How to avoid blown out skies

[teddy]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I use a sekonic L308S, and meter by facing the subject and pointing the meter directly at the camera position, I scan the negatives using a plustek 8200i. Silly question but how do I meter the sky, point the light meter to the sky and take a reading?

Just point to the sky using reflective metering. Just remember, if the sky is, lets say a "mid blue", expect it to come out a mid grey. You will be fine pointing the meter at the sky. There's lots of very fine discerning suggestions here, but for a beginner, point it at the sky. Expect more or less everything to fall to according to the light.

Once you get more experience at what to point the meter to, you can achieve more sophisticated results by pointing at things around that are more or less "middle grey".

 

[FujiLove]

Just point to the sky using reflective metering. Just remember, if the sky is, lets say a "mid blue", expect it to come out a mid grey. You will be fine pointing the meter at the sky. There's lots of very fine discerning suggestions here, but for a beginner, point it at the sky. Expect more or less everything to fall to according to the light.

Once you get more experience at what to point the meter to, you can achieve more sophisticated results by pointing at things around that are more or less "middle grey".

Hmmm...not sure this is a good idea with colour negative film, which is what the OP uses. Your suggestion sounds more like metering slide film. On days with very bright skies (presumably the ones causing the problems), pointing a reflective meter at the sky will result in severely underexposed images, which is the worst thing you can do with colour negative film. Colour neg responds best when it's given somewhere between a little and a lot of over-exposure. Underexposure makes colour negative film look muddy and generally unpleasant in my experience.

One of the lovely things about it is you don't really have to use a meter. If in doubt, give it tons of light and it will generally be just fine.

 

[teddy]

Hmmm...not sure this is a good idea with colour negative film, which is what the OP uses. Your suggestion sounds more like metering slide film. On days with very bright skies (presumably the ones causing the problems), pointing a reflective meter at the sky will result in severely underexposed images, which is the worst thing you can do with colour negative film. Colour neg responds best when it's given somewhere between a little and a lot of over-exposure. Underexposure makes colour negative film look muddy and generally unpleasant in my experience.

One of the lovely things about it is you don't really have to use a meter. If in doubt, give it tons of light and it will generally be just fine.

You're right, for E6 I do exactly that. He will be fine pointing the meter at the sky - with black and white film.

Here's an example - in South Australia during summer with super bright light which can be harsh. I used a Y/G filter, the meter using reflection pointed at the sky. Good thing it was blue.

Leica M3, Leitz Summicron 35/2 Type 1, Green Filter, Fuji Acros 100

Rolleiflex and a polarizer. I wanted more sky blue. Metered the sky with the Rolleiflex pointing up (hard).
Thumbling around shifting the polarizer. Click shutter. Bingo.

Rolleiflex Xenotar 75/3.5, Warming Filter, Kodak Ektar 100... Polarizer overkill. No need.

 

[jazzwave]

Many things can make your sky or cloud over exposure
1. "Wrong" exposure, do lower -1/3-2 stop exposure than normal you use. By add speed or higher F. Shadow area become darker....,your choice
2. Film and process , especially in BW some film has high contrast
3. Lens, some lens has high contrast

I did some test shots (trial & error) to understand the characteristic of my M4P+Voigtlander 35/1.4.

If you scan and do digital post processing, you can "cure" blow out skies.
In PS6, there is feature called Shadow/Highlight, you can lowering exposure of highlight without impact to shadow area.


~ron~

 

[teddy]

Here's a good example.

This was taken using FujiPro 400H, on a very bright sunny day. I started with Sunny 11, then opened up 3 stops for open shade.I may have opened up another stop just to be safe because I was in the forest, but can't be certain.
Regardless, the blue sky is 3-4 stops overexposed from what I would normally expose for sunny blue sky.


Untitled by Colton Allen, on Flickr

You did well. Thumbs up.

 

[Rangefinder 35]

If the sky density is important, I bracket the shot in camera, trying to shoot with tripod, changing exposure time, and leaving f-stop the same, scan film in RAW, then combine the 2 brackets in PS.

 

[peterm1]

I would be inclined to shoot at perhaps half a stop less than you normally would based on the meter which almost certainly is being unduly affected by the bright sky.

The bigger problem though, it seems to me is the question of how you do your printing? Even if the negatives are well exposed in highly contrasty situations like this I would bet that the sky will still look overblown in the prints as that is how the lab will print them. This is likely to be a significant part of the problem I would wager as most labs just run the things through a machine and you get whatever comes out.

 

[Fixcinater]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I use a sekonic L308S, and meter by facing the subject and pointing the meter directly at the camera position, I scan the negatives using a plustek 8200i. Silly question but how do I meter the sky, point the light meter to the sky and take a reading?

You should be able to alter the scan's overall exposure and retain highlight detail, then pull up the shadows in post processing. I bet you can re-scan the negs you thought the sky was lost on and get detail there.

Pro400H should take a helluva lot of overexposure, same for Portra (even better than Fuji's offering, in my experience).

If you need less contrast in your neg to suit the scanner, like I do with my cheapo Canon 9000F, you can alter it in the camera: polarizer, slight overexposure to bring shadow detail higher on the curve but that can sometimes be counter productive due to the density it would place your highlights at, which would make the scanner even less able to get in there and get detail.

 

[Ronald M]

Back lighted subject which is overexposed. Naturally the rest of the scene blown out!!

Range of brightness is too bright for any film.

Cure is fill flash for rock and less overall exposure.

 

[Richard G]

1. What Summarit? As mentioned an old one will give lower contrast and allow more sky detail. The Summarit M 35 will take in more sky than the Summarit M 50.
2. The M6 meter is amazing. You can do a lost worse than just point, equalize the two triangles and shoot.
3. While C41 is very tolerant of over exposure, a whole stop under doesn't matter too much either, but does give a different look.

 

[fireblade]

http://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2016/3/28/metering-and-exposing-color-film

 

[charjohncarter]

I find Foma films blow out skys (high blue sensitivity). And Kodak Tmax films do not blow out skys (low blue sensitivity). Also, haze seems to exaggerate blow outs. This along with the position of your back to the sun can make a difference. So check color sensitivity curve of the film you use, and adjust with an orange filter if necessary.

This is Foma 100 with an orange filter (which I always use with this film):

Arista EDU ultra 100-HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr

You would think it would be darker.

 

[Rob-F]

I will just add that the Ilford Delta films also resist blowing out the sky. I can get a natural (not dramatic) sky tone with no filter at all.

 

[Dogman]

Just bracket your exposure. That is, if it is possible to do so. After a while, you'll become familiar with how various scenes and lighting respond to exposure.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Skies:
- Polarizer
- Reduce exposure
- Yellow (or even red) filter if B&W
- Highlight recovery from RAW
- Apply Adobe's Haze filter on the sky (yes, it's strong medicine)
- Paste-in (or overlay sandwich a negative of) a good sky

 

[willie_901]

Sometimes the dynamic range of the scene is just too high

Sometimes the dynamic range of the scene is just too high

My underline. You're overexposing the sky.

You've only got a fixed dynamic range. It is your choice where you want to place that dynamic range on the dynamic range of the scene. Would you prefer to have blown out skies or empty shadows? A lot of the time you can't have both, so you have to choose. I typically overexpose the sky on film as I think it looks better than underexposed shadows, but there are times I do the opposite.

A polariser can help in some circumstances, but they're a PITA on a rangefinder. Likewise a yellow/orange/red filter will reduce the sky values with b&w film. Also, check your negatives, are they black? Maybe you could change the exposure when you scan them assuming you're scanning.

I second michaelwj's advice.

I will add the purpose of a lens hood is to minimize flare (and ghosting). In one sense it can affect the light meter reading or estimated exposure if the flare is very strong. But typically the hood has a minimal, if any, affect on exposure.

A gradient, neutral-density filter could be a useful solution. These filters have different densities and gradient transition regions. But they all selectively filter light from the top of the frame. I used a 4 x 6", 3X soft gradient filter. I hand-held it against the lens. My camera was on a tripod. I slid the filter up and down to optimize the gradient location. Screw-in filters are more convenient but less flexible.

And here's an old, but relevant RFF thread on M6 exposure compensation.

 

[ForestCap]

If the negatives are already exposed, you can use a scanner/scanning software with multi-exposure function to boost the dynamic range. It may save you by one or two stops.

However, if the skies were severely overexposured, in other words: it has gone beyond the scanners Dmax capicity, then the above method can't help.

 

[presspass]

What Willie said - get a graduated neutral density filter. They have been made, and may still be made, to screw into the front of a lens. I have them in sizes to fit my Nikon SLR lenses from 52 mm to 72 mm. I believe they were made for other sizes and still may be. The filter can be rotated once it's on the lens.

 

[PKR]

I generally expose for shadows and develop for highlights. Sometimes a pull of 25% or more. Also yellow and orange filters are used with Neopan Acros , Tri-X, FP4 and HP5. If not dark enough, I adjust in post as I did in the darkroom with a burn of the sky.

I usually guess at exposure or camera meter, pointed away from the sky. When metering manually, I measure zone III and zones VII and VIII.


All's worked okay for many years.

 

[Bill Clark]

If you scan your negatives or capture with a digital camera you could slide in a beautiful blue sky with clouds with Photoshop. I had a friend who lived in Florida and everytime I would visit I would take a few photos of the sky.

It’s about balancing the light in the entire photograph.

But that was something I wanted to do when I had my business. If I didn’t get it correct in camera I didn’t want to take time getting it correct during the process stage. It was time spent I could be doing something else I considered to be more productive. What I did was operate my digital camera in manual mode, get the exposure I wanted with the background then, in the foreground where I positioned folks, I would use either a reflector or a Quantum flash, sometimes two to get enough light on the folks, depending on the number of people in the photo. Even at a reception held indoors with large windows showing outdoors I operated the equipment the same way. I hated to see a photo with the wrong stuff, like the background over exposed. Since the human brain wants our eyes to first focus on the brightest objects in a photograph I wanted to make sure it was the faces of the people.