big ND filters for window filtration?

[BetterSense]

taking pictures indoors typically results in the windows being blown out squares of white. If you expose for the outdoor scene, then the interior is too dark. This makes it difficult to get pictures of say, the inside of a scenic cabin showing the nice view out the picture window. Photoshop aside, why couldn't you use tinted film to knock a handful of stops off the light coming the window? In black-and-white land, you wouldn't even need real ND. Anyone ever done this? What did you use?

[brian mcweeney]

http://www.leefiltersusa.com/lighting/products/finder/act:colordetails/colorRef:C4630710C7AB0E/

[vinny]

yup. we use it all the time (on rolls) in the motion picture industry. usually a minimum of nd6 but up to nd1.2 also. You can double up the lighter stuff but bubbles or reflections can be problematic. ND is used more so in video world where the limited latitude and lack of big lights would result in underexposed interiors if you exposed for the exterior. keep in mind that having the exterior a little overexposed is what are eyes have become use to.

[percepts]

Take two images. One exposed for interior and one for exterior and overlay in printing.
Or use a two bath or stand development which should give highly compensated development if range is not too extreme.

[Mark Barendt]

Strobes?

A nice wall bounce can fill nicely.

[Maris Rusis]

There are two times in the day when the light outside is the same intensity as a normally lit room. I try for the dawn shoot if possible. If it fails there is the evening shoot to fall back on.

The alternatives, over-lighting the interior with a huge flash set-up or ND-ing the windows both cost money.

[BetterSense]

Strobes?

A nice wall bounce can fill nicely.

The article I was reading suggested exposing for the exterior and lighting the interior with elaborate strobe use. Since my strobe-fu is weak, it sounded like NDing the windows would be a lot easier.

[percepts]

The article I was reading suggested exposing for the exterior and lighting the interior with elaborate strobe use. Since my strobe-fu is weak, it sounded like NDing the windows would be a lot easier.

When you ND the windows, how much do you think it will reduce the light in the room by?

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

This is where you get your needs:
http://www.rosco.com/us/filters/roscolux.asp

[Mark Barendt]

The article I was reading suggested exposing for the exterior and lighting the interior with elaborate strobe use. Since my strobe-fu is weak, it sounded like NDing the windows would be a lot easier.

Percepts makes a great point NDing the windows is going to darken the interior which doesn't fix your problem. This may in fact, force an aperture setting that compromises your DOF needs.

Strobes (or hot lights) actually fix the problem. Choosing the time of day can help too, say dusk or dawn.

"Elaborate" is an assumption because an article in a mag has no clue about the specific context you are shooting in.

Planning, bouncing, a tripod, and practice are the keys.

[BetterSense]

When you ND the windows, how much do you think it will reduce the light in the room by?

Oh my, sometimes I really am thick. Actually, there still could be a particular window on one wall or something that could be ND'd. Strobe use just makes me nervous with film because of not being able to see the results until after the shoot. It would seem to require a lot of experience that I don't have. Thankfully, this is not a situation I find myself in often (or ever).

[percepts]

Oh my, sometimes I really am thick. Actually, there still could be a particular window on one wall or something that could be ND'd. Strobe use just makes me nervous with film because of not being able to see the results until after the shoot. It would seem to require a lot of experience that I don't have. Thankfully, this is not a situation I find myself in often (or ever).

That's why I said take two images and montage them in the darkroom. You might have some fun learning advanced printing techniques. Or try out some two bath / highly compensating developers.

And another technique to give another stop is to preflash the film at Zone 1. Don't try zone2 cos it will just fog the shadows.

So if your exposure for zone 3 shadow is say f8 for 1 second, then preflash the neg at zone 1 and then use f8 for 1/2 second as main exposure. That will help control the window brightness and combined with a compensating developer that can bring things into printing range.

To preflash use a white or grey card. Place just in front of lens and meter it. adjust expsoure to place it on zone 1 and expose neg. What that will do is use up the film threshold so that even your deepest shadows will register when you give the main exposure of f8 at 1/2 second. The preflash has no effect on highlights but allows you to use a shorter main exposure which combined with a compensating developer should sort you out.

[Mark Barendt]

Strobe use just makes me nervous with film because of not being able to see the results until after the shoot. It would seem to require a lot of experience that I don't have. Thankfully, this is not a situation I find myself in often (or ever).

Not a problem with a nice strobe as long as you aren't trying to light the whole cabin, just set the camera up manually for exposing the window in say zone vii - viii (outside in the daytime it should look brighter than the interior), set the strobes to auto or maybe ttl with the proper f-stop and iso to light your subjects normally, point the strobes so that they bounce the light in nicely.

Sure, strobes take some practice to learn but used well strobes can really do wonderful things even in broad daylight, think big sun hats at the beach, would you actually like to see the face under that brim?

It's not as tough as you think either, nice strobes do most of the exposure thinking in say the cabin, your job is figuring out the bounce.

[jp]

I've also seen people in video put up amber window filtration to get a consistent white balance between existing and artificial light.

I've traditionally waited till the outside light was in the right proportion to inside light. This time of year in Maine, it can be a good portion of the day!

I have also increased light with strobes to match the outdoor light level.

A room will look a lot different with strobe light instead of the existing light; sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. The average room, you can light it better yourself. However, someone's carefully designed and lit kitchen, you probably can't so easily replicate the light. If you want to entirely artificially light it, use either strobes with modeling lamps or hot lights, and a DSLR to verify your visualization and exposure.

Whether you use monolights or all purpose external flashes (like vivitar or nikon) depends on how important modeling lamps are, and if 120v power is available.

[Marko]

You guys are making this way too complicated! If there is anything digital excels at, this kind of situation is it.

Two bracketed exposures and 5-10 minutes in Photoshop is all it takes. You don't even have to use a tripod.

And if you want big, you can do stitching. ;) It would take another 20 minutes and preferably a tripod. No other extra equipment necessary.

[Richard M. Coda]

You guys are making this way too complicated! If there is anything digital excels at, this kind of situation is it.

Two bracketed exposures and 5-10 minutes in Photoshop is all it takes. You don't even have to use a tripod.

And if you want big, you can do stitching. ;) It would take another 20 minutes and preferably a tripod. No other extra equipment necessary.

Agreed. This is a situation where I would "previsualize" using digital as part of the equation to getting to the final print, whether inkjet or going back to a negative to print in the darkroom.

[bdkphoto]

You guys are making this way too complicated! If there is anything digital excels at, this kind of situation is it.

Two bracketed exposures and 5-10 minutes in Photoshop is all it takes. You don't even have to use a tripod.

And if you want big, you can do stitching. ;) It would take another 20 minutes and preferably a tripod. No other extra equipment necessary.

I agree that digital is big advantage in this situation, however, to do a reasonable job of it will take much more production than handholding a camera and a few minutes in PS.
In most cases there is no substitute for augmenting existing light in some fashion, and the post production work will take some real time.

[Marko]

I agree that digital is big advantage in this situation, however, to do a reasonable job of it will take much more production than handholding a camera and a few minutes in PS.

Camera set to auto white balance and auto bracketing will produce a burst of three (or more) very closely aligned and bracketed images in under a second. From there, it's just a matter of setting the correct WB in ACR for each frame, stacking them as layers in one image, running an auto-align function in PS and then setting the blending option.

The entire operation can take under five minutes, as it did for this photo:

http://48pixels.com/images/bgd_0587.jpg

It was very bright outside and rather dark inside. It took three exposures to get all the details.

It can also take much more production, depending on the situation and skill involved, but still much less than the elaborate setups described above. The most sophisticated method would be a full-blown HDR, but it is not necessary for the kind of situation that the OP described.

[percepts]

I fail to see the relevance of this digital crap since this is supposed to be a Large Format discussion group and assumed the OP wanted help on how to resolve this using film in a LF camera.

Preflashing the film is a piece of cake and using compensating developer is easy too.
But then if you struggle with counting from 0 to 9 maybe not;)

[brian mcweeney]

I light my interiors and select an appropriate shutter speed to keep some detail outside the windows. I use strobes.

[bdkphoto]

Camera set to auto white balance and auto bracketing will produce a burst of three (or more) very closely aligned and bracketed images in under a second. From there, it's just a matter of setting the correct WB in ACR for each frame, stacking them as layers in one image, running an auto-align function in PS and then setting the blending option.

The entire operation can take under five minutes, as it did for this photo:

http://48pixels.com/images/bgd_0587.jpg

It was very bright outside and rather dark inside. It took three exposures to get all the details.

It can also take much more production, depending on the situation and skill involved, but still much less than the elaborate setups described above. The most sophisticated method would be a full-blown HDR, but it is not necessary for the kind of situation that the OP described.

Sorry- that's not a good example. You didn't need to combined exposures in that shot, one properly exposed frame would have been enough. You are still underexposed, and there is no picture windows in the middle of the frame with a outside view as the OP needs to deal with. That will take more work-digital or film.

[Marko]

Sorry- that's not a good example. You didn't need to combined exposures in that shot, one properly exposed frame would have been enough. You are still underexposed, and there is no picture windows in the middle of the frame with a outside view as the OP needs to deal with. That will take more work-digital or film.

What do you mean I didn't need to? Where you there at the scene?

It was a cathedral-sized church with only a few of the lights on and with a bright sunlight outside. I needed one exposure for the interior, one for the lights and one for the outside light. There was no chance I could get any detail in the tinted glass window nor on the daylight-lit floor with a single exposure. Same for retaining the deep shadow detail while keeping the lightbulbs from blooming.

Touristy shot, but pretty similar to the situation the OP describes. Took all of five minutes to process. So yes, it would take a tripod and more processing to get a better quality shot, maybe even full 20 minutes. ;) But that's not the point.

The point is that digital would be exactly the right tool for that kind of situation. Insisting on film and elaborate lighting equipment and filtering the windows and such is entirely too theatrical and unnecessary. IMO, of course.

[Marko]

I fail to see the relevance of this digital crap since this is supposed to be a Large Format discussion group and assumed the OP wanted help on how to resolve this using film in a LF camera.

Preflashing the film is a piece of cake and using compensating developer is easy too.
But then if you struggle with counting from 0 to 9 maybe not;)

Like somebody else said in the other thread, which finger should I hold up for 0? ;)

[percepts]

Like somebody else said in the other thread, which finger should I hold up for 0? ;)

Well I don't know where you've got your finger but it sure ain't on the pulse.

[Marko]

That's fine, we can't all get everything at once. You'll get it eventually... ;)

[BetterSense]

The point is that digital would be exactly the right tool for that kind of situation.

No, it would be exactly the right tool for getting digital images in that kind of situation. I don't do digital.

Supposing you take two negatives, one exposed for outdoors and one exposed for the interior, how do you align them in the darkroom? I suppose it's not likely that, being in two different film holders, they will align perfectly just by aligning their edges.

[percepts]

The optimun way is to create a mask but first the basic way.

You need to set up a mini table under the lens which is approx 2/3 the height of lens to baseboard. The top of table should be a piece of clear glass.
Then put neg exposed for indoors into neg holder and switch on enlarger and focus. Then with light still on put a piece of card onto glass table top and tape on one edge into position. Then draw round window on the card and cut out the window from card. Then fold back card so its not in light path and place cutout on glass and align with window as projected on to it. Then place paper in easel and make image exposure for indoors. Then remove cutout, fold card back into position and place second neg in holder and align with hole in card and make window exposure. The umbra from cutout should overlap but you may need to play with size of cutout to get it right.
Obviously some test strips along the way too. A worthwhile learning exercise.

Also you may get away with just one neg and use the card to burn in only the window if the outside detail is actually on the neg but just very dense.

The more precise way is to use neg masking.
If you PM me your email address I will send you a document on how to do this.
Note that you can get away without a pin registration system by aligning negs on a lightbox by eye and taping together. Or possibly just putting your neg holder on light box and aligning neg and mask and carefully replace in enlarger.