Spot Metering for Velvia 100

[Casey]

I've recently purchased an 8x10 dorff, and hope to shoot Velvia 100. I'm very familiar with the zone system, but am aware that color has less latitude that B&W. So, what are your methods for spot metering for velvia? Casey Edwards

[eric black]

I meter it at ISO 125 and give it about 2 1/2 stops in either direction from midtoned to black and white

[roteague]

I meter it at 100, first on what I consider the mid-tone, then I meter the hightlights. If there is too much difference between the two - say +2 stops, or even +1 1/2 stops - I'll then use a split neutral density filter to keep the highlights from blowing out.

[Scott Kathe]

Robert (or anyone else for that matter),


If there is too much difference between the two - say +2 stops, or even +1 1/2 stops - I'll then use a split neutral density filter to keep the highlights from blowing out.

What if you are shooting a waterfall in a forest? Or a white flower in a forest? With black and white these subjects are doable but with Velvia I always have difficulty. Various parts of this type of composition, highlights and shadows, exceed the limited latitude that Velvia has. I love the split neutral density filter to keep the sky in check but with more complicated compositions they don't work. Even when I shoot in subdued light I have a difficult time with highlights and shadows. I use an incident meter which gives a good overall reading but the highlights tend to be a bit washed out and the shadows too dark. I have heard that color negative film has better latitude what about that and what about Provia which is less saturated? My frustration has reached a level where I need to come up with a good solution otherwise I may get a cursed digital SLR and do some HDR in photoshop. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread:(

Scott

[David A. Goldfarb]

With any slide film in a contrasty situation, you have to choose. I generally meter for the highlights, because if you blow the highlights, there is no getting them back.
You can also shoot a less contrasty film when the light and the scene don't lend themselves to Velvia.

[roteague]

What if you are shooting a waterfall in a forest? Or a white flower in a forest? With black and white these subjects are doable but with Velvia I always have difficulty. Various parts of this type of composition, highlights and shadows, exceed the limited latitude that Velvia has.

Split neutral density filters. The only way to handle the latitude with a film that has limited dynamic range.

[gari beet]

I use Fuji neg film for these scenes now as I had the same problem with woodland scenes etc. I use Astia for some stuff but really contrasty scenes, slide film just can't cope I find.
Roteague,
How do you use an ND grad to reduce the contrast in a waterfall?

Gari

[Dan V]

From one of Robert Hitchman's Photograph America articles, this has served me well for most situations.

"When I’m exposing color transparency film, I always want to avoid over-exposing the
highlights and washing out details in the lightest areas of a composition. I take a spot
meter reading of the brightest area that I still want to retain detail and place that
reading on Zone VII."

[Bruce Watson]

I have heard that color negative film has better latitude...

And it does. These passion flowers (http://www.achromaticarts.com/big_image.php?path=flowers&img_num=2) were done with 160PortraVC. It's a surprisingly good film for landscape. I remember that the passion flowers measured 11 stops (9 stops of texture). There's plenty of texture in the white part of the flowers in full June mid-day sun.

The Portra films are so good that I completely gave up tranny film.

[Eric James]

Thanks for the link Bruce. I've been thinking about trying a box of the 160PortraVC. I don't think this shot would be possible with a positive film - not without PS back flips.

[65Galaxie]

Ok, so neg. film can handle 11 stops. Can your scanner pull that much detail out? I wrote in another post on how my Epson seems to scan transparencies better than neg material. I think it's because of the contrast difference. Scanning neg. requires a higher degree of contrast change and hince the added noise from the cheapo scanning that I can afford. How many stops of light can photo paper handle without looking too low in contrast? I might be tempted to try some neg. 4x5 since my more local lab will process it than I would still be required to scan and print digitally unless I pay them the big bucks for a custom print. I usually buy near outdated film on ebay for less than half the cost of new and neg. 4x5 is hard to find at that price on ebay. I do shoot 120 film in neg. and have the lab print proofs from 6x7 and 6x9 I'll have to scan and proof. They will only contact print 6x9 and that's pretty useless.

Here's a 120 6x9 scan on Fuji Pro160C