Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

Worked with film for many years and used several different light meters. I still have my Gossen Luna Pro and even open up the case every once in a while so I enjoyed following this academic discussion. Now, I let the camera make it's best guess at exposure, I take a shot and look at it on the camera's LCD monitor along with the histograms and make adjustments from there. Much faster than messing with a light meter, then ending up taking a test shot anyway. Remember using Polaroids to set lighting?

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I run a professional photographic studio. For many decades I exposed and processed thousands of transparency and both colour and black and white negative films. There are many theories and variations, special methods, push and pull processing and highly specialized methodologies like the zone system. There are, however, some basics- time-honoured methods that work. I can go into all the variations, permutations and some folklore but here are the BASICS:

With transparency film it is usually standard procedure to expose for detail in the diffuse highlights and try to keep the middle tones and shadows in range. Lots depend on the lighting conditions, scene contrast, and specifically, lighting ratio so when you you expose for the highlights you may have to, by some means, fill the shadows. You are viewing transparency by transmitted light or projected on a bright screen by a good volume of light so the apparent range will be greater. If however, the transparencies are for lithographic reproduction you need to compress the range or the shadow detail that may be lost in reproduction. Oftentimes a shadow mask is sandwiched with the transparency to boost the shadow detail.

With many "chrome" films there are some common variations. To reduce excessive contrast in work like art reproduction a common method is to overexpose by I stop and pull process. In certain high key renditions, a bit of underexposure 1/2 to a full stop and push processing produces cleaner whites.

Slight underexposure or most transparency film will increase colour saturation.

Transparency films generally have less exposure attitude than negative films so regardless of whatever method you decide to employ, bracketing exposure is recommended whenever possible.

When I shot my first job with digital equipment, I started of exposing exactly as I did with normally processed transparency film and it worked out perfectly from the get-go. As other methods- they were learned, such a shooting to the right (etc.). I applied them as I progressed. I would meter for a diffuse highlight or an 18% gray card or use an incident light meter with no issues.

Colour and most black and white negative materials are a different animal. You are making prints and especially in colour, underexposed negatives lacking in shadow detail make for lousy prints. They might look muddy or show colour-crossover in the vacant shadows. So, expose for the shadows and print-down for the highlights. This, however, can not be done haphazardly. Although negative films usually has wide latitude, you have to understand the characteristic curve of the film and stay within its range.

Unlike transparency film, some overexposure, up to 1 full stop, will increase the colour saturation in the resulting prints.

Under standard recommended processing methods, most black and white negative emulsions will respond the same way as colour negative films. The exposure and processing methods, however, can be far more complex- there is infinite variation such as the zone system. Since there are no colour issues the processing methods can be radically changed. The final result can also be varied depending on the type of enlarger used, the grade and other characteristics of the printing papers. Very basically if you want to increase contrast you can underexpose and push process. If you want to compress the contrast, overexpose, pre-soak and pull process.

Digital is much less complex. You can do all kinds of variations in post-processing, you can refer to the histographic readout right on the camera and do all kinds of shenanigans and variations but if all else fails, shoot like you would for trnaspariecies and you will get a decent file. A properly exposed file will yield good prints as well, providing you monitor is properly calibrated with your printer.

There are important caviates for all of theses methods. You have to fully understand the metering technique and menu options in you camera. If you use a hand-held meter, a spot meter, or t or integrated readings through your camera, you need to know how these work and where to meter and the appropriate techniques for each mode. There are specific methods for handheld meters in the refected or incident modes.





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Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Exposing for shadows was to ensure that darker areas in the scene were recorded with some detail. The guidance on color transparencies acknowleged the narrower dynamic range of the medium, and was offered to avoid brighter areas of a scene from being completely blown out - aka rendered as detail-less white areas.

Shooting digital is closest to shooting film transparency in that respect.

sploppert Loc: Rochester, NY

I never said there was a difference between a film meter and a digital meter they are the same. There is however a difference between a incidence meter and a reflective meter which is what is in your camera, film or digital.

BebuLamar

The meters are calibrated pretty much the same. There are slight variations between manufacturers but they are very small (except for the algorithm of the Matrix or Evaluative metering). They all assume that a film or digital sensor rated at the same ISO would behave the same. For the most part it's fine.
If you want to meter specifically for a medium then you would want to study the response curve of the film or sensor and meter accordingly.

sploppert Loc: Rochester, NY

thank you someone that is in the know

wingate2417 Loc: Quincy, Ca.

Oh that’s what it is. Still learning.

uhaas2009

The meter reading between fim and digital is different. I feel that the film camera is more forgiving than digital......

sploppert Loc: Rochester, NY

only if shooting Jpeg. If you shoot RAW you have much more latitude to play with in post processing.

BebuLamar

The meter reading from my film and digital cameras are the same. You may say the film itself is more for giving but that not necessarily true. On most current digital cameras you can simply set the ISO to the base ISO and give it as much exposure as you can without overexposing. Then with the RAW files you can fix it in post.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

AHHHHH, the true beauty of digital. NOW we can see what we have instantly, and we can adjust for detail in shadows and highlights, we also have histograms, and HDR modes. So, the world is much more insightful now with digital, embrace the new and exciting world of digital.

bleirer

I came up with film also. I remember reading about the characteristic curve of the films I was using. In general a properly exposed curve was mildly S shaped and they varied according to the steepness of the slope and where and how strongly the upper shoulder broke over and the same variation on the lower heel area. The steepness of the curve indicated the amount of contrast, and you could vary a little with push or pull processing, or by choosing the contrast grade of the printing paper later.

With digital the curve is at your disposal. You can set your own black point, white point, and middle point. You can go linear, mild S, strong S or any thing else. You can alter the slope by grabbing points in the curve and pulling up or down. Or you can click in the image and raise or lower the curve at exactly that point, sometimes with polarizing results. Luckily the undo or reset button is at hand.

Point being, you dial in your own curve, so as long as you don't blow out important highlights or lose shadows that you needed detail in, the exposure isn't as critical as film.

Worthwhile reading https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photoshop-curves.htm

sploppert Loc: Rochester, NY

here is a quote in case you missed it I'll post it again for you.

I agree with you and shared your learning experience (38 years I worked at the film factory).
Yes overexpose negative film and under expose positive (slide) film. The reason was when you were processing the film and printing in the dark room.... you had more latitude when you negative was a little denser allowing you to recover more information (you could not recover from a thin negative). With slide film because the process actually created the image with the residual silver halide from the exposure (basically the process eliminated the exposed silver halide and then exposed the unused silver halide to create the positive image this also had an impact on the amount of dye (dye coupled) that occurred giving you riche colors and saturation. Most people did this by adjusting the ISO plus or minus from the actual value which would bias your meter to either under expose or over expose. example (ISO 100 set the Camera ISO to 80 to over expose negative film), the inverse for slide film. You just then used normal exposure metering to set your exposure. Now in digital you use a function called exposure compensation and since your dealing with a positive image slightly under exposing tends to work very similar to what we use to do with slide film. This is subject to the metering method you use. But if you are using matrix metering generally using that old film rule to keep from blowing out the highlights works pretty good. It helps if you understand your cameras dynamic range. film vs digital the physics are different but the same rules still work pretty good. I can almost hear all the little guru's telling you why this is BS but it works for me :) have a great day.

sploppert Loc: Rochester, NY

thank you . You are correct

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Here's a quote. In case you missed it I'll post it again: "...with slide film it was best to under expose up to a stop."

In my over 40 years working as a professional in the photo industry I shot my share of transparency film. Doing studio product work I shot mostly Kodak Ektachrome. We bought the pro-grade film that came EI tested from Kodak -- you know the red stamp on the film insert -- and we tested it again (ran our own E6 line in house) because getting the exposure right with transparency film matters. Most of the work of course was done shooting strobes and we used Minolta flash meters to set the exposure but also tested with Polaroid film as a secondary verification. If any of us every said something so incredibly sloppy as just underexpose by up to a stop and your *ss is covered they'd be looking for work the next morning.

Why did you even ask your original question?

Given the kind of effort involved in setting up a shot like this, you don't just underexpose by up to a stop with transparency film. You get it right.