Alan Davenport]

Meter the brightest highlight that must retain detail. Open up 1 2/3 stops for Ektachrome.

I almost never bother with bracketing, because I know the above procedure will give me the right exposure every time.

[roteague]

Some folks like to spot meter off a middle gray value, like shaded grass, blue sky or even their palm. Others spot meter and use the average as long as the brightness range is tame...so what exactly do you do to yield wonderful transparencies?

Yes and no. I meter off a middle grey value, which sets my base exposure. Then I meter off the highlights and shadows to see how much range I have to work with. Many times, I will use a split neutral density filter to even out the exposure if the range is too great. I use this technique mainly on the hightlights, letting the shadows go dark if necessary.

[Michael Gordon]

I expose for highlights. Dense shadows can work - blown highlights cannot. Like Mr. Teague, I then meter the rest of the scene to find out if it can all fit on the transparency. If not, I use color negative as I'm not too fond of contrasty chromes.

[Gordon Moat]

Incident reading for daytime images. Sometimes that can be two readings, depending upon the scene; one reading for sunlight, and the second for shadow. When doing two reading, that would be useful if something in the shadow needs to come out a bit more, though I bias the settings towards the sunlight reading to avoid blowing out the sky too much. My ideal is to retain the vibrant blue skies.

When doing night photography, I use a wider range reflective reading. Sometimes I will check a few areas with street lighting with an incident reading, if I want some details to come out in those areas. An approach in urban night imaging is to walk the scene I want to photograph, taking many readings as I go, then averaging those readings. I should also point out that I do a ton of night imaging, and could probably get exposure correct 96% of the time without using a meter.

Despite not using a spot meter, it is extremely rare that I would ever blow out an area, nor do I get overly dark transparencies. If you feel more comfortable using a spot meter, don't change that habit. However, if you are not sure, give incident readings in daytime a try with transparency films.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Chris Strobel]

So you would be placing your white cloud on Zone VI 1/2?

Meter the brightest area (usually a white cloud) then open up 1.5 stops for Fujichrome films.

[Patrik Roseen]

Similar to what others have stated before I use spotmeter outdoors and incident reading indoors ('studio type')...making sure the highlights do not blow out.

'Pushing' a chrome has been mentioned to increase contrast...but how do you meter for 'pulling' a chrome and how many stops can you normally achieve this way?

BTW, I practised chromes by using the same type of film in a 'manual' 35mm-camera where I metered the scene using a spotmeter, shot a few pictures by bracketing and then examining the result to understand the contrast range of that film. It's less expensive then doing the mistakes in 4x5". One can do 8-12 different sceneries this way on a 36 frame film. I recommend it.

[Doug Dolde]

So you would be placing your white cloud on Zone VI 1/2?

I couldn't even tell ya what a Zone is