Metering For Still Life

[IanBarber]

I need to get to grips better for some still life I want to do on 4x5 black and white film especially the metering side.

For the lighting, I am using the modelling light from a studio flash head and a soft box, I also use reflector cards to fill in some of the dark areas. My choice of film will be FP4 developed in Pyrocat 1:1:100 for 16 minutes in a small tank with inversions every minute.

Question:
Would I be better using incident metering or spot metering and placing an area on a specific zone and then looking whether I need to change development for the high

[Leigh]

Question:
Would I be better using incident metering or spot metering and placing an area on a specific zone and then looking whether I need to change development for the highHi Ian,

Forgive the straight talk, but...
You need to learn how to use an incident meter first. Meter the scene with a meter that responds to flash when using that light source (with or without a soft box). Develop normally, then print normally.

Evaluate the prints. If they're less than satisfactory in some respect, determine what's wrong and make adjustments.

Once you get to the point that you can reliably interpret incident readings and know what results you'll get, then you can advance to a spot meter and the Zone System for finer control of the results.

Your choice of still life in a studio is an excellent learning environment, since the subject and lighting remain unchanged over an extended period of time (if you wish).

- Leigh

[Pere Casals]

Question:
Would I be better using incident metering or spot metering and placing an area on a specific zone and then looking whether I need to change development for the high

Ian, one thing is metering light and another different one is deciding exposure/processing, sometimes we put all in the same basket.

The metering part can be done in both ways, if you use an incident meter you can also meter fill and key separately by pointing with the meter to each light source, this is an straight way if wanting a key vs fill ratio, not being influenced by subject's reflectiveness or color.

Also spot metering delivers an amazing degree of control, and you can anyway use a grey card oriented to the light sources to meter on it as if it was an incident meter.

Predicting result with incident vs spot has to be the same for you, the point is that you have to be able to do nearly the same not mattering if you use spot or incident. I'd start with the spot meter, perhaps it's easier to predict the result for any spot in the scene, to know where the deep shadows are and what the intensity glares have.

After several tests, if you review anotated spot meterings for the highlights/glares, you will find what happens for any level of overexposure and you will know if you want to use N- development to control excessive densities.

You know, you may use the shading gradient and glares for volume construction, I've always find that something complicated...

So I'd use both, incident to check key vs fill ratio, and spot for knowing shadows and glare levels.

[IanBarber]

Thank you Leigh and Pere, some interesting points to work on

[Doremus Scudder]

Sometimes I think we make things more complicated than they need to be.

Metering is metering, whether inside or outside, landscape, studio, portrait, still life, whatever...

If you have good metering technique with whatever kind of meter, just apply that to your still life. The obvious exception here is when you use flash, for which you'll need a good flash meter and learn to use incident metering techniques (since most flash meters are incident meters).

When you control the lighting, it is easier to get good results after a few tries too. Shadows too dark? Add more fill, etc., etc. With a spot meter, you just place a low and see where the highs fall and adjust lights accordingly. With an incident meter, adjust your lighting ratio. If you use an averaging reflected meter, you may have to make a test print or two and adjust lighting based on those (here we can collectively mourn the passing of Polaroid).

Development need not be adjusted if you get your lighting right. However, maybe you like the look of flat light and increased development, or whatever. Simply tailor your lighting and development for the desired result.

The things that complicates still life photography for me (I like to use natural light through a window/skylight and reflectors) are compensating for bellows draw (not difficult, really) and reciprocity failure. This latter sometimes needs a bit of testing, but once you get it down for a particular film, it's not difficult either.

Best,

Doremus

[Pieter]

The Minolta Spotmeter F meters flash, too.

[chassis]

Agree with Leigh and Doremus.

I use incident for still life, primarily a Sekonic L-758DR flash meter. The principle is the same if using continuous lighting. The method below is also how I meter portraits.

Meter the brightest highlight, with incident dome pointing toward the light source, normal to the subject surface, at the highlight location. Then meter the deepest shadow, with the dome facing normal to the subject surface at the shadow location.

I like to meter at the subject on the lens axis, with dome facing the camera. This third measurement should generally fall between the highlight and shadow reading. For a portrait, this reading is with the meter in front of the chin of the subject, with the dome facing the camera.

Then it is decision time from a creative point of view. Where you place the highlights and shadows on the film, and how you process the film, is up to your aesthetic goal.

[IanBarber]

The method below is also how I meter portraits.

Meter the brightest highlight, with incident dome pointing toward the light source, normal to the subject surface, at the highlight location. Then meter the deepest shadow, with the dome facing normal to the subject surface at the shadow location

Chassis, do you do this to find what brightness range you have in the scene ?



I like to meter at the subject on the lens axis, with dome facing the camera. This third measurement should generally fall between the highlight and shadow reading. For a portrait, this reading is with the meter in front of the chin of the subject, with the dome facing the camera.

Would this third position give you and average of the first two and then you make a decision based on all 3 readings what you visualise for the final outcome.

[chassis]

Ian, the range is found by metering the brightest highlight and the deepest shadow. For still life and portrait, I normally use strobe. In this example, the brightest highlight might be f/11 and the deepest shadow might be f/5.6, meaning a two stop difference. This is a common lighting setup for me, a 1 or two stop difference between subject highlight and shadow. Yours may have a wider or narrower range of brightness. With continuous lighting, I would choose a shutter speed on the meter, and meter for f/stop, using the same method described in this, and my prior, post.

The third metering position, facing the camera, very well might be the average reading. Or it might not be, depending on where the "middle of the subject" is positioned, relative to the lighting. Where to place the meter, and where to orient the incident dome, is important, and based on your creative aesthetic.

To confuse things further, I often use a black background, which I do not meter. The black muslin is rendered nearly completely black in the positive image, with nearly zero density on the negative. This is an aesthetic choice and might not be desirable for everyone. If using a colored or grey background, or with lighting on the background, it would be useful to take a fourth reading on the background, in various locations if the background light is not uniform (e.g. spot or grid lighting on the background).


It also helps to put the meter down, cover the ground glass, and look at the scene with your eyes, without equipment. Explore the scene with your eyes and see the highlights and shadows. This helps to increase understanding.

I could keep going, but a better way to learn is to practice and to look at images that fit your aesthetic. Still life and portrait are the same, in my view, from a technical lighting point of view. The subjects and aesthetic goals are different, but the lighting basics apply equally. Here is a portrait that I recent saw, with interesting lighting. It looks to be a fairly typical Hollywood portrait of the 1940s, with key, fill, hair and background lights. Lighting this image is no different in my mind than lighting a still life set.

Dickie Moore, American actor in 1944
Photo credit: photographer unknown, publicity shot for the film "Youth Runs Wild"
Source: Wikipedia
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Dickie_Moore_in_Youth_Runs_Wild.jpg

[IanBarber]

Thanks Chassis.
I still have a fair way to go to make a negative that matches my visualisation.

This is one I did yesterday using a continuous light inside a soft box. The image on the ground glass looked very nice and low key but the negative looked much brighter.

186097

I scanned it but had to do some heavy lifting in Photoshop to get it to look how I visioned it in my mind

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4843/45889124214_d630212136_b.jpg

[Pali K]

The final result is quite spectacular Ian!

[Pere Casals]

The final result is quite spectacular Ian!

+1

[chassis]

Thanks Chassis.
I still have a fair way to go to make a negative that matches my visualisation.

This is one I did yesterday using a continuous light inside a soft box. The image on the ground glass looked very nice and low key but the negative looked much brighter.

186097

I scanned it but had to do some heavy lifting in Photoshop to get it to look how I visioned it in my mind

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4843/45889124214_d630212136_b.jpg

Great still life Ian. The background for me is very well done, and the foreground fabric is interesting. It might be interesting to make very small adjustments in camera, subject and light position, to see the effect it has on specular highlights. Christopher Broadbent commented on managing specular highlights during his years on this site. His still life and portrait work are at, or near the top, for me.

[IanBarber]

I also agree that the work from Christopher Broadbent is superb. I have looked for some time to see if he has produced any articles on his lighting workflow but never seen anything.

[chassis]

Ian,

With some digging there is lots to be found and learned from Mr. Broadbent's posts. The below is a very coarse extract from this site. The topic begs to be summarized or edited into something more useable.

=============================

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?74300-April-Stlll-Life&p=708701&highlight=highlights#post708701
Read the first few pages of dialog between cjbroadbent and Brian K


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?67447-October-Still-Lifes&p=644371&highlight=highlights#post644371
Re: October Still Lifes
Quote Originally Posted by Denis Pleic View Post
.... "the guy uses Photoshop rather heavy-handedly, which is quite obvious"...
There was no such thing as Photoshop when most of these photographs were taken. They are mostly Ektachromes and BW prints. The problem, in those not so distant days, was to preserve the mood in the final tranny that was consigned to the client right the way through to the printed page.
I purposely blocked shadows and haloed highlights to prevent the process printer from flattening the picture with his contrast masks. Normally, to please the client, the process printer would open shadows and remove 'reflections'. I had a bad reputation with printers.
I'm not a great user of Photoshop - apart from Curves, Desaturate and Resize to make the thing web-presentable. Since anything large-format on the web has to go through the scanner, I often scan twice in order to force my way into the shadows and hold back a bit on some highlights in a napkin or such. Now I have to pay for obstructing the printer.
I tone-map the thing back into shape and the result usually looks just a bit short of the original tranny.
There is a lot of set-building and painting going on in my studio. I use a coloured chalk, sanded gesso, and I hang gels over parts of the window-light. Sometimes I place a warm inky-dinky in axis with the window. When I use fill, usually a white sheet behind the camera, it is lit with blue gel to simulate sky in the penumbra. I feather foregrounds and backgrounds with scrim and black flags. There is quite a lot going on BEFORE the exposure.
Here is a true digital photoshopped image I believe that things can now be done with more delicacy on digital than on film. The file you give the client is definitive and goes from you to the printed page direct.


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?77215-Still-Life-Images-2011&p=819249&highlight=brolly#post819249
Re: Still-Life Images, 2011
George,
The pears are looking great with one source.
Interesting to see your setup. I would have the brolly somewhat higher - but that's your thing.
You might have to keep the highlight on the pear under control; maybe with less exposure and a much wider and more diffuse fill reflector which will drop out as you balance the shadows the more gamma.
Instead of picking up a reflection on the pear's shadow side (not cricket) to get separation, you might try reflecting some light onto the background just behind the right side of the pears.


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?74300-April-Stlll-Life&p=709766&highlight=brolly#post709766
Re: April Stlll-Life
Quote Originally Posted by Mark MacKenzie View Post
..Is hard bounce without any kind of diffusion aimed at a white board? The shadows seem deeper in this one.
-Mark
Hard bounce is using a semi-silver reflector to direct light at the subject. Lots of clout but nuanced reflections. Better than a brolly for metal surfaces, bad for noses. Sorry the second jewelers shot is not really up to standard.


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?52943-September-Portraits/page4&highlight=brolly
Re: September Portraits
Quote Originally Posted by Asher Kelman View Post
... is that a fashion that has crept in due to influence of 35 mm digital photography with obsession on lack of vignetting and pixel peeping for clairity to the last mm of the frame?...
I was taught that the camera should be invisible. "Shoot it [Large Format] like a Leica", "Keep camera-work out of the shot", "Don't intrude". That means stopping down and lots of light. Or rather, lots of modulated light. Because lighting is all there is left to create some mood.
This is done with 2 flash heads and lots of black paper on 5x7.


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?101874-books-on-quot-still-life-quot-lighting&p=1030546#post1030546
Re: books on "still life" lighting?
No need for books. Just a web image search for Roland de la Porte, Chardin, Cotan. A single, natural source of light, one main subject with supporting elements making the most of the available chiaroscuro.


https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?76905-A-primer-on-lighting-(newbie)&p=736388#post736388
Re: A primer on lighting (newbie)
My advice to a novice (others may protest).
Lighting is a forest - too many trees. Take the woodchopper's approach. Get into the middle and chop down one tree. Then chop around.

Have a look at Irving Penn's portraits. Aim for that simple north window light look.

To be sure of success with the first tree, buy, borrow or rent one 1200ws strobe with a stand and an umbrella. It is the nearest thing to a window light to be had for small money and it is directional. Put it just above and off your left shoulder pointing, neither down nor at, but across your subject. If strobe is too expensive, use a 600W movie lamp with an umbrella adapter but your subject will have to hold still.

You don't light the subject - he lights himself by pointing his nose at the light, or at the camera or away from the light. Three very different moods.

For the next tree in the forest; make the shadow side of the subject separate out from the background. A little slave strobe on a clip, real daylight mixed in or even your one umbrella well placed, will light the area of the background behind the dark side of your subject (never, ever light your subjects head from behind to get separation - that's 'salon' photography and bad television).

One umbrella works. It's easy. You may never need any other lighting gear for the rest of the job.

=============================

[Drew Bedo]

Peli K:


I have had good results by metering with my Minolta IV-f in incident mode. I have a spot attachment for it but rarely use it indoors. This meter is capaqble of metering ambient only and ambient plus flash. . . .or flash olnly. This meter is now old and discontinued, but there are many great current meters that will handle these metering modes.

I compose, focus and calculate the bellows correction, then meter the scene. To be candid, I frequently bracket the shot using both sides of the film holder, either opening up or closing down a bit for the second exposure based on intuition .v . .an informed guess.

Do not over think this. Everyone here has taken a lot of bad pictures. As you go forward, the ratio of good to bad images will improve, but there will always be negatives that you do not like.