Grid lines? Exposure issues

[Liquid Artist]

Personally for your above photo shot on slide or colour film I'd meter on the main trees white bark.

On B&W film I'd meter on the dark bark, or dark foliage in the background. Then push a stop or 2 in processing.

But then again I have my own style which works for me, and I am certain everyone else here will do things differently.
Which is one of the things I love about this art.

Without reading all the posts. I imagine that you've tried different light meters, lenses, shutters, etc. If not I'd almost try using the sunny 16 rule instead of your meter, and work from there.

[cowanw]

Andrea
Metering off a grey card or grass is the equivalent to using a reflective meter as a incident meter.
Therefor, you might stick to using the incident meter in the light that is falling on the scene, to keep things simple until this gets figured out.
Then it has to be the shutter speed or fstop or ASA error. Therein lies the only things that change.
Metering to the shadows or to the highlights will improve a standard negative, but if you are getting black negatives then get back to standard and get a middle of the road negative or slide before starting to tweek things.
EV 9 with 100 ASA film would be f22 at 1 sec. or some other combination. It is overcast outside here today and that is the reading that I get. So your meter would seem to be OK. But you do have the correct speed entered on your meter?
I presume you are using those recommended shutter speed and f stop readings and not changing from them. (i.e. accidently closing down, for some reason)
You understand the difference between filter factor and number of fstops change?
You have checked your shutter speed, but does it sound right? Is it progressive if you change the speeds? I expect you have got that covered.
Are you sure you are setting the f stop correctly?
Take pictures at infinity so that you don't have to worry about bellows factor and take a quick shutter speed to avoid reciprocity.
Get totally back to minimum basics and see if a fellow Large format photographer can watch you take the picture to spot an error.
Have that person do the metering as well and take a negative if they will, or you take a negative as well.
I hope this may help.
You may want to start your own thread as the posts here may get confusing with more than one topic.

[Nigel Smith]

would anyone please elaborate on adding the 2 stops to the gray card reading in shadow?

this is how I think of it...

my meter wants to tell me an exposure that places the subject on zone 5.
I point it at a shadow that I want detail in (just to the left of the tree trunk) and take a reading
So that reading is trying to place the scene at zone 5, however I know that I want my shadow detail at zone 3, so I reduce exposure by 2 stops to move those shadows from 5 to 3.

The next step would be to take a reading of some hightlight that you want to keep detail in. lets say that rock in the left front. Meter that and check how many stops different it is from your adjusted zone 3 exposure (the one your going to use). If the reading is more than 5-6 stops then you might want to modify (reduce) development to accomodate, if it's less then 3, then extending development might be appropiate. Why I say 'might be appropiate' is you really need to do the tests to determine suitable times to 'make a difference' to your negatives so that they print on your paper how you desire. Remember, if printing traditionally, the film can record way more than the paper can display so to make printing easy, you need to keep this in mind. If scanning, then you can 'use' more of the films latitude as you can use multiple pass scans, etc to capture the range of densities captured by the film.

[Lenny Eiger]

On B&W film I'd meter on the dark bark, or dark foliage in the background. Then push a stop or 2 in processing.

Not directing this at you - this is a pet peeve of mine. I think the that the word "push" (and pull) should be driven from anywhere it is used to talk about film developing. "Push" doesn't actually happen in the way that it is described (it's against the laws of physics - or at least how film actually develops).

Most labs would offer to "push" film by n number of stops. They would suggest that if you shot a 100 speed film at 400, you could push two stops and get back to where you were. This is not true, as all of us know. "Pulling" won't lower a film's ISO, either.

Once we make an exposure, the shadow detail will be developed in (about) the first three minutes. You can not increase that by developing more. This means that a film's speed is controlled by its materials, not by the time of development.

Developing longer makes the highlight areas more dense. More development increases the distance between the shadows and highlights. We call that contrast. Developing longer increases the contrast, developing less lowers it.

You can't change a film's speed, at least not enough to make a difference with your meter. You can certainly change your exposure based upon where you point the meter... and there is a lot of variability there.

The terms "pushing" and "pulling" don't belong in our vernacular... they are deceptive... and lead people away from the truth as opposed to revealing it.

Just my 2 cents for the day...

Lenny

[Bernice Loui]

+1

Is this ever true.

Some years ago at a large local E6 and Kodachrome processing lab. They had a large viewing area with 5000K light boxes set up for viewing processed transparencies. One day while picking up and looking at some processed E6 film, the photographer next over got really bent after looking at his film that was "pushed" two stops, the contrast was really high and colors were way off. He was under the belief that push process increased actual film speed, but the results were a disaster for what the goals were.


This push-pull processing thing is actually bending the film curve and not altering the actual film speed. To do this properly, one needs to establish the actual film speed and development process ideally using a densitometer with controlled development and processing. Then altering exposure and development can follow with much better control.

Key to crafting good images is controlling and knowing how a given film and developer behaves alone with their image making personality.


Bernice

Not directing this at you - this is a pet peeve of mine. I think the that the word "push" (and pull) should be driven from anywhere it is used to talk about film developing. "Push" doesn't actually happen in the way that it is described (it's against the laws of physics - or at least how film actually develops).

Most labs would offer to "push" film by n number of stops. They would suggest that if you shot a 100 speed film at 400, you could push two stops and get back to where you were. This is not true, as all of us know. "Pulling" won't lower a film's ISO, either.

Once we make an exposure, the shadow detail will be developed in (about) the first three minutes. You can not increase that by developing more. This means that a film's speed is controlled by its materials, not by the time of development.

Developing longer makes the highlight areas more dense. More development increases the distance between the shadows and highlights. We call that contrast. Developing longer increases the contrast, developing less lowers it.

You can't change a film's speed, at least not enough to make a difference with your meter. You can certainly change your exposure based upon where you point the meter... and there is a lot of variability there.

The terms "pushing" and "pulling" don't belong in our vernacular... they are deceptive... and lead people away from the truth as opposed to revealing it.

Just my 2 cents for the day...

Lenny

[Jac@stafford.net]

Tri-X was originally designed to be used in a "controlled lighting...

Are you sure it was not T-Max?
.

[Kurtay Photography]

Are you sure it was not T-Max?
.

I used the both films, not 30-40 years ago but up until two years ago and home developed them myself. Dev chart has both films dev sheets.

TRI-X 320 is only available as 4x5 format and TRI-X 400 is available in 35-120 only, not available on 4x5 formats! See fact sheet attached. Perhaps you may wanna call and ask a dealer who stocks both films.

There are no T-Max 320!

[Neal Chaves]

If your exposure and development is accurate due to prior testing, placing a scene value on Zone VIII will render it as a "snow value" or very light caucasian skin value. Looks like the shadow values in the trees fell into correct place at about III and the grass where it should be at about V. Burn down the sky to bring out detail, or next time choose subject matter more suited to the range of the B&W film.

You need to run your own tests, but I have obtained good results from TriX and HP5+ at EI 100 and developed in HC110B for 5:00 at 68* or if you need more speed, rate at 400 and go 7:30 at 68*. If you look at the TriX chart in Phil Davis' "Beyond the Zone System" you can pick off his speed for 5:00 in HC110B as EI 64. I actually found 64 to be accurate in my own tests some years ago, but found that I could rate at 100 if I was careful to avoid underexposure. Now that I do mostly 8X10 and can use all the speed I can get outside, I ususally rate HP5+ at 400 and my N development is 7:30 at 68* in HC110B. For studio work in both 8X10 and smaller formats, where I have plenty of electronic flash power, I will rate at 100 because it produces slightly better skin tones.

My times are far off what is suggested in the Massive Development Chart, Adams or Picker. If you must rely on someone elses' data, try Davis.

Whatever you are doing, you are in the ball park.