How to meter this scenery

Today at a walk I found a ‘perfect’ subject for a 6x17. Now this subject itself is impossible to meter.
Attachment 238283
iPhone image is horrible

Thinking of color Portra or E100.
It’s a dark stream with green ‘grasses’ in the water. I’m going to use a polarising filer, and meter through this.
So I can meter of a grey card, use this value
Meter the back water and place this in zone 2 1/2
Meter the grass next to the stream, place this at zone 5

Going to bracket, but like to have the shot ‘perfect’ metered.

You may need to hold back the upper shore and burn a little of the foreground grass while printing. I'd meter the upper shore and place on a low zone with some texture. That is standard practice in exposing negative material. An average meter reading would probably be fine too maybe with an extra stop added to ensure some detail in the upper shore.

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Originally Posted by ic-racer

You may need to hold back the upper shore and burn a little of the foreground grass while printing. I'd meter the upper shore and place on a low zone with some texture. That is standard practice in exposing negative material. An average meter reading would probably be fine too maybe with an extra stop added to ensure some detail in the upper shore.

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Some more explanation of the shot,I was a bit to quickly with my post.
I would only put the stream in the composition, the stream is quite black, and some lichter greens in the stream. The iPhone image is not so good.

Take an incident light reading…

Metering the grass should get you close.

If you're using E100, my advice and assuming you have a light meter that allows you to do this (if not you'll have to do some mental math): use incident metering, measure two points: the darkest point and the lightest point in the scene, store both in the meter and average them. Don’t worry too much where exactly, just get two points that look like the extremes, you’ll adjust from there anyway. So now that average will get you a shutter speed on the meter at the chosen aperture. Now check that the scene is within +/- 2 stops of that by reading delta stops across the entire scene. If the range is roughly centered and within +/-2 stops you are done. If within +/- 2.5 stops you could 1) choose to accept it, or 2) open the aperture 1/4-1/3 of a stop (best to overexpose by a tiny bit than underexposing IMO [but that's your choice in terms of what you want to achieve!]. If the readings point to a -1 to +3 stop range and so it's not centered, you adjust the shutter speed accordingly (shortening by half); if the readings point to -3 to +1 then you do the opposite, lengthen the exposure by a factor of 2. Adjustments of half a stop or less can be made by adjusting the aperture. If the reading is outside this window, say +/-3 stops or more then you either have to 1) use color neg 2) bracket 3) come back when there's better light (less extreme range) or 4) accept that you'll get something suboptimal (underexposed, overexposed, or both). Btw don't forget to compensate by the polarizer loss on top of that. And do not ignore the fractional reading of the meter (eg. It may say F22 and 5/10 so you need to change the aperture accordingly, slides don’t have large tolerance for error).

For the Portra, I'd meter the dark embankment area in the upper right and place that on a low zone that holds good texture. Then, I'd check the highlight areas just to see where they fall, but I wouldn't worry about 'em. For the E100, I'd use my Sekonic L-558 to average measurements between the dark embankment and highlights, then scan the entire scene with the meter to see where all the tones are falling in relation to this average reading. Based on this info, I'd make a reasonable exposure determination and bracket to be sure.

Compensate for polarizer brightness loss. I kinda like seeing the clouds in the water though.
For portra make sure the shadows have adequate exposure for texture and take the photo.
For E100, determine if the range of brightnesses will fit into what E100 will handle.

All the zone stuff is for custom developing B&W film.

It will be fun to see the results with the polarizing filter. It should be able to take a lot of blue (cyan?) out of the reflected light coming from the sky. The play of the sunlight on the underwater plants is great.

It's actually an easy scene to meter with silicon spot meter like the Pentax. I've done it thousands of times. Darker green grass is a good substitute for a gray card, and lighter green grass like in the foreground is about a stop above. E100 needs to be exposed more accurately then Porta, and the results will be quite different. A spot meter will allow you to meter the stream highlights too. A polarizing filter just complicates things. If you meter through that it has to be at the exact angle to the sun and rotation position as on the camera itself. Smarter just to meter without it, and apply its official filter factor afterwards. But a polarizer could also kill a sparkly subject like that if overdone. I never use them.

When metering for color it's best to forget the Zone System and just think about deviance from box speed midpoint. With chrome film, you're only going to get decent color reproduction about a stop and a half above midpoint down to a stop and a half below. Porta will provide a lot more latitude at lower contrast, but with the penalty of less color saturation. Ektar color neg film will give you the saturation, with about half a stop more latitude either direction than Ektachrome.

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Originally Posted by Vaughn

It will be fun to see the results with the polarizing filter. It should be able to take a lot of blue (cyan?) out of the reflected light coming from the sky. The play of the sunlight on the underwater plants is great.

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Yes, I can’t wait to go to this place again. But it will be probably in about two weeks. The weather doesn’t seems good.

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Originally Posted by Drew Wiley

It's actually an easy scene to meter with silicon spot meter like the Pentax. I've done it thousands of times. Darker green grass is a good substitute for a gray card, and lighter green grass like in the foreground is about a stop above. E100 needs to be exposed more accurately then Porta, and the results will be quite different. A spot meter will allow you to meter the stream highlights too. A polarizing filter just complicates things. If you meter through that it has to be at the exact angle to the sun and rotation position as on the camera itself. Smarter just to meter without it, and apply its official filter factor afterwards. But a polarizer could also kill a sparkly subject like that if overdone. I never use them.

When metering for color it's best to forget the Zone System and just think about deviance from box speed midpoint. With chrome film, you're only going to get decent color reproduction about a stop and a half above midpoint down to a stop and a half below. Porta will provide a lot more latitude at lower contrast, but with the penalty of less color saturation. Ektar color neg film will give you the saturation, with about half a stop more latitude either direction than Ektachrome.

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Drew, I have the Pentax V. Normally the kind of scenery I photograph have a lot of different places to meter. This is just something dark with greens. Until now 95% of my images come out as expected. The other 5% are mostly the one on vacation where I don’t have the time to proper measure the scenery.
I know you like Ektar a lot, but after all my years of photography (43) I still find this a difficult film, even more then E6.

I’m feeling insecure because this could be finally an image to put on my wall.

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Originally Posted by PatrickMarq

Drew, I have the Pentax V. Normally the kind of scenery I photograph have a lot of different places to meter. This is just something dark with greens. Until now 95% of my images come out as expected. The other 5% are mostly the one on vacation where I don’t have the time to proper measure the scenery.
I know you like Ektar a lot, but after all my years of photography (43) I still find this a difficult film, even more then E6.

I’m feeling insecure because this could be finally an image to put on my wall.

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Are you having problems with printing from the Ektar negative or scanning the film and post editing to get the colors right in the digital file?

Perhaps it would be worth simplifying metering to see if it is either just as good, easier, or better than fussing with a spot meter.

Ektar 100 can be challenging and I found it to be quite amenable to simple general-coverage reflective or incident light metering in most situations. I don’t like the look but that’s what worked for me when I tried it.

With your vast experience I’m sure that you’ve compared spot metering techniques to the simpler alternatives and concluded that more often than not there is little reason to fuss with spot metering. The important thing to know is when spot metering adds value to the task at hand.

I completely appreciate your concern… with a long journey to a pretty scene you really want to succeed!

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Originally Posted by Alan Klein

Are you having problems with printing from the Ektar negative or scanning the film and post editing to get the colors right in the digital file?

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Alan, No, I have my system for scanning and converting negatives. I think it’s more like Brian Shaw says ‘It’s the look’.

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Originally Posted by PatrickMarq

Alan, No, I have my system for scanning and converting negatives. I think it’s more like Brian Shaw says ‘It’s the look’.

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I've seen a lot of Ektar scans posted here and the colors are often "off". Drew has claimed that exposure has to be right on or the colors will shift. Or it could be their scan and adjustment processes. This is why I like chromes.

Hi Patrick. Ektar has a little more latitude than chrome film, but is fussier in terms of often needing to correction to the lighting color temperature using filters. I've discussed the issue more on the Photrio forum than here. But basically, it's a hundred times easier to do with the correct filter at the time of exposure itself than struggling to digitally post-correct it afterwards. It's probably the best neutral-balanced color neg film ever, but isn't artificially warmed like traditional portrait films, and does suffer from blue/cyan crossover issues if not carefully exposed. Every shot of it I'll be printing from tomorrow all through summer involved some kind of filter over the lens, like a Hoya 1B Skylight, or Sing-Ray KN one, or an 81A or KR1.5, depending. Post-scan adjustments won't easily salvage curve crossover issues once they're hard-baked into the film after exposure. That distinction makes all the difference between so-so color and really clean hues which can compete with chrome films. So, I strongly advise having along at least a KR1.5 or similar skylight filter whether you intend to print digitally via scanning or direct optical enlargement. Same issue either way.

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Originally Posted by Drew Wiley

Every shot of it I'll be printing from tomorrow all through summer involved some kind of filter over the lens, like a Hoya 1B Skylight, or Sing-Ray KN one, or an 81A or KR1.5, depending. Post-scan adjustments won't easily salvage curve crossover issues once they're hard-baked into the film after exposure. That distinction makes all the difference between so-so color and really clean hues which can compete with chrome films. So, I strongly advise having along at least a KR1.5 or similar skylight filter whether you intend to print digitally via scanning or direct optical enlargement. Same issue either way.

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Drew, thank you.
I had no idea that Ektar could benefit with filters. If I go through all of my negatieves it’s almost all Ilford Delta or Kodak Porta.
For E6 I use some filters. As my work always ends up digital I want the baked-in film characteristics to stay this way, and always get it wright in film.

The major disappointment may come not from an incorrect metering (I would not worry about that at all if I used Portra or Ektar), but from the use of polarizer and relatively long exposure times. Longer exposure times may "blur" the underwater weeds (turn them into an unpleasant mess). I would experiment with digital to replicate and assess the look at exact same shutter speed as film demands before exposing film. For that reason Portra 400 may be a better choice over E100.

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Originally Posted by SergeyT

The major disappointment may come not from an incorrect metering (I would not worry about that at all if I used Portra or Ektar), but from the use of polarizer and relatively long exposure times. Longer exposure times may "blur" the underwater weeds (turn them into an unpleasant mess). I would experiment with digital to replicate and assess the look at exact same shutter speed as film demands before exposing film. For that reason Portra 400 may be a better choice over E100.

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Sergey, Oh yes. I have not taken that in account.
So never to old to learn :cool:

Either meter for Ektar CORRECTLY like you would for chrome film or forget it. Or else don't complain later. It has nowhere near the latitude as Portra. DO worry about it. But it's those steeper dye-response curves like in Ektar and chrome films which yield better hue differentiation and cleaner saturation. Polarizerrs introduce their own set of problems, including an annoying greenish cast in the cheaper ones.

For such a scene on transparency film I would consider balancing the exposure with a 2-stop hard grad ND filter, with the clear transition following the shoreline in the upper right. I think you will struggle capturing the dynamic range otherwise. A polariser can be used in addition, if required.

With Portra it should be easily doable with just the polariser.

Use "Sunny 16" rule and compensate for the Polarizing filter.

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Originally Posted by Willie

Use "Sunny 16" rule and compensate for the Polarizing filter.

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+1

I must say, the scene was perfectly metered, but the camera moved a but down after focussing. I had not enough room to move around so perhaps pushed the legs ?
I have used the grey card, and then did some calculations for the filters.
Still sharp but not what I wanted, so now I need to wait until next year.

You’ve got 2.3 stops or so before you blow the highlights on a transparency. Meter the highlights with a spot meter, expose +2.3 stops and bracket from there. If with negative film. Meter the grass and even add a stop extra to fill in the shadows.

Just for grins, when I see those interesting reflections of clouds, I’d even bracket 2/3 stop under my lowest bracket, to drop the other ambient light and call attention to those reflections, if shooting slides (or negative, too, really).

Please share the finished product in this thread!

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Originally Posted by Kerosene Hat

You’ve got 2.3 stops or so before you blow the highlights on a transparency. Meter the highlights with a spot meter, expose +2.3 stops and bracket from there. If with negative film. Meter the grass and even add a stop extra to fill in the shadows.

Just for grins, when I see those interesting reflections of clouds, I’d even bracket 2/3 stop under my lowest bracket, to drop the other ambient light and call attention to those reflections, if shooting slides (or negative, too, really).

Please share the finished product in this thread!

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What if the ground is in shade?

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Originally Posted by Alan Klein

What if the ground is in shade?

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Then the ground is in shade…not sure I understand. I just see in the scene a chance for some interpretation and often, chromes look good when underexposed slightly. It all depends on the highlight density. Not a lot of latitude to play with and you have to make your compromises…one poster said an ND grad, which could also help.

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Originally Posted by Kerosene Hat

You’ve got 2.3 stops or so before you blow the highlights on a transparency. Meter the highlights with a spot meter, expose +2.3 stops and bracket from there. If with negative film. Meter the grass and even add a stop extra to fill in the shadows.

Just for grins, when I see those interesting reflections of clouds, I’d even bracket 2/3 stop under my lowest bracket, to drop the other ambient light and call attention to those reflections, if shooting slides (or negative, too, really).

Please share the finished product in this thread!

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Attachment 242987
6x17
So, the whole idea was that the dark part was more in the middle of the composition.

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Originally Posted by Kerosene Hat

Then the ground is in shade…not sure I understand. I just see in the scene a chance for some interpretation and often, chromes look good when underexposed slightly. It all depends on the highlight density. Not a lot of latitude to play with and you have to make your compromises…one poster said an ND grad, which could also help.

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Well, that was my point. What if the ground is sunny, then exposing like you do would work. But if it's in the shade, then it will come out black and you might need a grad ND filter. It's good to check the ground with a meter and see if there are too many stops from the sky.