Slide Film: How do you avoid blown highlights?

[Mister E]

I find it humorous that folks who diss digital for blown highlights and reduced dynamic range happily grab their camera loaded with slide film that blows out highlights and has reduced dynamic range...

Yeah really! What are they thinking?


Untitled by NateVenture, on Flickr

I am so sick of hearing about highlights, dynamic-range, etc. None of it maters.

 

[skibeerr]

Yeah really! What are they thinking?


Untitled by NateVenture, on Flickr

I am so sick of hearing about highlights, dynamic-range, etc. None of it maters.

Can't help but thinking what a nice nd grad would have don to this image.

 

[atlcruiser]

Can't help but thinking what a nice nd grad would have don to this image.

I thought the same thing as well but then also saw myself in the same situation....fumble for filter, drop it, turn it wrong way, forget to add exposure if needed, forget to take it off etc......


By the time I would screw with all of the above the ducks would have swum past and the sun gone down 🙂

 

[raid]

I used to read up on what Galen Rowell would publish on his photography philosophy and approach, and then I would try myself with it. I used a 4 ND filter set by Singh Ray which cost me about $550 at the time. These filters really worked well for balancing scenes with very different exposure needs on the same frame.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

My motivation for not blowing the highlights in slide film was simple. I make my living with a camera. Nobody would pay me for blown highlights. So, I made sure there were no blown highlights. Simple economics. 🙂

Most of us deliberately rated slide film 1/3 stop slower than advertised to get better saturation, anyway.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

I like the way the image looks. There's intimacy in the birds zone because of the shadows.

I have a couple of grad. ND filters by Singh-Ray I use with MF (square ones) and with 35mm with adapters... They're a good product no doubt, but I think they're not for every sky/shadows scene, but mostly for sunset when the sky is too bright compared to a very dark foreground... Apart, there's slow photography and fast photography as David said. The image looks very natural and enjoyable as it is.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Mister E]

Most of us deliberately rated slide film 1/3 stop slower than advertised to get better saturation, anyway.

I've never heard of rating a 50 ASA/ISO film at 40 to get more saturation, I've heard the opposite, which is what I think you meant. Did you mean to say "rated slide film 1/3 a stop faster than advertised"?

With scanning now days there just isn't much to recover from an underexposed slide.

 

[gdmcclintock]

How to expose slide film? I do what all great baseball players do before hitting a home run: the sign of the cross!

 

[calebk]

My motivation for not blowing the highlights in slide film was simple. I make my living with a camera. Nobody would pay me for blown highlights. So, I made sure there were no blown highlights. Simple economics. 🙂

Most of us deliberately rated slide film 1/3 stop slower than advertised to get better saturation, anyway.

Pardon me for asking but what if you had to expose for the subject and as a result highlights would have to be blown? Isn't the subject the priority? I shoot events and sometimes you do run into backlit situations. While I don't shoot events on slide film, I always expose for the subject because clients pay to see the subject, not preserved highlights.

 

[HHPhoto]

I am using slide film for more than 20 years now, and I have never experienced serious problems with blown highlights.
Maybe I know how to meter the exposure.correctly....😉

Life is easier if you project your slides: Even if you "expose for the highlights" in most cases you see detail in the shadows on the screen with a 250W projector.

And there is a simple trick to get one stop more dynamic range with slide film (and with negative film, too).
An old trick often used with BW negative film and the zone system.
You can use this trick in all cases when using a tripod and having a camera with double exposure option.

1. Know the dynamic range of your film.
2. If the dynamic range of your film is about 6 stops (e.g. Velvia) or 7 stops (e.g Provia), and the dynamic range of your scene is one stop more, you can make the following:
Meter the first time for the shadows, so you can get detail in Zone II. Then stop down for 3 - 3,5 stops.
Then the double exposure option. Next exposure on the same picture. Then you make your "real, fulll exposure", which is exposed for the highlights.

With this trick you get visible more shadow detail, but without blown highlights.
Why? Because your shadows in Zone II get 3x light instead of 2x.
And your highlights in Zone VIII get 129x instead of 128x, and this one doesn't affect the highlight, the difference is too small.

But the difference from 2x to 3x in the shodows is significant and visible.

Knowing the Zone System is also helpful for slide film shooters 😉

Cheers, Jan

 

[Mister E]

I find slides with even a little bit of underexposure project and scan poorly. If I err I purposely err to the left instead of the right.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I find slides with even a little bit of underexposure project and scan poorly. If I err I purposely err to the left instead of the right.

Yes, this is a big difference between seriously expensive professional scanners and the rest. When slides were the norm in professional photography and were scanned on big drum scanners, I used to give fractionally less exposure than I do now for my 5400-II.

Cheers,

R.