Exposure for white turbulent water

[Scott Kathe]

Since I've been using a spot meter my exposures are definitely getting better but I am still having a bit of difficulty with white turbulent water. I metered the white water and put that at zone VIII and as luck would have it the other day the shadows ended up at zone III. This exposure was f32 for 1 second with a 210mm lens on 4x5.

The white water just barely filled the one degree circle in the spot meter but there is a lot more white in the image than I remember seeing. Thankfully, it's not too blown out. Next time I may cut down on development a bit. I'm thinking that with long exposures of a second or greater more white is showing up in the image than I see in the meter because the meter is measuring the white in real time but it 'builds' on the negative with longer exposure. Is that what causes the additional white or is something else at work here. Next time I'll try different lengths of exposure with the same scene.

Scott

[Jon Shiu]

The rocks look blown out too. There may be a developing or exposure or printing or scanning problem with this picture.

Jon

[Walter Calahan]

This is when I'd compare the spot readings with an incident meter reading. The more info the better. I always use two different meters for comparison.

[Brian Ellis]

In a scene like yours, where there's dark rocks under the water, the problem can be caused by the fact that the water really isn't a solid mass, there's innumerable tiny "breaks" in it where the darkness of the rocks is exposed. Your meter "sees" the rocks but you don't. So the meter tells you to give a longer exposure than you really need for the water because it isn't "seeing" just the white water as you are. There may be other reasons but at a John Sexton workshop a few years back I asked the same question you're asking and that was the explanation he gave, at least as I remember it.

I'd suggest that you meter the shadows, place them where you want them (usually Zone III or IV), check the zone on which the water then falls with the resulting shadow exposure, and develop to Zone VI or VII (which would be minus 1 or 2 in your situation).

There is some "building" of the negative with very long exposures. That's why development time needs to be reduced when increasing exposure to compensate for reciprocity failure. Somewhere I have reciprocity tables that provide the reductions in development time needed to compensate for the added density that occurs as exposure times are extended for reciprocity failure. But as I remember them you don't get into those adjustments until the exposure gets up into the 10 or 15 second range.

[Alan Davenport]

White water is difficult to expose correctly. It's particularly difficult when there is direct sunlight on the water. I usually shoot color trannies, where I place the white water in Zone VII; I find Zone VIII often ends up too thin for my taste. With a negative, you may have tonal gradation on the film (in the white water) that got blocked during printing or scanning.

Especially when using consumer-grade flatbeds to scan 4x5 film, those scanners often have a hard time digging detail out of dense areas on the film. Some photographers who use a film/digital workflow, find thinner negs are easier to scan.

[Scott Kathe]

Especially when using consumer-grade flatbeds to scan 4x5 film, those scanners often have a hard time digging detail out of dense areas on the film. Some photographers who use a film/digital workflow, find thinner negs are easier to scan.

I'm using an Epson 4990 to scan. I used to develop in trays but now I'm using a Jobo 3010 on a non reversing Beseler motor base and I manually turn the drum around every minute. I shoot FP4+ at 100 and developed this for 6 1/2 minutes in D76 1:1. The change in developing workflow has really thrown be for a loop. I did the View Camera stores film test kit and the results indicate that my film speed should be 80 and I should develop for only 5 1/2 minutes.

I really like the composition but I can't get a decent image in CS3. The light is good right now (not sunny) so I'm going to go back out and take some more pictures and set the meter to 50, 64, 80 and 100 for each of 4 shots. I'll develop the one shot at 80 for 5 1/2 minutes and see what I get. We've had some rain so I hope there isn't too much water flowing.

Scott

[gari beet]

I shoot alot of moving water such as these shots, heres what I do.

I use chrome film and find that 2 stops goes to complete white, when I meter the water I allow one third of a stop under as I have found that it appears that as the water is moving it kind of "builds up" extra exposure.

So, if I want to let part of the water go to (paper)white I place that point @ +one and two thirds above my MT( if it were static hilight, like snow, I would let it go the whole 2 stops).
If I want some texture I would place at maybe one and one third and so on...see what I am saying?

I know that my latitude is shorter than yours but it is still valid I think.
If you place a third stop below your zone VIII it should get you close enough to fine tune.

This is how I have tried with the little T55 I have shot and it seems to work fine with that.

Gari

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I control scenes like this with Pyrocat HD. It is a great developer when you have highlights like this. I usually meter the rocks I want at Zone III or IV and then tame the highlights in development. I normally use Efke 25 in Pyrocat HD at 1:1:150 with minimal agitation at about 14 minutes.

Jim

[Toyon]

An alternative to using Pyro, which is toxic to the environment and potentially to you, try using a semi-stand method. You need to test this yourself. But you can start by adding around a third to your regular developing time. You agitate normally for 50% of the time then let it stand for the remaining time undisturbed. This will tame the highlights by developing them further. Shadow areas will remain about the same as the developer will quickly become exhausted adjacent to them. Keep in mind that a 1 second exposure of fast water will leave an untextured cottony look.

[lenser]

Toyon.

I've never heard of that technique, but doesn't that run the risk of the developed silver partially running and causing some streaking in the negs and prints?

I'm not doubting you, just remembering some very unhappy accidents when developing roll film early in my hobby days.

Tim