Metering and closure technique for shooting Velvia 50 straight into the sun at sunset

[l2oBiN]

I have a coastal photo in mind that involves shooting straight into the sun just above the horizon at sunset or sunrise.

I would like to capture as much details in the clouds and the foreground (dark rocks).

I would also like to capture this on Velvia 50.

What is the best technique when it comes to metering and setup of exposure in this scenario?

[Pere Casals]

Use spot metering, a SLR can do it.

Take a 35mm roll and bracket exposures to know how sky, clouds, water, trees etc are depicted from +2 to -4 local spot exposure.

Repeat that with filters.

The shot you describe may require a ND graded filter and perhaps a Pol, so it's interesting you get practice with metering with that. Filtering may be important with velvia and contrasty scenes.

Some meters may read different depending on the color, so it's better to test spot over/under exposure in the different subjects with 35mm bracketings.

[BrianShaw]

That’s a tough assignment!

[Jim Jones]

Without a spot meter, block the light directly from the Sun with your hand and meter for the sky, water, or trees.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I have shot directly into the sun and typically you will get a white dot in the center that flares out if you want detail else where. I took pictures of the solar eclipse last year and I used 21 stops, plus I stopped down to f/64 and I was still at around 1/500 of a second iso 50 I believe (just to give an idea of how bright that ball of gas is).

What I typically do is use a reverse grad nd (I have a .9 -3 stop-), but you could use a 1.5 (5 stop) and combine it with another 1.5 or .9, then expose for the areas you want properly exposed. The reverse grad works well because the sun typically wipes out the horizon, but the brightness falls off quickly the higher up you go. The foreground can be annoying to expose well.

I also use 2-bath pyro or slimt to develop. This seems to help the highlights as well. The dslr spot meter seems to be off when I use it, but that is not to say it won't work if you know how it responds compared to a dedicated film spot meter. (mainly because you have to go thru the lens with a dslr to get the metering whereas, a regular dedicated spot meter does not)


Sun was upper right, just out of frame. No filters in this case.

[IMG]201800901_0115_20181015_Working by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Velvia will be a real pita too.

[Maris Rusis]

I'd try this as a double exposure. Shoot the scene with the sun just out of frame, lens shaded, and a grad ND to hold the sky down. Then leave the camera unmoved until the sun slides into the frame and sits on the horizon. Make a very short second exposure so only the sun-disk registers on film. Job done!

Here's an example of the technique done on black and white film:

Wave Break, Noosa Beach
Gelatin-silver photograph on Kodak Polymax Fine Art VC FB, image area 24.7cm x 19.6cm,
from a Tri-X Pan Professional negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension 8x10 field view camera
with a Fujinon-W 300mm f5.6 lens and #25 red filter. Two exposures were made.

[Mark Darragh]

A beautiful photograph as always Maris. I've never thought of trying a technique like that in that scenario. My own experiences with double exposure on transparency have generally resulted in soft images, probably as a result of film movement between exposures.


Marko, one suggestion you might find useful is to pick conditions where you have thin high cloud or haze which can take the edge off the sun's intensity.

Below is an example shot in the conditions mentioned using Velvia 50 with a .9 hard grad. The haze lowered the brightness of the sun to a manageable level while the snow provided plenty of reflected "fill" light in the foreground.


All the best

[LabRat]

It flattens out the contrast + saturation a lot, but if you shoot the scene at +1 EV, and pull E6 processing -1, it will record a longer scale...

But this should be done with fresh film, and decide if the look is right for you...

Steve K

[l2oBiN]

Mark, this is the kind of photo I am envisioning, however there is no snow for fill. I did shoot off a couple of sheets of velv 100 in the past metering just besides the sun (~LV 14) and setting this at plus +1 2/3 (foreground was quite dark to meter and the sun was setting fast) and then adding a 3stop reverse nd and adding 3 stops exposure for the filter. I got some details in the foreground but just not enough. I needed a stronger reverse ND. I estimate that possibly a 5 stop ND might start doing the trick.. but I don’t have an additional reverse ND to check...

The other possibility is to try a combination of hard ND and a reverse ND...

It’s hard to judge the result though giving how fast the sun drop as it gets closer to sunset....

This is where your experience would be useful before I start investing in filters ...