"Expose for Shadows, Develop for Highlights"

Chris makes a good point.
you don't get consistency great results by not being consistent in how you approach your subject, And since light is the most important part of photo, (without it, you can't take a photograph), Exposure for different types and quality of light are just as important. I carry one camera, but, I pay attention to the light, in overcast sky's I have to allow for more exposure, or I get a thin negative... (not good).

I have been lucky so far, I also live in Central Indiana, where the light can change a few times a day this time of year. And I am finding that having a 2nd body for overcast times, would be a good idea. But, each one must make up their mind. You can certainly get usable results with one camera, and adj exposure when needed, but, that can only take you so far...And for me, I may at the point I need a 2nd body for -1 or so exposure adj. And have the 1st body as 0 to -.3 body..
 
Befuddled

Befuddled

I'm so confused. :confused:

I have recently ordered a new scanner and chemicals to begin developing my own film so I am following this thread closely. I understand the concept of metering a scene for the darkest area that one wishes to find detail. My confusion is with regard to the relationship between the highlights and development times. Can anyone recommend articles for further study? Is the relationship between ISO and development time part of this also?

Now that I have revealed my true ignorance, I will sit back and follow some more with great interest. Thanks to everyone here who offers so much of their experience so freely.
 
This thread has drifted way off the original subject, but I'm sure the OP wouldn't mind. So here is a idea I've been toying with and have tried, but with no conclusive results yet.

With roll film shoot at your determined EI and use that for your full sun or cloudy bright shots. Then when you have open shade or overcast or heavy overcast change the EI so that your standard roll development will compensate for the more narrow EVs of these scenes: e.i. raise the EI.

It has worked for me, but I'm not sure I'm 100% for it yet.
 
As John said, it can be done. It gives nice negatives for direct sun, and better negatives for soft light than just exposing flat scenes at the same ISO... What you get then is flat scenes' negatives that reach whites, but yet they're compressed. How much? It depends on how flat the scene was.

The best the OP can look for is a development time for overcast/shadows scenes, and a development time for sunny scenes. If working with one body is the idea, I'd go for soft light at box speed first, and after being able to get normal contrast negatives there, I'd experiment with half box speed with shorter than normal development for direct sun, and then twice box speed for pushing in low/very soft light with longer than normal development. But I'd spend some days at box speed without direct sun first, to get a good development for that common situation on normal bright overcast or under the shadows on a sunny day.

Cheers,

Juan
 
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If I had to shoot varying contrast scenes on one roll of film, I would expose all of the frames correctly for the shadows. Then I would do 1 of 2 things with development...

If I felt strongly that a given frame or frames had more importance or a greater chance of yielding something good, I would process for that contrast and possibly sacrifice others.

If I had no idea which frames would be better or more important, I would process for the contrasty scenes (shorter development), which would give flat negs for the less contrasty scenes. The idea being that it I can boost contrast in a flat negative when printing, but can't put detail back into blown highlights.

A third option might be just to change rolls. So you have some blank frames on one roll? Big deal.

But as I said earlier, this really doesn't come up for me as I would generally shoot so many frames that whole rolls are pretty much always shot in the same conditions.

Cheers,
Gary
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Basically, you want quality, it takes work. No getting around it. :p
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True, but it needs to be the right work. Please don't take this as a personal attack because I don't know you at all, but I find that many adherents to the Zone System have essentially fallen for the 'One True Path' fallacy. The Zone System is one way of getting printable negatives but there are plenty of others which produce equally usable results. If all other things are equal, the negatives of person X are not better than those of person Y, simply because person X used the Zone System and person Y didn't; and nor are they likely to be, provided person Y is using a valid and consistent method. It's a variation of the same fallacy which says that 'all other things being equal, my photos are better than yours because I'm using a Leica and you're using a Zorki'.
 
Ade-oh said:
True, but it needs to be the right work. Please don't take this as a personal attack because I don't know you at all, but I find that many adherents to the Zone System have essentially fallen for the 'One True Path' fallacy. The Zone System is one way of getting printable negatives but there are plenty of others which produce equally usable results. If all other things are equal, the negatives of person X are not better than those of person Y, simply because person X used the Zone System and person Y didn't; and nor are they likely to be, provided person Y is using a valid and consistent method. It's a variation of the same fallacy which says that 'all other things being equal, my photos are better than yours because I'm using a Leica and you're using a Zorki'.
Click to expand...

You're right that there are different ways to get perfect exposure. An incident light meter, used correctly, also works well, though its readings require some interpretation when used for negative film since it is a highlight-biased system (which is perfect for slide film or digital).

What most people do is use the built in meter in their camera, which is usually one that averages brightness of the whole scene. The problem is, that's basically a guess. If the whole scene or nearly all is the same tone, you can do that and add a couple stops for a white scene or subtract a couple for a very dark one, but most real-world scenes aren't that easy. Its just dumb luck that anyone gets a perfect exposure that way and though most people get 'usable' results, that's not good enough for me.

I shoot stuff that isn't running away, I have time to meter carefully with a spotmeter for my black and white work. I use an incident for my slides or digital work. Some people claim that putting so much effort into it isn't creative somehow. I heard that a lot from my classmates in college. It was just a defense from them because they did crap work, and instead of doing it right, they spouted that bull**** about creativity. You see that kind of laziness A LOT in art schools. A lot of kids think art school is some big fun party where you smoke lots of weed and don't have to work at anything while mom & dad pay for it all.

I went to school to learn to do photography the right way because I already had an idea of what I wanted to do with it, even at a young age. I work hard because that's what works for the kind of images I want to make. I preach that to others because people ask me all the time how I get the beautiful images that I make. I tell them how to do it, in detail. Some photographers I have met were dicks about that, they treated technical knowledge like some deep dark secret. To me, it frees me to be creative because I don't have to worry about the technical aspects...I know that stuff will be perfect, so I can concentrate on the image. I don't have a problem sharing my knowledge; just because I teach someone to expose and develop film precisely dosn't mean they're going to copy my style...they'll have their own vision and they'll have the freedom to make it work.

Sure, there are other ways that do work. There are also a lot of ways people on the internet push that are worthless. I tell people how I do it when they ask, but a lot of people tell me its not worth the effort. :p Problem is all the methods I know of that do work consistently, perfectly, every time, no exceptions, all require thought and work. Some ways work most of the time, but I have found it much better to do it right and get the results I want the first time. Some things are gone when you go back to reshoot if you screw up!

I am not offended by what you wrote, and hope I didn't offend you either, Ade. I am just explaining why I feel the way I do about my working methods.
 
Ade-oh said:
True, but it needs to be the right work. Please don't take this as a personal attack because I don't know you at all, but I find that many adherents to the Zone System have essentially fallen for the 'One True Path' fallacy. The Zone System is one way of getting printable negatives but there are plenty of others which produce equally usable results. If all other things are equal, the negatives of person X are not better than those of person Y, simply because person X used the Zone System and person Y didn't; and nor are they likely to be, provided person Y is using a valid and consistent method. It's a variation of the same fallacy which says that 'all other things being equal, my photos are better than yours because I'm using a Leica and you're using a Zorki'.
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Absolutely. The secret is to go to as much trouble as is reasonable, and to keep trying to get better.

From http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps zone.html,

Ten reasons why we do not use or recommend the zone system

Numerous excellent photographers use the Zone System, and if it suits you, do not let us dissuade you. If on the other hand you have been considering the Zone System, or (more still) if you have flirted with it and found it not to your liking, you may care to read the following.

First, the Zone System cannot be essential. There are at least as many great photographers who do not use the Zone System as there are who do use it.

[Points 2 to 9 omitted]

Tenth and finally, we find many adherents of the Zone System very hard to deal with. They can be rather like religious zealots who fix you with a beady eye and try to persuade you that their own particular world-picture is the only one that has any validity. Clearly, as evidenced by the first point above, they are wrong. But it is worse. Depressingly many are convinced that the Zone System is the foundation of sensitometry, rather than vice versa. More than once, we have come across Zonies who allege "Ah, yes, you are using the Zone System but you do not realize it." Well, no, you are using basic sensitometry -- and so is the Zone System. And quite a few Zonies are rotten photographers, too: technically excellent, but aesthetically hopeless, often recycling (badly) the subject matter of the Master, Ansel Adams, namely faux-wilderness pictures. The worst of them are not even technically excellent, but merely sad obsessives.

Cheers,

R.
 
SciAggie said:
I'm so confused. :confused:

I have recently ordered a new scanner and chemicals to begin developing my own film so I am following this thread closely. I understand the concept of metering a scene for the darkest area that one wishes to find detail. My confusion is with regard to the relationship between the highlights and development times. Can anyone recommend articles for further study? Is the relationship between ISO and development time part of this also?

Now that I have revealed my true ignorance, I will sit back and follow some more with great interest. Thanks to everyone here who offers so much of their experience so freely.
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This may help as a starter. Follow some of the other links inside it for more information: http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps neg density.html. It was written for wet printers; for scanning, the main thing is to avoid highlights so dense that the scanner cannot see through them. This often means slightly less exposure and development than would be optimum for wet printing.

Cheers,

R.
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
As John said, it can be done. It gives nice negatives for direct sun, and better negatives for soft light than just exposing flat scenes at the same ISO... What you get then is flat scenes' negatives that reach whites, but yet they're compressed. How much? It depends on how flat the scene was.

The best the OP can look for is a development time for overcast/shadows scenes, and a development time for sunny scenes. If working with one body is the idea, I'd go for soft light at box speed first, and after being able to get normal contrast negatives there, I'd experiment with half box speed with shorter than normal development for direct sun, and then twice box speed for pushing in low/very soft light with longer than normal development. But I'd spend some days at box speed without direct sun first, to get a good development for that common situation on normal bright overcast or under the shadows on a sunny day.

Cheers,

Juan
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I'll get a little more specific; I use 250 for my 400 films in direct sun and cloudy bright. Then for open shade (3 stops down from direct sun) is use EI 320-400. If heavy overcast (4 stops down or more for indoor), I use 400-500. You do get some minor density differences, but I can't tell yet if that is my metering variations or development. Unfortunately, I don't use 35mm except for vacations or family stuff so I don't use it consistently.
 
This is crazy – I actually woke up this morning thinking about this stuff, but I think I’ve got it.
The exposure index (EI) is a working ISO that specifically takes into consideration film choice, developer, developing technique, and any metering or camera variables that affect exposure.
The suggestion here is to actually determine an EI for high contrast scenes and low contrast scenes. This EI is matched with a development time for a particular chemical developer choice.
Once these values are determined by testing, one meters for the area of the photo where shadow detail is important. The previous EI/ development time testing takes care of the highlights.
Is this short summary about right?
 
SciAggie said:
This is crazy – I actually woke up this morning thinking about this stuff, but I think I’ve got it.
The exposure index (EI) is a working ISO that specifically takes into consideration film choice, developer, developing technique, and any metering or camera variables that affect exposure.
The suggestion here is to actually determine an EI for high contrast scenes and low contrast scenes. This EI is matched with a development time for a particular chemical developer choice.
Once these values are determined by testing, one meters for the area of the photo where shadow detail is important. The previous EI/ development time testing takes care of the highlights.
Is this short summary about right?
Click to expand...

That's about it.

(Plain black text would be easier to read).

Cheers,

E.
 
SciAggie said:
This is crazy – I actually woke up this morning thinking about this stuff, but I think I’ve got it.
The exposure index (EI) is a working ISO that specifically takes into consideration film choice, developer, developing technique, and any metering or camera variables that affect exposure.
The suggestion here is to actually determine an EI for high contrast scenes and low contrast scenes. This EI is matched with a development time for a particular chemical developer choice.
Once these values are determined by testing, one meters for the area of the photo where shadow detail is important. The previous EI/ development time testing takes care of the highlights.
Is this short summary about right?
Click to expand...

Yes, ASA, ISO, EI are alphabet soup (DIN is not included in the soup, it is related but the numbers are greatly different). They seem to be used interchangeably. They all have slight differences but close enough. And you have pointed one out.
 
I'd like to clarify one thing (and Roger, you can correct me if this is wrong).

For a given film and developer and working method, there is a correct EI. Technically the EI doesn't change for differing scene contrast or dev. time. When we say that we change the EI (like when I said shoot tri-x at 200), we are really just talking about a way to get the shadows exposed properly when using average metering or sunny 16 type rules of thumb. If you were metering the shadows with a spot meter, I don't think the EI would change.

Cheers,
Gary
 
charjohncarter said:
I'll get a little more specific; I use 250 for my 400 films in direct sun and cloudy bright. Then for open shade (3 stops down from direct sun) is use EI 320-400. If heavy overcast (4 stops down or more for indoor), I use 400-500. You do get some minor density differences, but I can't tell yet if that is my metering variations or development. Unfortunately, I don't use 35mm except for vacations or family stuff so I don't use it consistently.
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Hi John,

I develop soft light for a lot more minutes than sun, almost twice as long because I really compress sunny scenes, so I know the difference in contrast (compared to proper soft development) is huge even overexposing the soft ones on a sun roll if I develop for sun times...

But I was thinking, as I use mostly filters 2 and 1.5 for printing, I'd have a lot of room in wet printing for gaining contrast, so all this could be helpful sometimes if I have no time for a camera change being on sun if something fleeting comes in the shadows... So I decided to give it a try: as I ran out of Tri-X I went out to the sun to waste one of those Acros rolls that take me ages to disappear from the fridge... I shot some sunny scenes with yellow filter on my Hexar AF (in manual 1/250 f5.6 1/2), and in the middle of them I did shadows scenes (in auto, keeping the filter on as it would happen if a fast emergency comes) at N, N+1 and N+2... I'll develop it tomorrow and after a couple of wet prints I'll know if the soft ones can be fixed enough with filtering... That would be nice... I prefer that to developing for a middle point time and getting less clean shadows for the sunny scenes...

Cheers,

Juan
 
gns said:
I'd like to clarify one thing (and Roger, you can correct me if this is wrong).

For a given film and developer and working method, there is a correct EI. Technically the EI doesn't change for differing scene contrast or dev. time. When we say that we change the EI (like when I said shoot tri-x at 200), we are really just talking about a way to get the shadows exposed properly when using average metering or sunny 16 type rules of thumb. If you were metering the shadows with a spot meter, I don't think the EI would change.

Cheers,
Gary
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Hi Gary, sorry I'm not Roger... :)

As I see things, B&W film doesn't have an unique EI... At least not in the way color film works...

I use (for B&W only) different EIs, and I mean for my incident metering (not for spot / shadows checking) depending on the kind of light and contrast, for different development times, obviously... When development is extended, the medium values are affected too, even if the contrast is more readable from seeing the highlights printed. So, to ask your question from another point of view, to place a medium gray card close to its value both on sunny and soft scenes -on negative- if different development times are used, different EI values should be used for metering... In other words, I use my B&W film like slide film: once I decide both EI values and both development times for a new film, I know after a simple incident metering things will fall on place...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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