Netering in Low Light

[Captain Kidd]

I use a sekonic 308S when out with my Leica M6, I use the reflective built in meter too though mostly the sekonic.

Usually I point the meter at the subject with the meter facing back to the camera to take a reading.

My question is, in low light situations, for instance, under some street lights, at night, and wanting to take a picture of a shop window that is brightly lit from the inside, how would i go about metering for this?

Thanks for any tips

 

[FujiLove]

There will be a massive difference in light levels in that scene you describe, so you are probably going to have to choose what is exposed 'correctly'. If you want the bright shop interior to be well exposed you will have to sacrifice a dark exterior, and vice versa.

I'd use a reflective meter and take a reading from whatever I wanted well exposed, probably the interior. Having said that, if you use colour negative film you could over-expose the interior by say 4 stops, so you see detail in the exterior. The highlights won't blow but you will have to get those details from the thick part of the negative.

Also in this situation, I'd definitely bracket the exposure a stop either side.

Have a look at this film test to see what happens with overexposed Fuji 400H and Portra stocks: http://canadianfilmlab.com/2014/04/24/film-stock-and-exposure-comparisons-kodak-portra-and-fuji/

 

[Captain Kidd]

Thank Fufilove, in that scenario i would be hoping to expose the interior of the shop correctly, i was wondering how to take a reading with the sekonic but you're right using the reflective would be best.

Im having issues with the sekonic, my pictures seem a little over exposed and flat, i generally point the sekonic at the camera when facing the subject to take a reading, but my images before when i just used the built in light meter and guessed what was 18% grey seems to have given me punchier results. Maybe i should be pointing the sekonic a little towards the sky.

 

[Rob-F]

I'd use a reflective meter and take a reading from whatever I wanted well exposed, probably the interior. Having said that, if you use colour negative film you could over-expose the interior by say 4 stops, so you see detail in the exterior. The highlights won't blow but you will have to get those details from the thick part of the negative.

Also in this situation, I'd definitely bracket the exposure a stop either side.

I will second the suggestion to use the M6 meter for this purpose, or at any time when the task is to measure the brightness of the scene itself, and not the intensity of light falling on it. After all, the window is lit from within, not from a light source behind you.

I suspect that four stops might be too much to open up. Two to three ought to do it. The meter wants to make the scene "average." To preserve the feeling of a brightly lit window, agreed we will open up some. But two stops will already make the shot "high key" and three stops I believe would be "high key and then some." And I agree, bracketing is called for.

 

[PKR]

I would spot meter the scene. But given that you don't have one..remember that your shop window will reflect as well as transmit light. So, capturing a reflection of the street lighting with your camera meter looking into the window could give you a false reading.

You, if I understand it, have a bright interior with a low lit exterior. Are you hoping to hold values in both the interior and exterior? Could be tough, depending on the range of light.

 

[Captain Kidd]

No the interior value would be most important, exterior i wouldnt worry too much about.

Thanks

 

[FujiLove]

The beauty of using film, and modern emulsions like Portra in particular, is you can capture the low ambient street light and still see details of brightly lit interiors. In this example (not mine), the photo has been biased towards the ambient light, but you get the idea.

Untitled by Patrick McCormack, on Flickr

 

[FujiLove]

^^^ By the way, Patrick is well worth following if you like inspiring night photography.