At 18:04 1/31/02, Tom Trottier wrote:
Incident is good for slides, if all the light is the same, or you move to
each variety of lighting in the scene (brightest, every shadow variation -
different things reflect into the shadows).
After assessing overall contrast I usually consider the highlights in which
some detail is desired and whether that will fall within film latitude of
an "average" reading. These areas will be "thinnest" on transparency, the
opposite of negative film for which the standard advice is: expose for
shadow details and print for highlight details. In general, the thinnest
emulsion areas on film are the most problematic in printing. With
negatives, especially films such as Tri-X, detail will usually be
everywhere except possibly in specular highlights and this works.
But that takes some time, especially in the mountains....
Technically (for negative films), you really just have to decide what you
want to register on the film given your film's top and bottom limits. So
spotmetering,if the spot is small enough, is ideal.
After all is said and done, it's a matter of placing exposure to embrace
desired highlight and shadow details within the film's latitude
limits. Given the narrower latitude of transparency films such as
Kodachrome, doing so is more often a problem than with very wide latitude
films such as Kodak's Portra or Tri-X. With color films, compound this
with differences in brightness levels of various colors within the
scene. The end result may very easily be a different exposure placement
because of tradeoffs required with latitude limitations. The general
consideration process may still be very similar, e.g. where to place
exposure to capture essential detail in regions where the emulsion will be
thinnest: in low key regions for negative and high key regions for
transparency. I use "exemplia gratia" versus "id est" because there are no
absolute rules . . .
For slides, you want to previsualise what it will look like.
This is a Good Thing regardless of film used (and why there are no absolute
rules)! The fundamental concept is selecting bodies, lenses, filters (if
necessary), film(s), and setting exposure to create an image on film that
achieves the visualization.
Knowing how to translate what one "sees" into a visualization that fits
within hardware and film limitations can be very difficult, even for the
most experienced. Visualization also extends into compositional
considerations: how a visual slice of reality, cut out from everything
else around the photographer and suddenly devoid of all the other visual
and sensual cues, will appear to an observer in a "sterile" gallery
environment. I try to visualize how it will look when transported as a
"rectangle" into a completely white or totally black "mental gallery."
-- John
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