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

[Steven Ruttenberg]

If you have a regular ND combine that with the reverse grad nd. You could also try dodging for the sun while making the exposure. That can tame the sun as well. I would envision doing this for about 75% of the exposure time as a guess to start. Use with grad nds as well.

[Mark Darragh]

If you need additional density near the horizon you could try inverting a regular ND grad and placing the transition line across the transition of the reverse grad. Opposing standard ND grads is one technique which can give an effect similar to a reverse grad.

Keep an open mind as far as your film choices too. In the situation you describe, personally, I would be inclined to use Provia rather than any of the Velvias. Ektar 100 might also work well too. In the past I’ve never been that happy with Ektar but in recent times I completely changed my workflow with for colour negs and I have been pleasantly surprised how closely Ektar can resemble transparency film but with much more latitude.

One further challenge of shooting directly into the sun is flare. The image below is probably similar to what you have in mind. In this case, there is some slight flare in the bottom right corner which I chose not to edit out. Shot in May, the sun was about a month from its most northerly point therefore more atmosphere to temper its intensity and high cloud doing some filtering too. Velvia RVP 50 with a .9 ND hard grad.


Look forward to seeing the results of your work.

[Willie]

If possible go and do a test exposure before the "real thing". Atmospheric haze, humidity, smoke and the like will all have an effect on the brightness of the sun in the frame. A couple basic test exposures will show you how to be 'in the ballpark' when you are going for the real image.

[Pfsor]

If possible go and do a test exposure before the "real thing". Atmospheric haze, humidity, smoke and the like will all have an effect on the brightness of the sun in the frame. A couple basic test exposures will show you how to be 'in the ballpark' when you are going for the real image.

You must be speaking about digital photography, right?
When it comes to Velvia 50 film photography in this case I have other advice to the OP - unless you like playing lottery, just forget about Velvia 50 for this kind of situations... Just my MO.

[Alan Klein]

Bracket each different setup.

[Drew Wiley]

Spot meters aren't immune from flare. But I'd rather use a handheld one instead of TTL. My Pentax digital spotmeters are all equipped with supplementary shades. But if the idea is to capture as much detail as possible, both flare and Velvia are going to work against you. Certainly not a good film choice for that kind of situation.

[Bob Salomon]

I’ve only been in photography since the early 50s but please tell me what “closure” is!

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Here is an initial image. I added a bit too much green saturation, but I am too tired to fix right now as this is just to show the difficult image I am working with. Still needs a lot of work, but I also need to step back for a bit as it took me quite a bit to get a usable image. You can definitely see the severe vignetting of the lens at f/16 in this image. Didn't put on flickr as that site seriously dicks with the image. This is no where near the final image, but like stated, it is example of what I am working with. The sky was indeed that saturated, if not more so for the real sky too. Foreground could have used way more exposure, but the sky wouldn't let me. No one on this trip got a great image either digital or film. This was a royal pain of a scene.

Nikkor 75mm f/4.5@f/16 and 1 second. Polarizer filter, shot on Provia 100 RDPIII. I was focusing on the sky trying not to blow it out. This is directly into the sun.


https://www.steveruttenbergphotograp...aff5#hbfdcaff5

[Pere Casals]

If you need additional density near the horizon you could try inverting a regular ND grad and placing the transition line across the transition of the reverse grad. Opposing standard ND grads is one technique which can give an effect similar to a reverse grad.

Keep an open mind as far as your film choices too. In the situation you describe, personally, I would be inclined to use Provia rather than any of the Velvias. Ektar 100 might also work well too. In the past I’ve never been that happy with Ektar but in recent times I completely changed my workflow with for colour negs and I have been pleasantly surprised how closely Ektar can resemble transparency film but with much more latitude.

One further challenge of shooting directly into the sun is flare. The image below is probably similar to what you have in mind. In this case, there is some slight flare in the bottom right corner which I chose not to edit out. Shot in May, the sun was about a month from its most northerly point therefore more atmosphere to temper its intensity and high cloud doing some filtering too. Velvia RVP 50 with a .9 ND hard grad.


Look forward to seeing the results of your work.

Really a lot of wisdom in a few lines.

[l2oBiN]

Mark, I am trying to visialise what you are saying with the opposing grad idea. The hard grad and standard grad have a middle transition on my filters. Are you saying to push the filter 1/2 up the holder so it’s NDedge start in the middle of the image?