Dumb questions of an idiot - landscape trial

[megapickle1]

I shot the picture shown below today at 19:30 at the shore of the Starnberger See near Munich. f 22 with 1/30 sec. ISO 100. My Pentax digital spotmeter gave me EV 15 for the white clouds over the hills (you don`t see them in the picture) and EV 11 for the opposite shore with trees. This reading give f16 with and 1/30 sec. I did several Fujiroid proofs with different ratings but all came out far to overexposed. Considering the humidity in the air over the lake the blue-ish appearance would be O.K. but where are my white clouds?
Now the very dumb question of a photografic idiot...why is this, what shall I do the next time?

Thanks in advance.
George

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[Brian C. Miller]

Not all photographic materials are equal. The Fuji instant film doesn't have much latitude at all. You need two filters: a ND split filter, and a haze filter. The ND filter will reduce the exposure difference between the sea and the clouds. The haze filter will reduce the atmospheric haze, and then you'll get the mountains and clouds to show better.

[Greg Miller]

Using the sunny 16 rule says you should expose at 1/100th at f16 (1/50th @ f22), but this scene is a high reflectance sea with a very bright sky, so even that would be overexposed. The histogram shows 95% of the tones of this photo is medium gray or brighter, so you are over exposed by around 2 stops. So you need to see what is happening with your metering. Was you meter's ISO set to 100?

A split ND filter would not help with this scene. It is unlikely to need one at 19:30, especially with a foreground with water (which is also overexposed in this photo) that should only be 1 stop darker than the sky.

[Heroique]

It would help if we knew the ev reading for the water.

Me, I suspect a 1-stop or 2-stop hard GND filter would be useful indeed.

[megapickle1]

Thank you for answering at all.
Well, regarding filters, specially split grade ones, it will be a little bit difficult to get one - filter thread 95mm at my Nikkor 300 W. Regarding Fujiroid my experiance is, the material is quite reliable in its behavior. Yes, Greg, the picture is overexposed by 3 stops if you look on the sky-part, but it is quite O.K. if you look an the opposite shoreline part. I think I have to wait for the negative to see the thruth.
@Heroique: the reading for the water was EV 14.
What I can not understand is, I have metered at the very brightest point in the scenery - white clouds. And they disappeared completely in the mist, the blue sky also. Maybe this is the answer, mist is the bad boy who steals the structure.

[Greg Miller]

The opposite shoreline still reads brighter than a medium gray (pull it into Photoshop and look at the histogram). You have virtually no tones below medium gray. So you could have exposed 2 stops less and been in good shape.

EV14 for the water proves my earlier comment. The water is only 1 stop less than the sky. A split ND will not help here.

The bottom line here is the image is overexposed by 2 stops. Exposing 2 stops less would have rendered sky with detail. So either the meter is wrong, or the meter settings were wrong, or the lens settings were wrong.

[Greg Miller]

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This is your histogram. The dot on the curve layer is the tonal value of the darkest part of the shore line. Also notice that the mean tonal value of the scene is 232 and the median is 254 (on a scale of 0 to 255). You are only using a small fraction of the exposure latitude of your film.

[megapickle1]

Thank you Greg! You are right, it is severely overexposed. But why?
The meter is very reliable and it was set to ISO 100. As a newbee to LF I am very anxious to transmit the readings to the shutter speed and the f-stops correctly, so there is no source of errors. The meter readings was 1 stop less than I shot the picture.
Could it be the humidity or the lack of sensitivity of the meter for blue? The latter would explain the disappearance of the blue sky. If I only would have a yellow filter for this huge lens! My biggest skylight filter has a 77mm diameter, so no chance for colour correction.
Aaarrrgh! It´s real work to haul the SinarP2 for half a mile and than a disappointing result.

George

[Old-N-Feeble]

My first move would be to buy a good Hoya UV filter. ;)

[Greg Miller]

If the meter is known to be good, then I would look at other possibilities. Is the lens's shutter known to be accurate? Maybe it is time for a CLA (or shoot the same scene with 2 different lenses (2 different shutters) to see if the 2 shutters are close. Perhaps it was human error. Did you pull the dark slide without closing the shutter? Did you set the shutter speed and aperture correctly on the lens?

The humidity/haze actually makes the scene less contrasty, so that would not contribute to overexposure. And while skylight or haze filters will help with this type of atmosphere, they only make a very small difference. You do need to be aware that anytime you have an overcast sky, it will appear to be very uniform gray or white. Even skies that appear to be light blue to your eye will appear white on film because film is more contrasty than we see. But these are all secondary issues to the overexposure issue.

[megapickle1]

Dear Greg!
The shutter is quite new and really accurate. I have shot some other pictures with it Saturday (similar f-stops and speeds) and they where as they should be. I do not believe in overnight failors. Yes, sometimes I forget to close the lens before pulling the darkslide but not today evening, I mostly check twice. At home again I checked the meter with an other one immediately, but the meters gave identical values from the greycard.
If you would have been with me out there I think you would be puzzeled too, as I am now. I was a really nice scenery with mild yellow-ish light, the white clouds appeared yellow-ish and the sky was really blue. There was some haze, but not to much. I do not bother with the blue-ish cast of the picture (it should be a bit pink or lilac) but with the overexposure. I can not understand this.
I should go to the West - Monument Valley or so. No haze, warm colours, no problems.
George

[Greg Miller]

By the way, don't get too depressed about this. If you plan to show narrow latitude film, you should calibrate your entire system anyway. Being even 1/2 stop off can ruin your shot. Go out tomorrow and burn several sheets of film. Meter the scene, and shoot it based on the meter reading. Then shoot a few more sheets at increasingly underexposed settings (no need to test with overexposing based on your example here). Assuming your system is consistently exposing incorrectly, this will tell you how much you need to alter the meter reading to get it right on film. Then you will be on your way. Although with narrow latitude film it may pay to bracket with 2 or more sheets.
.
When I was shooting Velvia, I would shoot 3 frames: 1 at what I thought was correct, another 1/3 under, and another 1/3 over. With experience I found I never overexposed - so from then on I would only expose 2 sheets (one at my "correct" expose, plus another 1/3 underexposed).

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Polaroid was so useful to LF photographers back in the day not just to get clents to buy off on the shot before committing to transparency but also to flag equipment or lighting problems.
My first guess is the shutter is running slow. Some will run slow but consistently slow. Get it timed with a CLA or do it yourself by building a sound-card tester for next to nothing.
Second guess is that someone may have thrown your lens cells in another shutter, one with the wrong aperture scale.

[David Lobato]

There is no reason to be puzzled. Your original post does not clearly rank the range of values from your light meter readings. So rephrasing what you stated:

EV 11 = f16, 1/30 sec opposite shore with trees
EV 12 = f22, 1/30 sec your exposure
EV 15 = f64, 1/30 sec the white clouds

For limited range color film, I expose white subjects 1-2 stops over. Thus your 3 stops overexposure is too much. And the opposite shore and trees is underexposed only one stop. I expose trees 2-3 stops less than the light meter reads. Thus the opposite shore needs 1-2 stops less exposure.

My calculation is that your exposure was 2 stops overexposed. Being that the sky is more prominent than the thin strip of opposite shoreline, overexpose the clouds one stop and underexpose the opposite shore 3 stops. So try an exposure based on EV 14 = f45, 1/30 sec.

[Old-N-Feeble]

I'm not sure I agree with underexposing the distant shore up to three stops. I think exposure would depend partly on the amount of haze. Underexposing that much could render the near waters very dark.

BTW, I posted earlier that my first step would be to buy a Hoya UV filter... and I would... but the near waters are overexposed too. My guess is a mistrake somewhere in the shooting process.

[David Lobato]

O-N-F, I thought about the water going too dark. But the haze will mush together the clouds and blue sky with even slight overexposure. Alternatively the exposure could be EV 13.5. Better yet, a yellow filter would cut the haze and better separate the clouds and blue sky, and allow ample exposure of the water.

edit - Oops, we're talking about color film. A yellow filter is not an option, but a strong UV filter would certainly help.

[Greg Miller]

IMHO the best filter for the haze is a polarizer. It will eliminate some of the scattered light that is present. But no filter will come close to making this look like a non-hazy day.

[Henry Larson]

Please!
If you do not know the answer there is NO SUCH THING as a dumb question.
You are out there trying and seeking help from the correct place.
I dont know the answer but I am sure somebody does.
Remember. Ask and keep shooting.

[Brian C. Miller]

Thank you for answering at all.
Well, regarding filters, specially split grade ones, it will be a little bit difficult to get one - filter thread 95mm at my Nikkor 300 W.

95mm filters are readily available, although they are quite pricey. You invested in the lens, and now it is time to invest in filters. You cannot get good results without them.

[Alan Gales]

The whole scene looks overexposed to me. Is your lens shutter accurate?

[Alan Gales]

Mechanical shutters may be accurate at some speeds but not all. When did the shutter last receive a CLA?

[Alan Gales]

Also mechanical shutters get slow sitting around. Did you "warm" up the shutter by firing it a few times before you took the shot?

You may have a mechanical problem with your shutter.

[Alan Gales]

I'm sorry. After re-reading I see where I missed the part where the shutter is accurate and near new.

[megapickle1]

Thank you guys for all of your suggestions!
I did several shots there with instant film, because the very first picture was supprisingly overexposed. I only changed the f-stop from 16 to 22 1/3 but the results were similar. So the shutter is not to blame. UV-filter is an option and I´ll try to get one in a fitting diameter. The conclusio is to get out there and burn more film to find out the reason for this phenomena. It´s not the cheapes way though. In the meantime I remain to be a little idiot.

George

[Old-N-Feeble]

George... Lighten up on yourself. I can beat myself up enough for the both of us... and I'm used to it so I can't hurt my own feelings. I have enough courage and self-confidence to tell myself to STFU without insulting myself. I recommend you learn to do the same. But do it with your silent inner voice so other folks don't look at you funny. ;)

[Alan Gales]

George, Old-N-Feeble is right. Don't fret it.

The only people who don't make mistakes are the ones who don't do anything!

[megapickle1]

Hallo Guys! I´m not depressed at all I´m only fed up a little bit because I can not understand it and why. Today it wasn´t the weather fro a re-shoot, too much wind and dark clouds at the lake.

George

[megapickle1]

O.K. I´ve tested my lens and my shutter. Nothing wrong with them as you can see in the attatched pictures. Please forgive the load of dust, my crappy all-in-one scanner is full of it (inside). Shots on 3x4 Fuji instant with 4x5 back a Nikkor 300 W lens at 1/2 sec. and f 22 (window light at home).

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George

[rdenney]

You haven't said where you placed your reading.

My meter tells me that EV15 clouds should get 1/60 at f/22 (ISO100), to be placed on Zone V. My experience with Fujiroid is that two stops brighter will be blown out, and two stops darker will be getting rather muddy. So, exposing those EV15 clouds on 1/30 at f/22 probably had the intention of placing them on Zone VI, but in fact placed them on Zone VIII or IX, just because of the contrast of that material.

And what part of the clouds? The brightly lit parts, or the shadowed parts of their undersides? If the latter, I might want those exposed a bit less than Zone V if I wanted any separation at all of the brighter bits. That might easily require two stops less exposure than what you gave it.

Also, at the ends of the range, the separation shrings, because of the S shape of the characteristic curve. I have never measured that for Fujiroid, but it's there. The haze would minimize the differences in tonal values, and to preserve those differences, one might need to bring them down to the Zone IV-V range where the curve is steepest.

In the end, I think it comes down to where you decided to place the reading you took on the tonal scale, not to the accuracy of what you measured.

Rick "for whom Fujiroid is a reasonable model for general exposure checking purposes for Velvia" Denney

[megapickle1]

Dear Rick,
I placed my meter reading at the brightest spot in the scenery first - the disappeared white clouds. Then I metered on the opposite shoreline and checked the contrast. It was O.K. because I´ve got the same value for the opposite shore as with the metering of the white clouds would give to this part.
I have tried some messing with Lightroom but the only channel which changed the result was the blue one. I turned off the luminance of blue and the whole picture became underexposed. But the white clouds remained not visible at all.
Please note, that I´m not using the real Zone System. I only measure the brightest, the middle and the darkest part of a scenery, like I did with the two b/w shots above. Most of the shots came out very good in the coulor pictures too. Maybe you are right with the gradation curve (sorry, I have no other word for it) of the Fuji instant film. Is there a possibility that my Pentax digital spotmeter has a very small sensitivity for blue?
Well, I`ll now the thruth next week when I get the film back from the lab. I´ve done some other landscapes last week and all the Fujiroid proofs came out quite right, means the meter works, the shutter works properly too. I don´t want to bother you all with these shots here.

Thank you for your help!
George

[Old-N-Feeble]

A lot of blue, huh? Hmm...

[Leonard Evens]

Just an aside.

A scene like this will be very hard to photograph with slide film because of the film's limited latitude. It should be possible to do a reasonable job with color negative film.

[megapickle1]

Thanks Leonard! Your opinion give me some hope, I had Ektar in the holders.
George

[megapickle1]

Horraayy!
Finaly I´ve got the negs back from the lab and a low res. scan of the scenery. Everything is O.K. with the lens, the shutter and the light meter. The Fuji instant seems to be deteriorated or it has a very high sensitivity for blue.
The picture below is the sole shot on film I´ve made there on film (Ektar) with another angle of view to the bay of Tutzing. Well, the picture is technically a crap (thou shalt not photograph a lake in windy weather) not really in focus but the colours are exactly as they were and as I´ve seen them.

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George

[megapickle1]

Its definitly the Fuji instant film. I have tried it today evening again with a new cartridge of FP100C45 - the picture I´ve got was as my first one - blue.
George

[wentbackward]

Did you use the development timings of the BW instant film by mistake? I made that mistake before.