Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: Dinarius on February 06, 2005, 04:31:22 am
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10 seconds with the camera's spot meter will answer that question easily.
Not true. If you place a sheet of foamcore (or something similarly neutral and uniform in color) where the artwork will be and shoot a "polaroid" shot, if the lighting is even the histogram will exhibit a very narrow spike. If the lighting is uneven or the lens is vignetting, the histogram will display a wider hump rather than a spike.
If you're happy to remove the camera from the tripod having set up the shot and the lighting, then yes. But, I wouldn't be. Secondly, that technique works if the highlights and shadows are easily identifiable or pointed. Less so, when you are more concerned about "areas" within the image.
Of course. But, if there isn't a narrow spike, the only way of knowing which part of the surface is unevenly lit is to take incident readings over the surface (easy) or use your preferred techinque of spotmeter and grey card (a pain!) And as for bringing a large sheet of foamcore on location and working out how to hang it in front of, or in place of, an equally large painting, when all I need is my trusty Sekonic, don't start me......! ;-)
D. ;-)
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> I am not sure that "expose to the right" is the essence of the Zone System.
Howard, I agree with you. For example with these shots (http://www.lashier.com/home.cfm?dir_cat=23179) I deliberately let them blow, and often do when conditions dictate. And imo even when conditions do not dictate (eg flat lighting) I still don't usually "shoot to the right" simply because with a compressed shot I'm most likely going to be setting BP anyway reducing reducing the bit depth issue rather than aggravating it.
The zone system is really about producing the optimum tonal gradient for the scene in question within the constraints of the medium, and there's no blanket formula for this outside of the context of the scene itself.
- DL
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Similar to reducing the developing time with b&w film? Shadows relatively unaffected but the highlights are depressed. Before I learned to use the Zone System, the vogue was to overexpose (increase shadow detail) and underdevelop (lower highlights). Flatten the film's curve.
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But I just don't understand why you think a 12 stop dynamic range will solve exposure problems.
Howard,
Well, it depends on what you mean by 12 stops. If you have in mind just one stop more than the 11 stop range described by Ansel Adams in the zone system, then it would be an improvement, but wouldn't solve all exposure problems.
The zone system describes 6 stops with full texture. 10 stops with full texture would do the trick, at least for 99% of all shots.
Eric,
I'm completely unaware of that 3 emulsion film you referred to but I can understand if it created problems and hassles elsewhere in the processing chain or compromised quality elswhere, it would not be popular.
Before I bought my first DSLR, I discovered Royal Gold 25 which quickly became my favourite film. The colours were lovely, it was fine grained and very sharp and had the high DR that most colour negative films have.
It was discontinued. It was so slow, I guess few people were using it. Great pity, I thought.
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"I'd like the camera to be an extension of my fingers as a panit brush is to a painter. No fussing with an external meter and the possibility of blown highlights or intractable shadows. No worrying about flashing histograms and decisions to autobracket or not. I just take the shot and the pre-visualisation takes the form of what I can do with it in Photoshop later. This, I would suggest, frees me up to concentrate on purely artisitc matters whilst on the job. :)"
You had me going for a while but now I see you jest. If the paint brush is simply an extension of the artist's fingers, then we should similarly be asking the paint-by-numbers companies to get digitized so we can specify a "Reubens" or "Rembrandt" or other masterly stroke. And depth of paint. That way, we could simply click the button and get a masterpiece. But whose creation? Easier is to simply go to the gallery and admire - without the hassle (and expense) of "creating" the work.
I wonder - if you are serious - which "artistic matters" are left after you've had the camera take care of all the other aspects of making the image. What's left besides deciding in which direction to point the camera? Composition? Crop and clone in photoshop.
I think you overlook an important point - "Hernandez" and all his portraits in and of Yosemite are admired as his artistic creations. The comment is not "It's fortunate that Ansel Adams was present with a mechanical device to accurately record the lovely scene God presented at 4 in the afternoon of a strange October day in 1941." I think I read somewhere that he developed the zone system specifically so he could create what was in his mind - that which he wanted to show others. If he had a yellow filter on his lens, it seems clear he had been doing something with his camera other than "accurately" capturing scenes. Sort of like using a polarizing filter or a haze filter or photoshop curves. The result is not what was actually there - it's what the artist sees in his or her mind.
n'est ce pas?
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I apologize if this has been answered but I looked and couldn't find it.
My camera is an EOS 20D. It has, of course, all manner of metering options. Lately I've read about the "advantage" of incident light metering over (in camera) reflective metering and the argument for incident makes a lot of sense. Especially, I suppose, with flash or other artificial light. On the other hand, it surely is convenient to meter with the camera.
Is the expensive light meter really that valuable with today's cameras? The EOS 20D will bracket in less than a second, will spot meter, will average and so forth. So it really comes down to whether incident metering is "better" than reflective. Or does it?
Thanks for any help
Howard Batt
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As has been implied by some respondents, for critical studio work a meter is essential, in my view. It is not enough to simply look at the histogram. That only tells you that nothing is "blown out". It will not tell you the difference between the highlight and shadow in a studio set - merely that they are all within the compass of the camera's range.
I shoot a lot of artwork and taking incident readings is the only way to be sure that the entire picture plane is evenly lit and not simply within the histogram's range. Moving the camera around the picture is not enough...unless you use a grey card, which is a pain. One could think of many similar situations.
In summary, I think that most pros would agree that, for critical work, incident readings are essential.
But, it really depends on what type of photography you do.
D.
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What bracketing *won't* do is tell you whether the highlight and the shadow are within, say, five stops of one another, if that's what you desire.
10 seconds with the camera's spot meter will answer that question easily.
Even more importantly, no amount of bracketing will tell you if every part of the picture area is reading the same, such as when you are copying fine art. Only an incident meter will tell you this quickly and effectively.
Not true. If you place a sheet of foamcore (or something similarly neutral and uniform in color) where the artwork will be and shoot a "polaroid" shot, if the lighting is even the histogram will exhibit a very narrow spike. If the lighting is uneven or the lens is vignetting, the histogram will display a wider hump rather than a spike.
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Of course this is precisely the reason most of us desire a camera with a wide dynamic range, say a full 12 stops. We wouldn't then have to stuff around trying to get that zone system right at the time of the shot or even bother with incident light meter readings. Just take the shot with an 'evaluative' automatic exposure and decide later what the balance between highlights and shadows will be.
There are many situations where current DSLRs simply don't have sufficient dynamic range for the scene. Don's surfing scenes are a good example. Other examples would be indoor scenes with a view out of a window. Without fill-in flash, or bright studio lights or bracketed exposures, there's no way you could fully capture the entire range with a single exposure.
One should also bear in mind that greyscale blown highlights (or close to greyscale), such as clouds in an overcast sky or surf as in Don's shots lend themselves to quite spectacular highlight recovery in ACR (and C1 of course). Exposing beyond the right with a flashing histogram could be considered normal, recommended practice in such situations.
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DL, I don't know how you did it, but the examples were certainly "exposed right."
Right again. The Zone System exposes the film to a proper tone and then adjusts the development to get the desired highlight tone and fit the negatives contrast to a particular paper grade, say a #2.
"Expose to the right" or close to it merely places the highlight at the edge of the cameras dynamic range and lets the rest fall where it might.
Does the "Curves" and "Brightness/contrast" in Photoshop adjust the image much the same as variable development time?
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Yes. A stop is a stop for selection of shutter speed, aperture and ISO. I'm really referring to Jonathan's idea of devising a photodetector with a variable sensitivity that would kick in when the well is, say, 2/3rds or 3/4trs full. This would have the effect of compressing the brighter values in terms of the range of voltage readings, thus allowing the sensor to capture a higher dynamic range and reducing the advantage or need to expose to the right.
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The full range of b&w film (black to white) is about 10 stops per Ansel Adams. Some can get a bit more or less. The dynamic range is about 8 stops, and the textural range about 6 stops. The dynamic range of printing papers is about 5 or a little more stops - less than film.
The usual way of doing the Zone System is to set a printing paper and vary contrast only if needed.
I would say pure black and white are to hide poor quality detail, but rather add important information by showing there isn't any important detail to see. Personally, I find a full range print - pure black to pure white - to be more pleasing usually.
The exposure to get Zone 1 to show as Zone 1 is the correct film speed. Varying development time does little or nothing to change that Zone. That is why once exposed, there isn't much that can be done, especially for shadow detail.
I would think that for digital, making the dynamic range of the camera greater would not allow more exposure error. According to Fred Picker, who quotes Todd and Zakia, states there is "virtually no latitude in film exposure for optimum print quality." Exposure errors can be tolerated only at the expense of print quailty.
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"Often one simply doesn't have the time to get everything right before pressing that shutter. The changing light conditions wait for no-one."
If you don't get it right before pressing the shutter, there usually isn't a lot you can do later. An overexposed image is hard to fix the highlights. An underexposed image is hard to coax out shadows. If you want both shadow and highlight details, the exposure had better be pretty much right on. You simply cannot add details that aren't there. Not every scene can be photographed the way you see it in your mind in the time allowed.
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"The camera is a mechanical device and is designed to be as accurate as possible in its role of capturing (or representing) what was actually there."
Probably true. But in actuality, the modern camera, be it digital or film, fails pretty miserably at capturing what is actually there. The human eye can see differences in luminocity of perhaps a million to one. An actual scene can be much greater than that. Printed photogrpahs about 5 stops. Even your dream 12 stop dynamic range digital wonder camera fails.
Unless you are color blind, Hernadez was in living color. Adams photographed it in black, white and shades of gray. I don't know for sure, but I suppose the sky was some shade of blue, not pure black. I have no idea what bit depth of color a human can see, but it may be better than most cameras.
My point is Ray, that Hernandez at 4:05pm on October 31, 1941, didn't look like Adams' famous photograph. And I would also guess that a very faithful to reality, ultra high resolution, 20 stop dynamic range 64 bit color image would look pretty ordinary by comparison.
Ray, you say that it is difficult to add organization to an image, but randomness is easy. That is pure, hang on, science called thermodynamics. Seems to contradict evolution theory.
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OK Ray, where I get lost is, regardless of the dynamic range, there will be pure black stops just below the blackest zone with texture. Underexpose by one stop, and that zone turns to pure black. Same arguement for the other end and over exposed image. Or are you saying that if you had a very large dynamic range, you wouldn't care if you lost a zone or three by messing up the exposure?
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My question to you Ray is, just what the heck is photography anyway?
(1) Capturing the moment.
(2) Reproducing it on a print.
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If you're willing to take a "polaroid" test shot and evaluate the histogram (which takes no longer than taking a reading with a handheld meter) you can do anything you could accomplish wth an external meter, and then some. I really don't see any reason to buy one.
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I understand the difference between incident and reflected metering but I don't understand why bracketing, for example, (with not just three exposures but five or ten) won't yield the same results.
Bracketing will work just fine and, indeed, it is perfectly suited to digital since you can use the histogram to avoid blowouts and then just bracket in 1/3 stops to your heart's content.
What bracketing *won't* do is tell you whether the highlight and the shadow are within, say, five stops of one another, if that's what you desire.
Even more importantly, no amount of bracketing will tell you if every part of the picture area is reading the same, such as when you are copying fine art. Only an incident meter will tell you this quickly and effectively.
The principle and usefulness of incident readings hasn't gone away just because we're using chips instead of celluloid.
D.
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So I do it like I used to and then explain that what people are looking at is not bad exposure but, rather, my artistic interpretation of the scene. Add a little scowl as I say that and I get away with it.
Howard
Great response! ;-)
As long as you enjoy it, that's all that matters.
I totally agree that Adam's is heavy going. He would have argued, correctly, that you could have the shadow detail AND the correctly exposed highlight, in black and white.
Whether or not such latitude is available to those using digital, I don't know. I haven't looked into it.
Does anyone know if Zone Sytem techniques have been adapted to digital photograpy?
D.
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I totally agree that Adam's is heavy going. He would have argued, correctly, that you could have the shadow detail AND the correctly exposed highlight, in black and white.
Whether or not such latitude is available to those using digital, I don't know. I haven't looked into it.
Does anyone know if Zone Sytem techniques have been adapted to digital photograpy?
The basic principles of the zone system absolutely apply to digital photography. Selecting exposure to place selected brightness zones into the available dynamic range of a digital camera is just the same as it is with film, arguably more so for highlight protection.
If you are 'exposing to the right' then you're pretty much doing it unconsciously anyway. As regards all the post-exposure zone stuff, that's a different issue and not really applicable to digital post-processing although nothing is stopping you from adopting the goals and applying them as certain photoshop techniques for expanding or compressing dynamic range in the image. You're doing this with levels, curves and much more flexibly using selections and ranges.
As regards Ansel's approach to dynamic range, I'm sure he'd be one of the first to leverage multiple exposures & post-processing with digital to capture the full available brightness range. At the end of the day the camera is just the means to the end so do whayou need get the pictures you want.
(I'm still a dinosaur with handheld meter too ... )
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I thought the problem was likely solvable, and it appears it is in Photoshop. A similar process to processing film to adjust the negative to the print using the Zone System?
The point was that increasing the dynamic range of a digital camera to 12 stops would not represent an alternative to correct exposure any more than 12 stops of B&W eleminates exposure problems. It provides more latitude to get acceptable results, but not a fix. Variable contrast printing paers can cover up some exposure/developing problem, but not fix them.
To get the results you expect, there seems to be little alternative to correct exposure
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The full range of b&w film (black to white) is about 10 stops per Ansel Adams. Some can get a bit more or less. The dynamic range is about 8 stops, and the textural range about 6 stops. The dynamic range of printing papers is about 5 or a little more stops - less than film.
This 6 stop textural range is the true limit for me, from my digital darkroom perspective. Turning texture into black or white is easy in PS. Bringing out and enhancing texture where none exists is impossible.
An image with a true textural range of 10 stops would look very flat, but would be very useful. Correct exposure would then be considered the exposure necessary to capture the 10 stop range, if it existed in the scene. I'm sure such a camera's evaluative metering system could handle that. Correct exposure every time :) .
If the scene being photographed was a low contrast scene, say 5 textural stops, there might be a slight issue of 'correct' exposure, but more likely it would be an issue of 'ideal' exposure. Would expose to the right still be an advantage? Possibly not. The trade-off of slower shutter speed against marginally less noise might make it a non-issue.
I can't help wondering if b&w film in Ansel Adams' days had had a textural range of 10 stops, would Adams have devised the Zone system?
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Ray, I would suggest that if that white house is as white as the paper it's printed on, and you wanted to see details, you did something wrong.
Howard,
I frequently do something wrong when taking photos. Often one simply doesn't have the time to get everything right before pressing that shutter. The changing light conditions wait for no-one.
I'm reminded of the circumstances of one of the most famous photos of the 20th century, Moonrise over Hernandez.
The car screeched to a stop. Ansel didn't have time to search for his light meter; didn't even have time to remove the strong yellow filter which increased exposure and contrast in a scene that was already of greater contrast than the range of the film.
Apparently, he visually estimated the moon, pale white with grey details, as having a Zone Vll value, which would require 1/250th at f8, then decided to give it 2 stops more, 1/60th at f8. After adjustments for the filter and a greater f stop for greater DoF, he used 1 sec at f32 which is slightly longer than 1/60th at f8.
He didn't have time to take a second shot. It's ironic that Ansel Adams' most famous photo proved to be the most difficult negative to work with and a shot that had been taken on the spur of the moment without the use of a light meter and with an irrelevant and unwanted filter attached to the lens.
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"It looks like I was spot on when I hinted that maybe you are a bit stuck in the old ways ."
I wouldn't say "stuck." Stuck to me means you want to move and can't. Part of the pleasure I get from photography is doing it myself instead of a lot of automatic and computerized things I have no control over or even a real chance of understanding what the equipment is doing "for me."
Actually Ray, I do use Photoshop and even have the some of the basic skills need to add some snap. But I just don't understand why you think a 12 stop dynamic range will solve exposure problems.
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Thanks. I get frustrated and sorry when I see so many new cameras with more and more auto features. Many users forget or worse, never knew, what all the auto camera is doing for them. No need to focus. No need to understand exposure, especially with auto bracketing. DEP (or whatever it is) does all the depth of field stuff for you, so no need to learn anything here.
Then Photoshop fixes all the mistakes. No need to look at the composition - I can move mountains in Photoshop. Don't pick up trash or position the camera to exclude an ugly, clone it out.
But I rant.
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Howardbatt,
I like to think my jests always have an element of truth.
The concept I'm trying to convey here is this. The mechanical aspects of handling the camera, getting the exposure to correspond with some sort of zone system, the struggle to overcome the limitations of the camera in respect of dynamic range, precise calculations of CoCs in the field for DoF purposes etc etc etc, can be distractions from the contemplation of artistic matters whilst in the field, gazing at the view.
Time spent with a measuring tape to accurately get the distance between camera and tree for DoF purposes is time that perhaps could be better spent looking for a more advantageous angle from which to take the photo, for example.
Given that at any site one is going to spend a limited amount of time, what do you want to spend your time doing? Thinking in terms of composition, perspective, shooting position, changing lighting, play of light and shadow and so on, or stuffing around with a whole lot of mechanical adjustments to a contraption that's either antiquated or limited in its scope and flexibility?
Given the choice, which would you prefer?
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Ray, photography as you define it sounds pretty mechanical, impersonal and sanitary to me. Something done equally well by a surveillance camera in a parking garage, a spy satellite, or a robot on Mars, as a real person. If you could squeeze the smell of hypo in the morning in there somewhere, we would be closer.
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If you had a camera without a meter and no way to evaluate your exposure, I would suggest an incident meter. However, given the quality of the in camera metering now and the ability to evaluate your image, you don't need it. At one time I would have suggested it if you were doing a lot of studio flash, however you don't need it there either. Why use numbers when you can see the result.
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Thanks, Dinarius. That, essentially, is what the articles to which I referred said. Those articles took it beyond studio, as well, with one saying incident reading is essential for landscape photography to accurately measure shadow and highlight. Another wrote that color is dramatically better when measuring incident light. His reasoning was that reflected light meters measure everything as 18% grey. His examples were of a white dinner plate with fruit, a grey plate and a black plate. All appeared as slightly different shades of grey in the examples he said resulted from measuring reflected light.
My problem is that which I implied with the idea B & H wouldn't be selling them if no one really needs a meter. Obviously it is people who have the greatest knowledge who are going to spend more than $500 on such a device so I wondered what I was missing. After all - the light meter doesn't change the photons striking my camera's sensor. I understand the difference between incident and reflected metering but I don't understand why bracketing, for example, (with not just three exposures but five or ten) won't yield the same results. I DO see why the meter would be absolutely critical if I were using film - there would be no way to know it worked until the film was developed and then it likely would be too late.
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Dinarius, I'd surely like to see some of your work if you have a web site. You've obviously been doing this for years professionally while I've been doing it haphazardly for enjoyment. Now that I'm old and I have a good camera and have some time, I decided to study the art and techniques. Hand in hand with that decision and the decision to get the EOS 20D comes what some close to me (you know who I mean) calls the "tech toy bug ." That's what led me to hand held meters and to salivating over Sekonic's high tech offerings.
With my very limited background in the technical aspect of photography, I simply could not understand why a separate (from that which is in-camera) meter would have any use at all in digital photography. Not because photography has changed along with the change from "celluloid to digital" but because I can take a hundred shots at 1/3 intervals and choose from them. Not only that, I use PhotoImpact 10 and it has the ability to blend three or four or five different exposures to dramatically expand the tonal range of the result. So, if I bracket with five exposures, I've increased the tonal range of the result pretty dramatically.
On the other hand, such an approach is nothing more than me being the button pusher for the computer - I'm the robot who enables the machine. And - picking the best of the lot doesn't necessarily mean any of them are really "good" - there is just one which is "more good" or "less bad." That's when I got intrigued with the picture of the WHITE (not from Ireland) fox on the snow. It has some color in the guard hairs but basically, it's white on white. I doubt bracketing would be the way to make the picture - at least it would take a LOT of bracketing to be lucky enough to get the right one. And THAT'S why I thought incident metering would be the way to go - not just that it's faster than bracketing or averaging - but that it gives the technical data needed for the technical camera to make the art that I see and want to capture.
And that's my argument with those who say nay to the expensive meter (but her eyes glaze over) and I'm sticking to it.
I tried to read Ansel Adams and also a book by a professor of photography who undertook to "bring it up to date." Unfortunately, MY eyes glazed over. I've read enough about the zone system to appreciate how it fits into all photography but the rest is so technical I gave up in favor of my ultra-modern camera. Heck - I'm not even smart enough to figure out how to properly use a modern flash like the Canon 580EX. So I do it like I used to and then explain that what people are looking at is not bad exposure but, rather, my artistic interpretation of the scene. Add a little scowl as I say that and I get away with it.
Howard
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Dynamic range is easy to decrease, especially in Photoshop. Increasing it when clipping has already occurred is the difficult problem. Give me a camera with 12 stops of DR, and I'll be more than happy to do levels and curves and local contrast enhancement to add some snap to the print.
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Two thoughts. First, when I entered Brooks Institute, every student was required to have a 4x5 view camera and an incident light meter. Because many assignments were in the studio with flash or hot lights, a flash meter was almost essential.
Second, I am not sure that "expose to the right" is the essence of the Zone System. It is my understanding that "expose to the right" provides the maximum exposure that does not clip the highlights. However, there are instances when clipping or blowing highlights might be desirable. Such an instance is large specular highlights, such as direct sun or flash on water, snow, ice, metal, glass, etc. Without clipping or blowing out the very brightest part of the image, the remainder of the image would be underexposed. Isn't the correct exposure the one that shows a desired white with texture as white with texture?
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That's the general idea, devise a way to gradually decrease the photodetector's sensitivity to light as the charge level increases, so that the electron well will never quite fill completely (at least from light exposure, dark current would be another issue entirely), and response curve between light exposure and output voltage going to the ADC will more closely match that of the human eye. That will increase dynamic range that can be built into a photodetector well of any given size.
On some of Sony´s professonal studio tv-cameras you can adjust the response curve (gamma function) and you can also selectively alter the response in the highlight region (dynamic knee function). Perhaps these functions would be beneficial on a dslr.
best regards
Tom
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Ray, I would suggest that if that white house is as white as the paper it's printed on, and you wanted to see details, you did something wrong.
In the Zone System, you would select a dark part of the image and meter it to show the detail and tone you want. Then meter the house. Expose for the dark part, and develope until the highlight came up as desired too.
You only get two areas as you want, the rest will fall where it may.
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This dicussion is giving me a sense of "deja-vue all over again" from many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and cameras still used film. Some manufacturer actually marketed (briefly) a film aimed directly at photographers like Ray. I think the maker was FR, but I'm not sure, and I can't remember the name of the film. But it was a B&W 35mm film that had three different emulsions on it, one with a very low ISO rating (or probably ASA, before ISO), one with a medium speed, and one very high speed (say, ISO 800 or 1600). The idea was pretty much that any exposure would work and you'd never get blown highlights. A little like stitching three exposures together in PS.
The film didn't stay on the market very long.
Eric
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Gee - it's nice to see a dinosaur here. My first "real" camera was an Argus C-3. I left the Hawkeye crowd in the dust with that and a $9.00 light meter.
But - I'll never go back. What I like so much about digital is that I can take 100's of pictures and not so much as think of what it's going to take in dollars or time to process them. Not so I have hundreds to choose from but because I just enjoy taking the shot. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by what develops. Most times I click "erase" - but (after paying for the camera and the CF card) it cost me nothing.
Isn't it nice that even with all the high tech and automation that people still hope to emulate Ansel Adams? I admire Clyde Butcher even more than Ansel Adams - here's a guy who should probably cut back on the cheeseburgers who hauls a HUGE view camera and an equally HUGE tripod into the Everglades, sets up in water up to his waist and takes pictures of trees and flowers and clouds while the gators are cheering him on and the bugs are happy he eats so much. Oh - it's all black and white and admired by a lot of people. He's an artist and is recognized as such. Of course, he's also a dinosaur.
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I have from time to time stood in almost the same places Adams put his tripod and made an image. Hernandez being but one.
I recall once while hiking coming upon a nice place to rest. I looked at the partically frozen lake. I had a strange feeling I had been there before, but I knew I hadn't. Then I realized I was looking at Adams' "Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Sierra Nevada, California." While quite similar, not at all like the b&w print I had seen. And I could of course see a lot of stuff that had been cropped from Adams' image. I took out my camera and took a photo, a kinda "I was there" thing. My color slide looked very little like Adams' image except for some shapes here and there. But for the memory of Adams' image, Howard the Artist would have taken a rest, admired the view, and walked on. I have no vision and my Nikon had even less.
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I was trying to be brief, Howard. I don't have any nostalgia for the smell of darkroom chemicals which I understand are rather unhealthy anyway. I much prefer sitting in front of a computer, and capturing the moment can involve quite a lot of preparation as you well know, such as hiking for days through the rainforest, or booking airline tickets and arranging accommodation in Italy, where I hope to capture many, many moments during the next few weeks :) .
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I bought myself a Sekonic 504 to use with my Mamiya RZ a while back and became quite attatched to it - a great meter. It`s more or less gathering dust these days, which I feel is a shame (can`t bring myself to part with it though) but I have found on occasion (if I remember to pack it!) that its easier to use the sekonic to take a few spot readings (to check crucial highlights mainly) than pan the camera around the scene when I`ve already composed things carefully in the viewfinder.
I`ve got to say though that if I didn`t already have the sekonic, I dont think I`d be in any hurry to go out and buy one now, happy as I am with my in-camera metering,
regards T.
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Howard,
The incident meter "assumes" that everything in the photograph is 18% grey and reads accordingly.
The reflected meter "converts" everything to 18% grey.
Correct?
So, it's question of priorities. What are you trying to achieve in a given photograph?
With the fox in the snow, a spot meter reading of the fox will give you a pretty good exposure, without any bracketing, because the fox's coat ( I am assuming an orange/red fox of the type we have here in Ireland AND that the sun is behind you.) is as near as dammit to 18% grey.
On the other hand, the (far easier to take) spot reading of the static snow will give you an exposure about two stops underexposed, since the rendering of textured snow is about two stops above 18% grey. So, you will need to adjust the reading accordingly.
But, an incident reading of the scene will immediately give you a working exposure which, given the assumed dominance of the snow within the scene, you can tweak accordingly. i.e. bracket -1/3, for example.
As to your example of the shadows: well, how important are they to the overall image? In bright mid-day sunlight, with the sun directly behind you, a "normal" ( and I use the word advisedly) exposure for ISO 64 is 1/250 sec. @ f 8/11. Now, let's say you take a spot reading of the shadows in the scene and they are five stops below. Will they hold? Probably not. Are they important enough to overexpose the rest of the scene a little? That's up to you.
You have to prioritize what you are seeing.
I don't think you're missing anything! ;-)
D.
ps. Have you read Ansel Adam's "The Negative"? It's all there! ;-)
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Thank you.
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Sorry for any apparent contrdiction. My thought is that if the image isn't properly exposed, some correction can be made during processing and printing. The greater the dynamic range of the original, the less the effect of improper exposure (more latitude). But latitude doesn't always make an effective substitute for correct exposure of the original.
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Similar to reducing the developing time with b&w film? Shadows relatively unaffected but the highlights are depressed. Before I learned to use the Zone System, the vogue was to overexpose (increase shadow detail) and underdevelop (lower highlights). Flatten the film's curve.
That's the general idea, devise a way to gradually decrease the photodetector's sensitivity to light as the charge level increases, so that the electron well will never quite fill completely (at least from light exposure, dark current would be another issue entirely), and response curve between light exposure and output voltage going to the ADC will more closely match that of the human eye. That will increase dynamic range that can be built into a photodetector well of any given size.
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"I can't help wondering if b&w film in Ansel Adams' days had had a textural range of 10 stops, would Adams have devised the Zone system?" In a word, certainly. He would still have wanted to match the film to the paper.
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Eric,
I understand fairly well what you've just written and I'm not criticising the zone system as devised and used by Ansel Adams, I'm merely arguing a point I made much earlier in the thread that all these considerations that resulted in the zone system, and also today results in practices such as 'expose to the right', are fundamentally based in the inadequacies of the medium (film or sensor) to capture the full dynamic range of a scene, with full texture, as the eye sees it.
We all know (or should know) that the camera does lie. And one respect in which it lies is its portrayal of dense shadows as black, and/or whitish surfaces such as a white shirt or white paint on a house, or clouds in the sky, or parts of a sunlit waterfall, as white as the paper it's printed on.
The eye simply doesn't see it this way. At least my eye doesn't. I'd prefer to have a flat image containing full detail in all parts of the image and then choose which parts I'd like lighten and darken according to taste and even change my mind about it 2 years later or even 10 years later.
The only way I can do this at present is to take multiple exposures on a tripod and hope the wind doesn't interfere.
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What a great outlook, Ray. That's what got me wondering in the first place about metering. It seems the tech impulse can take over and photography becomes mechanical with the result measured by "accurately" representing what was "actually" there. Who knows what was "actually" there when Ansel Adams clicked the shutter? Who cares? What's important is what happens when we look at the result. That's the nature of the art. The tech side is the reason so many people refuse to acknowledge the artist behind the lens - anybody can "take a picture."
There were good images made with a pinhole camera and a guess at exposure. And there are good images made with Ebony view cameras. But the impact of the picture on the viewer depends on the skill and artistic emotion of the person who composes, captures and creates the result. I suggest many people - including many in this forum - have created images every bit as "good" and better than Adams. But so many treat "understanding" the Zone system as some kind of holy grail. Learning how to stroke with a brush and which kind of canvas to use does not a great master make. Using the tools available to record and emotion in a way it's understandable to viewers is the trick - I think.
God - how I lust after the Canon 1ds Mark II and the hugely expensive medium format digital backs. But I have spent the limit on my EOS 20D and will be an article in the news if I even THINK about spending $8,000 on a camera. So - I watch and read in this forum and enjoy learning how to use what I have available to me (which is considerably more than Ansel Adams ever imagined) to make pictures people enjoy.
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I should add that I'm no expert on Ansel Adams. This particular shot, Moonrise over Hernandez, sticks in my mind because Howard mentioned it during a long thread on the correct exposure for the Moon, over a year ago.
I think it's a great example of the circumstances of a shot contibuting to its fame. We all like a story or narrative. Whatever this shot lacks, it's made up for by (3 prepositions together; is that grammatically correct?) the narrative surrounding the circumstances of the shot.
I've only seen small jpegs of this photo but I'd like to see a full enlargement showing the full tonal range. As an aside, it's interesting to note that there appears to be a rule of thirds in operation here :D . The foreground with graveyard and church, the lower third; the bright bank of clouds and the moon above, the middle third, and the black sky above the moon, the upper third.
Could be a bit symbolic ??? .
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Howard,
Where have I written that the goal of all photographic production should be to accurately portray the scene as it was? We all know that doesn't necessarily apply to art photos. I have no doubt that the black sky above the moon at Hernandez was not really black when Ansel released the shutter.
Nevertheless, I would like my camera to be able to accurately record the scene in front of me within its two dimensional limit as much as possible because it increases my options. I'm not into 3 dimensional stero photography yet :) .
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"I much prefer sitting in front of a computer, ... ." I hear that can be unhealthy, too. I guess no one will ever accuse you of being wet behind the ears. "[T]rying to be brief" seems, at least to me, to pretty well describe your approach to making images as well as defining photography. As someone has already said, to each his own. Enjoy your trip to Italy.
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Thanks to all very much.
I'd read an article by a pro who advised putting the camera on "manual" and forgetting about the reflective metering if "really good" results were desired. Then I started reading more - there's many articles about why an incident meter should be part of one's kit. So - I looked at the Sekonic L358 and it sounded like a magic box. Then I thought that, basically, all I want to do is measure light and I shouldn't have to spend big bucks to do that. Plus, in this digital age, I can merrily shoot 100 test shots without worrying about film. On the other hand, I figured B&H wouldn't be carrying them if nobody was buying. So the toy bug in me got reinforced.
When I read your replies and remembered that Ansel Adams probably didn't use a $300 - $600 digital light meter - I felt a lot better.
Thanks
Howard Batt
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Dinarius, that's exactly what caused me to ask the question - if I'm looking at a landscape from a mile away, why would I use an incident meter? Then I read the Sekonic site (there's an interesting two page article there) and some others who make the basic argument that the light "falling on the subject" is different from the light "reflected from the subject" because of color and tone. In camera reflected light meters try to see everything as 18% grey and, therefore, the result will be biased to grey - even a white or black plate. There's a picture of a white fox in the snow - an "impossibility" apparently with a reflected light meter. But - to use the incident meter for landscape photography, I *would* have to walk the five miles to the landscape to measure the shadows with the incident meter - because the light falling in the shadow areas isn't the light falling outside. The color and tone are different and could only be measured at the location. That - if I understand it correctly - is why Sekonic recommends the spot meter for such situations. Take several spot meter readings and average them - precisely what my camera does automatically or manually. If all I had to do was meter the sunlight incidentally - then I could use the small (letter sized) neutral grey card I have in my backpack. Stick it in the sun, meter it and be done.
Or am I missing something?
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I think I've figured it out and I've decided a good handheld incident light meter is just as important in the digital world as it was with photography before the in-camera meter.
The key that I've gleaned from reading a lot about it in the past couple of weeks is this: if I can control the light - as opposed to simply measuring it - then I need an incident light meter. So - landscape photography: if it's big like an island in the sun with palm trees and lots of water, the in-camera meter will do everything because I can't alter the light in any way. But, if I'm photographing a flower in the shade or a group in a room and want to adjust the light between shadows and highlights or "warm" the scene, then simply bracketing and picking the "best" result won't work - the meter will simply read what it sees and the picture will be exposed accordingly. To adjust the ratio of fill and back and main light and to use shadows for a desired result demands a good meter to place the lights and determine their power or a lot of experience with them to achieve a particular result. To "paint with light" where the light can be controlled requires the meter as the tool that helps the photographer properly place the paint.
A fascinating forum this is - knowledgeable people to put me on the track and create the desire to learn. Thanks
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I thought the problem was likely solvable, and it appears it is in Photoshop.............
The point was that increasing the dynamic range of a digital camera to 12 stops would not represent an alternative to correct exposure any more than 12 stops of B&W eleminates exposure problems. It provides more latitude to get acceptable results, but not a fix. Variable contrast printing paers can cover up some exposure/developing problem, but not fix them.
To get the results you expect, there seems to be little alternative to correct exposure
Howard,
You seem to be contradicting yourself here. You agree that the problem is solvable with PS and then go on to say that it's not really solvable.
Variable contrast printing is not so relevant in the digital world since the source can be adjusted to suit any type of paper.
However, there could still be an 'expose to the right' issue even with a camera with a 12 stop DR. Perhaps this is what you are referring to.
If we take the example of the indoor scene with a view out the window; an evaluative, automatic exposure with current DSLRs would severely overexpose the view through the window, blowing lots of highlights, particularly in the sky, and would produce a perhaps more reasonable but still underexposed interior.
Neither part of the image is going to be correctly exposed. You might be able to recover a significant amount of detail in the clouds (if there were any), but the blue channel will be severely clipped and the sky, if it was blue, will range from grey to sickly cyan.
The interior will exhibit lots of noise due to underexposure. If too objectionable then Neat Image will help, but the result will still be slightly degraded. In fact, the image over all, after extensive processing, will be somewhat degraded.
Supposing the camera were capable of 12 stops DR. The interior part of the image would then look as though it had been shot with a current 6 stop DR camera exposed to the right, and the same for the view through the window. Essentially, one would have two images, the interior and the window, both of which would look as though they were two separate but correct exposures taken with your current average DSLR.
You could argue (and I wonder if this is your point), if the view through the window was irrelevant to the composition, then one might choose to expose the interior fully to the right of the 12 stop range in order to get more levels. However, I doubt there would be much advantage in this. I suspect any future 12 stop DR camera will only achieve such a spectacular DR by compressing the brighter values; ie. it would not be a linear imaging device like current cameras.
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OK. Overexpose would move the histogram to the right. Can the response be flatten? I think so long as the highlights aren't overly clipped or blown out.
I can see how a larger dynamic range could be helpful. It would allow more "overexposure?"
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In a word, certainly. He would still have wanted to match the film to the paper.
Yes, but I fail to see how a zone system would help to match the film to paper. 10 stops of full texture would result in no pure blacks or whites on the negative at all, except in very rare and exceptionally high contrast scenes. The matching would all have to take place through choice of developer and development time, choice of paper grade and such techniques as dodging and burning .. would it not?
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I think you are misunderstanding the Zone system. With film photography there are three different exposure ranges you need to be concerned with.
First is the total range of luminances in the scene you are photographing.
Second is the range that the film can accomodate.
Third is the range of tones from black to white that the printing paper can produce.
If Range 1 (scene) is fewer stops ("Zones") than Range 2 (film), you have some leeway, and the preferred exposure is generally to "expose to the left" so as to minimize grain. But if Range 1 is greater than Range 2, you must give up some of one or both ends of the scene's brightness range. It's up to you to choose. In any case, you use exposure, development, paper grades, and sometimes other more arcane techniques to translate scene brightnesses into print tones.
The Zone System simply provides three different (but related) useful schemes for measuring the scene and knowing what to do to the film and paper so as to make the print reflect what you felt was important in the scene. And the key to using these effectively is previsualization -- being able to look at a scene and have a pretty good idea what is possible to get in the print, even before you click the shutter.
With digital, you still have the same three ranges to deal with (the second is what your sensor can hold), but Range 2 may be longer or shorter than the range of any given film. And with digital you have more tricks you can play with (levels and curves, for example). But still, if you know the limits of each stage of your medium, you can maximize the possibilities. So the Zone System applies just the same as with film. But you have more ways to play with the translation from scene to print.
I hope this helps a little.
Eric
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ooops - the "outlook" I admired was Howard Smiths. I was listening to the radio and "Georgia on my mind" made Ray come to mind and .....
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It seems the tech impulse can take over and photography becomes mechanical with the result measured by "accurately" representing what was "actually" there. Who knows what was "actually" there when Ansel Adams clicked the shutter? Who cares?
Sounds to me you should take up painting. The camera is a mechanical device and is designed to be as accurate as possible in its role of capturing (or representing) what was actually there. What you do with that 'accurate' representation is up to you. It's easy to turn a photo into the appearance of a painting, but very difficult to do the reverse. It's easy to make a sharp photo look blurred, but difficult to do the reverse. It's easy to create black shadows where none exist, but difficult to create detail from those black shadows.
Lots of people actually care about what the scene was like when Ansel Adams pressed the shutter at Hernandez. The place has become almost a Mecca for admirers of this photo. People rue the fact that the shot is now unrepeatable because the foreground has changed so much over the years. Because Adams was rather lax at recording the dates of his images, astronomers have even taken the trouble to precisely determine the date of this image for posterity - 4.05pm on October 31, 1941.
I'm not sure what you are on about in this post.
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Gee - it's nice to see a dinosaur here. My first "real" camera was an Argus C-3. I left the Hawkeye crowd in the dust with that and a $9.00 light meter.
Another dinosaur... my first 'real' camera was my dad's Argus C5. I still have it somewhere in a box...
Mike.
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"[T]rying to be brief" seems, at least to me, to pretty well describe your approach to making images as well as defining photography.
This is a completely wrong impression you've got, Howard.
On some photos (just a few) I've already spent the equivalent of several weeks 8 hours a day on each one, and they are still not to my satisfaction. I've made several trips to the same location to reshoot but never has everything been just right. The weather is either too hazy or too windy or I make mistakes. They are stitching projects.
There are other (single) images that I keep reworking as my knowledge of photography increases and as the equipment and programs become more sophisticated.
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When I read your replies and remembered that Ansel Adams probably didn't use a $300 - $600 digital light meter - I felt a lot better.
And remember: Edward Weston hated using any meter at all.
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But with landscape photography it's difficult to measure the incident light on the subject since it's far away.
Not sure what your point is here.
There is only one sun and it's 93m miles away. So, even if you did walk the five miles, or whatever, to take an incident reading, it should be exactly the same as the reading taken next to the camera.
Landscape photography involves a single and extremely distant light source. Hence the need for either; a. an incident reading and some bracketing or, b. spot metering if the dynamic range is of importance to you, as in for example, the Zone System.
Studio photography usually involves more than one realtively close light source. Even when only one light source is involved, it relatively close proximity to the subject requires careful monitoring. Spot metering may do the trick, but indident readings are far easier. Also, on a purely "best practice" point, any unnecessary removal of the camera from the security of the tripod is welcome in my view. I'm much happier to drop or knock my lightmeter! ;-)
D.
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The big fallacy of using an incident meter for landscape work is that the light falling on the subject is not necessarily the same as the light in the vicinity of the photographer. Ever heard of a partly cloudy day? Some days you can get away with that assumption, but other days it would be totally foolish.
Determining optimal digital exposure isn't really that difficult to figure out; non-specular highlights should be exposed just below the clipping point. If the DR of the subject is beyond the capture DR of the sensor, you'll have to make some tough choices regarding how much of the highlights to blow vs shadows to block, or else bracket.
Digital Exposure And Metering Strategies (http://visual-vacations.com/Photography/exposure_metering_strategies.htm)
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ok, so I should have been a little more careful about the 'expose the right' comment ... my point was that you're shifting the available brightness range to fit the digital cameras capabilities and its the act of actually DOING THE SHIFT that is similar.
I totally understand the goals of the zone system to place the required brightness/tones exactly where you want them by adjusting the exposure. If that means blowing highlights or blocking up shadows then so be it.
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Ray, I could be totally wrong but a stop is a stop. The difference in expsoure between Zones 2 and 3 is a factor of 2, same as between Zones 9 and 10. So the darker 6 stops have a range of 64X, same as the brighter 6 stops.
I'm confused. Are you suggesting the lower portion of the scale be logarithmic and the upper portion be linear?
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Howard,
As I see it, the whole raison d'etre of the zone system devised by Adams and Archer is due to the inadequacy of film to capture the dynamic range of reality. It's claimed that the DR of B&W film is around 11 stops. But what does this mean? Certainly not 11 stops of high quality detail.
A description of each zone from 0 to 10 (available through any Google search) is quite illuminating. Zones 0 and 10 are complete black and complete white devoid of any detail. Zone 1 has so little detail it's as good as black. Zone 2 has some detail that might be useful. Zone 3 has pretty much full detail, but not of the highest quality. Zones 4 to 6 (one stop below to one stop above 18% grey) have the highest quality detail. Zones 7 & 8 have reasonable detail beginning to decline. Zone 9 has the barest hint of detail.
Seems to me, what we have here are 3 stops of full, high quality detail, or 6 stops (zones 3-8) of reasonably good detail. Depending on your standards, a film that can capture these 11 zones could be described as having a dynamic range of 6, 8 or 11 stops. Whatever standard you use to describe the DR, reality (a sunny day with a few shadows) will have a DR at least 4 stops more.
I recall Michael mentioned a while ago that you need 10 stops of DR to capture full detail in a bright, contrasty scene. That's 10 stops by the same standard that would describe B&W film as having a DR of 6 stops.
If we ever get an imaging device capable of a true DR of 10 stops, then there'll rarely be an issue of overexposing or using a zone system to shift the exposure a stop or two above or below that for 18% grey. Whatever you point the camera at will be recorded in full detail, both highlights and shadows.
The balance of those shadows and highlights in the processed image and print can later be determined according to taste, in the more comfortable and relaxed environment of the digital darkroom :) .
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Ray, give any film no exposure, and you get pure black. Opn the camera up long enough and any fim will be pure white, regardless of dynamic range.
True! But underexpose such a film with a 10 stop textural range in order to create a pure black, and a white shirt will look like a grey shirt. In order to get the shirt looking white on the print you'd have to (1) increase the development time of the negative, thus losing even more detail in the shadows, and/or (2) use a high contrast paper, again losing yet more detail in the shadows.
There would seem to be little purpose in doing this because you would be cutting off your options for future processing from such a negative. The best approach would be; no zone system; one correct exposure every time which would include full detail in all areas of the image; perhaps some alteration to development time if an assessment were made that no available grade of paper could produce the desired result and if dodging and burning were going to be too much of a hassle because of the nature of the scene.
Notice that Adams said the "full range" of film was 11 stops (not 10 as I said before) from black to white (Zones 0 thru X). He used all 11 stops, not just the 7 stops of texture (Zones II thru VIII).
The 10 stop film with full texture would have around 15 zones from black to white (the full range of the film) by the same reasoning and niether Adams nor anyone else would be able to use the 15 zones except in rare circumstances. The descriptions of the zones would then be something like, zone 0 black but rarely seen; zones 1 & 2 partial detail but rarely seen; zone 3 full detail; zone 15 pure white but rarely seen; zones 14 & 13 partial detail but rarely seen; zone 12 full detail.
I think I've got that right. Had to edit it twice.
Sorry to appear so contentious. I just get the impression you are perhaps stuck a bit in the old ways .
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Ray, I think you are getting beyond anything that I understand. Are you talking about a camera that will essentially automatically digitally blend several images?
Many digitally blended images exhibit more shadow detail and highlight detail than a single image. But, in my opinion, they start looking flat with washed out looking shadows and muddy looking highlights.
Howard,
It looks like I was spot on when I hinted that maybe you are a bit stuck in the old ways :) .
I really have little idea what methods would be employed if we ever do get a high DR camera that can tackle reality without compromise. Jonanthan made a good attempt with a design for a leaky photosite, but that's getting into areas beyond my understanding, too.
I think it's unavoidable that such a wide DR image is going to look flat in its RAW state and this might well be a disincentive for manufacturers to to develop such a sensor.
Even at the current stage of development, we have examples of people who migrate from a P&S camera to a 20D and complain that the images look flat. They're used to snappy, high contrast images with slightly blown white shirts and black shadows that have to be black because the alternative is sheer noise.
I get the impression that you don't use Photoshop. If you did, you'd realise how easy it is to make a flat image snappy, or anything else.
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Howard,
I very rarely come across pure blacks. To be pedantic, I think never. The shadows in the folds of a black velvet suit would be about the closest you would get to it. Ordinary black suits are really charcoal. I've got parts of the interior of my studio painted in matte black. It's not really black but it's the blackest paint I could find.
Or are you saying that if you had a very large dynamic range, you wouldn't care if you lost a zone or three by messing up the exposure?
Not quite. A wide dynamic range is not a guarantee against making stupid mistakes, but if you do, it's sure going to help.
I'm basically saying, with modern camera technology and a really wide dynamic range, the type of automatic, evaluative exposure metering that modern Canon cameras boast would work every time. You could then place your 'pure' blacks, if desired, either through a click on an automatic process in PS such as 'auto levels' or 'auto contrast' or be more creative and actively select what parts of the image you think would look best as pure black or near black, or whatever.
If Ansel Adams had had such a camera at Hernandez, he would have had time to remove that inappropriate yellow filter and take a second shot, and that would not have been the most difficult negative he'd had to deal with :D .
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Sure the camera is a mechanical device - but so are paint brushes (when compared to fingers, that is).
That's a good analogy. I'd like the camera to be an extension of my fingers as a panit brush is to a painter. No fussing with an external meter and the possibility of blown highlights or intractable shadows. No worrying about flashing histograms and decisions to autobracket or not. I just take the shot and the pre-visualisation takes the form of what I can do with it in Photoshop later.
This, I would suggest, frees me up to concentrate on purely artisitc matters whilst on the job. :)
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Ray, I didn't intend to single just you out for shooting style. We do differ there quite a bit though.
There is a thread going now about "missed opportunities." I look at missed photos about the same as missed stock market moments. I would be richer than Bill Gates if I had ... . But I'm not because I didn't ... . I might be a world famous photographer if I had ..., but I didn't ... . I don't worry or fret over missed photo moments. Like buses, there will be another one by in a few minutes.
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The best photographer I know uses a rangefinder camera with no meter. He doesn't carry a meter either.
My cameras of choice have no built-in meters. I used reflective handhelds for years, then was forced to use an incident meter at school. I would never go back.
I still use a spot meter from time to time. I also use Polaroid film once in a while to check exposure and composition before the "real shot."
One problem I have with many camera meters is the user has no real way of determining wht it is doing. They average this and that, weight soem readings, on and on. When I use the handheld meter, the exposure may be wrong, but it is the one I selected.
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Thanks very much, Jonathan - especially for the link. I spent some time wandering around your site. It's very impressive. I especially liked the more "candid" yet very professional wedding portraits. The people are relaxed and "caught" but nothing about the portraits makes them look like snapshots. Well lit, well composed and nicely exposed.
I had pretty well convinced myself that an incident meter would help me but I've now realized it won't because I don't have the skills - yet - to use it effectively. That kind of technology is much like high end computers and photoshop CS. Many people buy them thinking the technology will make them better without working - just like diet pills that work in your sleep require no effort.
So - I thank everyone who took the time to write. What came through loud and clear is that there are as many ways to enjoy this art as their are practitioners. I don't think there's a "right" or a "wrong" way - it's all subjective. So, as I get better (which I will measure by compliments) I will know what kinds of tools I should have to stretch my own envelope a little more.
Beautiful pictures - thanks for the site. And the insight.
Howard Batt
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But latitude doesn't always make an effective substitute for correct exposure of the original.
Well, certainly not with film. Even with relatively high DR B&W film, the shadows might well be unsatisfactory if the exposure has been for the sky or the moon. I suppose it really depends on the degree of latitude, the nature of the automatic, evaluative in-camera meter and the design of the imaging chip that could capture a 12 stop DR.
This concept of 'expose to the right' was not widely publicised when DSLRs first arrived on the scene. If I've understood the situation correctly, there's an imbalance and wastage of levels due to the linearity of the imaging chip and the eye's different sensitivity to varying intensities of light. In other words, the camera does not produce enough values in the darker regions but produces too many in the brighter regions, ie. more than the eye can discern in the brighter regions.
From the camera's perspective, just a 1 stop increase in exposure requires the sensor to capture double the number of photons. If we consider current DSLRs to have a DR of 7 stops, then to design a camera along the same lines to have a 12 stop DR would seem to be impossible. The sensor of such a camera would have to be able to capture 32x the number of photons of a full-well current DSLR.
Without dramatically increasing the size of the sensor, an alternative approach would be along lines suggested by Jonathan in another thread; ie. progressively compress the values in the brighter parts of the image so that the total number of values in the brighter 6 stops would be closer to the number of values in the darker 6 stops, instead of 64x greater.
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The Zone System's raison d'etre is not the inadeqaute dynamic range of b&w film, but that the film's dynamic range is much greater than the printing paper.
Pure black and pure white provide useful information - there is nothing there needed to be seen, or the area is really dark or bright. Pure black is not low quailty detail. It could be perfect. A dark shadow area of black velvet reall is black with no detail. Even brightly lit black velvet is pretty much deatil free - black with soem texture.
"The balance of those shadows and highlights in the processed image and print can later be determined according to taste, in the more comfortable and relaxed environment of the digital darkroom." Zone System users, including Adams, frequently do/did this in the wet darkroom. They take the same image several times and "fiddle" with the processing one image at a time until they either run out of images or get what they want. I guess with digital, one never runs out of images. But with film at least, once the film is exposed, there is little if anything that can be done with the dark areas.
Enter bracketing exposure. The problem with film at least is bracketed exposures with several examples of each exposure for several trial developings equals a lot of film for one image. The subject may not stand still that long, or the photographer may not carry that much film.
Enter experience and previsualization. The need to bracket exposure goes down and the number of "fiddles" goes down.
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> one saying incident reading is essential for landscape photography to accurately measure shadow and highlight.
But with landscape photography it's difficult to measure the incident light on the subject since it's far away. imo an incident meter might make sense for studio work or copy work but the camera's spot meter more than meets the needs for outdoor photography in most cases and even can "make do" in the studio. The spot meter will let you evaluate the dynamic range of the shot and help you choose the tradeoff between shadows and highlights with minimum experimentation or bracketing.
- DL
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Ray, give any film no exposure, and you get pure black. Opn the camera up long enough and any fim will be pure white, regardless of dynamic range.
Notice that Adams said the "full range" of film was 11 stops (not 10 as I said before) from black to white (Zones 0 thru X). He used all 11 stops, not just the 7 stops of texture (Zones II thru VIII).
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Ray, I think you are getting beyond anything that I understand. Are you talking about a camera that will essentially automatically digitally blend several images?
Many digitally blended images exhibit more shadow detail and highlight detail than a single image. But, in my opinion, they start looking flat with washed out looking shadows and muddy looking highlights.
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Ray, I suppose that if I had a camera with a very very large dynamic range, I could select out of an image the stops I want, adjust them in Photoshop to fit them on paper, and print. Until then, I guess I am just stuck with having to accurately meter and expose. (To me, that is an interesting and challenging part of the puzzle. Actually, if I wanted truely great images everytime, I would take all the money I spend making my own and buy the Master's.)
Then along comes Epson with a Super Dynamic Range printer/paper combo and I want a camera with another 6 stops of dynamic range.
Seems that if the dynamic range of the camera is made large enough, there would be no real need for a meter any more. Write a Photoshop plugin called Focus-all, and you have the ultimate in point and shoot cameras. You might be approaching the elimination of the need for a photographer if you mount this bad boy on your robot that knows a great image when it sees it.
Yes, I am frustrated.
If Adams hadn't lost his light meter, maybe he would also have had a better time, although it would be hard to imagine just how much better it could have gotten. One of the beauties to me of the Hernandez image is that it was difficult for a master, and that not just anyone with a $50K Canon could have done the same thing easier. Maybe Adams enjoyed the challenge also, having to quickly recognize the potential, draw on his knowledge and then work hard in the darkroom to coax out the latent image to look like the image in his head.
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Thanks for the tip, Ray, but I'll probably just keep puttering with the camera. Sure the camera is a mechanical device - but so are paint brushes (when compared to fingers, that is).
You're not the first to tell me I make no sense and I'm sure you won't be the last. But I do appreciate your taking the time to set me straight even though you say you don't know what I'm talking about.
You and I disagree completely about the purpose of a camera but that likely is because we put it to different uses. However, I'll not try to persuade you to my way of thinking and will understand completely if you simply ignore me should I feel the urge to write something again.
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I have a Sekonic L-358, and I only shoot digital. I find it very useful when working with flash. It is difficult to use a camera meter to check for even lighting across a group of 5-6 people, or to see if you have evenly lit a painting you are photographing. Outside, I just let the matrix metering figure it out.
Michael
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Ray, the Zone System was developed for B&W film and prints. B&W film has a dynamic range of 10 to 12 stops. The problem the Zone System solves is how to cram that range onto paper that has a smaller dynamic range.
I clipped this from an article on LL:
"The real world has a much greater dynamic range than does a photographic print. By this I'm referring to the range of brightness encountered — from the brightest non-specular highlights in a scene to the deepest shadows. This can be as much as 8 stops, while a typical print on, say, matte paper may only be able to display a 5.5 stops range."
Seems that increasing the dynamic range of the camera would create a problem, likely solvable, onto paper.
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The Zone System's raison d'etre is not the inadeqaute dynamic range of b&w film, but that the film's dynamic range is much greater than the printing paper.
Are you sure about this? I'm not really qualified to comment because I've had very little experience in a chemical darkroom. My interest in photography did not take off until the digital darkroom became an affordable reality, but from what I understand there would be 3 major stages in the zone system; correct exposure; appropriate development of the film to increase or reduce contrast as desired, and choice of paper grade to match the contrast of the negative.
I would have thought the zone system creates choices which help one make the best of the DR limitations of the film. Without that framework it would be more difficult to get the desired amount of detail in the significant parts of the image, would it not?
For example, if one wanted to get good detail in brightly lit snow one would probably have to place the snow in zone 7 or 8 and by doing so sacrifice shadow detail in zone 2 and 3 which (perhaps?) no amount of film development technique or choice of paper grade could bring out. One can't have both, but the zone system makes the choices clearer.
If the zone system really is all about compressing the wider DR of film to fit on the narrower DR of paper, then I can't see how it would be relevant at all in the digital world.
Pure black and pure white provide useful information - there is nothing there needed to be seen, or the area is really dark or bright. Pure black is not low quailty detail.
I've nothing against pure blacks and whites. They can be a useful dramatic effect and a great disguise for low quality detail. The eye usually sees the detail in the shadows, but often the camera's DR is inadequate, but never mind, make the shadows black :D .
But with film at least, once the film is exposed, there is little if anything that can be done with the dark areas.
My point exactly! If the film had a wider DR the detail would be there in the shadows, to be used or turned into a pure black shadow, or pure white in the case of highlight detail, by dodging and burning and choice of high contrast or low contrast papers and appropriate developers etc.
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If you don't get it right before pressing the shutter, there usually isn't a lot you can do later. An overexposed image is hard to fix the highlights. An underexposed image is hard to coax out shadows.
I know! I know! I know! :) . Maybe that's why I'm obsessed with the usefulness of a high DR camera. This would be a no-worries, correct-exposure-every-time camera. Suits my style.
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"The mechanical aspects of handling the camera, getting the exposure to correspond with some sort of zone system, the struggle to overcome the limitations of the camera in respect of dynamic range, precise calculations of CoCs in the field for DoF purposes etc etc etc, can be distractions from the contemplation of artistic matters whilst in the field, gazing at the view."
My question to you Ray is, just what the heck is photography anyway? One thing stands out to me. You and I have very different ideas of photogrpahy. To me, the "mechanical aspects of handling the camera" are a very integral, necessary and enjoyable part of photography. I find making photographs satisfying, not distracting. I frequently remove all of the "mechanical aspects of handling the camera" and just view and watch. Using a camera isn't at all distracting from the art of photogrpahy. No more than handling brushes and paint is a distraction for painters. Is the mechanical aspects of playing a piano be a distraction for the pianist? Or a pleasure? Distractions are minimized by practice, making the mechanical aspects second nature, requiring little or no conscience attention. Could I get a player piano, call myself a pianist, and eliminate the need to practice?
"I would like my camera to be able to accurately record the scene in front of me ... as much as possible because it increases my options." If you put more emphasis on "as much as possible," you already have that camera. Adams developed the Zone System to increased his options, not make photography more mechanical and distracting.