Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Charles,
I'm glad you found it useful. What you would do in cases like yours where tonal adjustments needed to make the the overall photo look good end up making some part of the photo, like the artillery piece in your photo, is to dodge or burn the area that ends up too dark or too light.
The best way to do that is with curves adjustment layers. Here's a tutorial I wrote a couple yrs ago on how to do that.
https://crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/dodge-burn.php
I think the next thing I post will be a tutorial on what, exactly, I do to increase tonal separation in black and white scans. I'll try to have that done in a few days.
CharlesDAMorgan
Mentor
Exceptionally useful Chris - thank you!. Now is definitely the time to be learning about scanning, as the local darkroom I was using to print is now shut pro-tem.
jawarden
Well-known
It is an interesting pair of images for sure. Your original has that California light that I remember but does look a bit bright where I don't expect it to be (like the bushes on the right). Then Chris's editing was heavy, like he plucked the building out of the California soil and dropped it in Fort Wayne. His bushes on the right are closer to what my eye expects, but the rest of the image isn't.
In this case perhaps another approach would be selective burning to balance the image without removing the light that identifies place? It's subjective and there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Would monitor gamma differences be a factor? I don't know, just wondering.
charjohncarter
Mentor
It is an interesting pair of images for sure. Your original has that California light that I remember but does look a bit bright where I don't expect it to be (like the bushes on the right). Then Chris's editing was heavy, like he plucked the building out of the California soil and dropped it in Fort Wayne. His bushes on the right are closer to what my eye expects, but the rest of the image isn't.
In this case perhaps another approach would be selective burning to balance the image without removing the light that identifies place? It's subjective and there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
I actually put that one up to show what can happen in California. It was worse when I lived it Panama' which is 9 degrees North of the equator. It wasn't because it was a typical shot of mine: just over exposed.
jawarden
Well-known
Yeah I can see on your Flickr that this type of shot is not your norm. Your negative of that church did seem to capture all the light though, which was a lot.
Anyway I recall reading Robert Adams talking about the bright, high altitude Colorado light and the challenges of depicting it the way he wanted to. The light is just different there, as it is in California. His series of white churches was probably a bear to print in the darkroom but many of them do seem to capture the particular light of Colorado "correctly" to my eye, whatever that means.
charjohncarter
Mentor
Try Panama' at noon any day with TriX. There is a Greek church in Santa Barbara the it completely white (like the one I put up). I was finally there on an overcast day so drove over and finally got a decent picture of it.
Freakscene
Obscure member
I understand this well - I tried to take a photo of Iglesia de Natá de los Caballeros in Nata in 2013. White on bright. Nightmare stuff.
Marty
Larry Cloetta
Mentor
Many thanks for this, Marty. Never occurred to me exactly like that; will give it a try, easier than carrying a 4x5 around everywhere and making notes.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Many thanks for this, Marty. Never occurred to me exactly like that; will give it a try, easier than carrying a 4x5 around everywhere and making notes.
It’s a not much of a system, but it works, and if you have a good film-developer combination, it works great. Understanding the quality of the light - contrasty, flat or inbetween, is important. In 2005 I used it in Russia: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Russia/ with Neopan 400 in Xtol 1+3, all shot with a Leica M7 and f1 Noctilux.
Just try it, maybe you’ll like it, maybe not.
Marty
charjohncarter
Mentor
'Konstatin I' plus 'Pavel and Olga I' on the same roll; very nice. I liked the whole show.
retinax
Well-known
Marty, would you still vary the EI like that if you used a spot meter for the shadows or is this an incident and wide-area-metering technique? The latter would make a lot of sense to me, but I'd think that metering the shadows leads to more or less the same result anyway.
Freakscene
Obscure member
This is not a zone system
This is not a zone system
This not-a-system-system is not based on a zone type approach. Your reflected shadow readings work the same as a centre weighted or blob meter (I am very fond of the light meter in Leica M6, M7 and MP, but it is a blob, not a spot) in this approach. You change your EI based on the quality of the light rather than your meter reading - this is the part that it is hard to get zonies to accept. The actual reading isn't that important as long as you meter consistently. Once you can do that, you vary the EI based on the quality of the light - contrasty, normal or flat. So if you have a spot meter you can work out the difference between the shadows and highlights and figure out how many stops/zones/whatever you are dealing with until you get a handle on what contrasty, normal and flat look like, then you don't need to worry so much. What might vary depending on where you meter is what EIs you choose. You may end up with completely different EIs for your metering, camera, development etc. But the EI changes in response to the quality of the light, not one meter reading.
I mostly work on the principle that perfect is the enemy of adequate.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked them. Those two do show what you can do. During this trip I tried, unsuccessfully, to meet Grigori Perelman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman - I later walked past him on the street while my camera was in its bag and didn't get a photo. The one that got away. I have hundreds more I should edit and post one day.
I really enjoy the memories of this afternoon.
Marty
This is not a zone system
This not-a-system-system is not based on a zone type approach. Your reflected shadow readings work the same as a centre weighted or blob meter (I am very fond of the light meter in Leica M6, M7 and MP, but it is a blob, not a spot) in this approach. You change your EI based on the quality of the light rather than your meter reading - this is the part that it is hard to get zonies to accept. The actual reading isn't that important as long as you meter consistently. Once you can do that, you vary the EI based on the quality of the light - contrasty, normal or flat. So if you have a spot meter you can work out the difference between the shadows and highlights and figure out how many stops/zones/whatever you are dealing with until you get a handle on what contrasty, normal and flat look like, then you don't need to worry so much. What might vary depending on where you meter is what EIs you choose. You may end up with completely different EIs for your metering, camera, development etc. But the EI changes in response to the quality of the light, not one meter reading.
I mostly work on the principle that perfect is the enemy of adequate.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked them. Those two do show what you can do. During this trip I tried, unsuccessfully, to meet Grigori Perelman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman - I later walked past him on the street while my camera was in its bag and didn't get a photo. The one that got away. I have hundreds more I should edit and post one day.
I really enjoy the memories of this afternoon.
Marty
retinax
Well-known
Marty, what I mean is that if you meter for the shadows in a contrasty situation, you might easily end up exposing two stops more than "blob" metering anyway. A typical scene with lots of direct sun, blob meter gives LV 14 or 15, but if I meter some small, but important shadows, I often get LV 12 or 13 for my exposure (I.e. after placing it in the desired zone). In your "not a" system, you don't give two stops on top of that "because it's a contrasty scene", right? You just add the two stops to the blob meter reading to arrive at an exposure that metering the shadows would also give, right?
Erik van Straten
Mentor
A problem is that often on one roll there are different shots: shots with a higher contrast and shots with a lower contrast. The point is that the photographer must use one developer, one temperature and one developing time for all these different types of pictures on a roll.
So the photographer can in fact only make a difference in the contrast of a picture when printing (or scanning), not when developing the film.
Erik.
Difficult lighting situation:
So the photographer can in fact only make a difference in the contrast of a picture when printing (or scanning), not when developing the film.
Erik.
Difficult lighting situation:
Freakscene
Obscure member
You are overthinking it. If the shadows are the shadows, they should give you a roughly equivalent reading between different types of light. So if you always meter the shadows, use trials to decide on an EI for shadow readings for contrasty, normal and flat light, probably using a ring-around, and go from there. What the EIs are is up to you, 100, 200 and 400 is just where I ended up with my meter, cameras, film and development. And you vary them based on contrast, not on your light meter, unless you spend time taking multiple light meter readings to figure out a contrast range. And if you have time to do that, the not a system system probably isn’t for you anyway.
Marty
Freakscene
Obscure member
A problem is that often on one roll there are different shots: shots with a higher contrast and shots with a lower contrast. The point is that the photographer must use one developer, one temperature and one developing time for all these different types of pictures on a roll.
So the photographer can in fact only make a difference in the contrast of a picture when printing (or scanning), not when developing the film.
Erik.
Difficult lighting situation:
That’s nice Erik. You have a lot of choice about exposure, even if you can’t change the development.
Marty
Bill Clark
Mentor
I see a couple of ways to solve the issues shown in the photograph here.
For me, I try to figure this kind of stuff out before I make the photo.
At any rate, it’s just the way I see it. Maybe different than some.
For me, I try to figure this kind of stuff out before I make the photo.
At any rate, it’s just the way I see it. Maybe different than some.
charjohncarter
Mentor
This not-a-system-system is not based on a zone type approach. Your reflected shadow readings work the same as a centre weighted or blob meter (I am very fond of the light meter in Leica M6, M7 and MP, but it is a blob, not a spot) in this approach. You change your EI based on the quality of the light rather than your meter reading - this is the part that it is hard to get zonies to accept. The actual reading isn't that important as long as you meter consistently. Once you can do that, you vary the EI based on the quality of the light - contrasty, normal or flat. So if you have a spot meter you can work out the difference between the shadows and highlights and figure out how many stops/zones/whatever you are dealing with until you get a handle on what contrasty, normal and flat look like, then you don't need to worry so much. What might vary depending on where you meter is what EIs you choose. You may end up with completely different EIs for your metering, camera, development etc. But the EI changes in response to the quality of the light, not one meter reading.
I mostly work on the principle that perfect is the enemy of adequate.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked them. Those two do show what you can do. During this trip I tried, unsuccessfully, to meet Grigori Perelman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman - I later walked past him on the street while my camera was in its bag and didn't get a photo. The one that got away. I have hundreds more I should edit and post one day.
I really enjoy the memories of this afternoon.
Marty
You missed a modern 'soul conjecture' brain. I would have liked to take photo of him.
Erik van Straten
Mentor
Thank you, Marty, in cases like this I have no time to think about exposure or composition, I just shoot without thinking. Sometimes then the shot comes out better than expected.
Erik.