[pure-silver] Re: Matrix Metering and Calibrating

Over developing will give excessive contrast. i.e. requires soft filter for 
printing.
Over exposure will give generally too light throughout the scene. i.e. dense 
negatives but can be printed through(longer print time) to give reasonable 
results at normal grade.

Street photography will often involve quick action on your part to capture 
something that is happening.  That often means there is not time to meter for 
shadows and set aperture and shutter accordingly.  Therefore, whilst zone 
system is great for some applications it is not necessarily suitable for street 
photography.
Ralph's calibration routines are fine BUT they only take into account one 
"subject brightness range"  which may or may not be correct for your typical 
subject.

A typical landscape with sky and dark shadows may be need a 10 zone system but 
a typical street scene with no sky may only need a 7 zone system so some trial 
and error and/or  testing for different brightness ranges will be needed by you 
and this again depends on how you want your results to look.

Given that you have matrix metering I would suggest that you start by just 
bracketing( normal, -1 stop, -2 stops )  some typical scenes and then making an 
adjustment to film speed for the film you are using based on the results you 
get.  i.e  if you find that the -1 stop images are the best then increase your 
film speed setting by 1 stop.
Then if those best images are not contrasty enough,  give 30% extra development 
and bracket again or if too contrasty reduce dev by 30% and bracket again.  
Repeat process a second time to fine tune it. 

It is important to remember that no single development time is going to be 
correct for all subject brightness ranges and zone system accuracy is only 
achievable where time allows correct metering and development is altered to 
suit subject brightness range.

Another method for the most consistent results across different subjects in 
street photography I would use an incident meter.
Since most street scenes will either be lit by sky light or direct sun light 
taking a single incident reading (pointing meter at main light source) and 
manually setting that exposure and using it for all shots while the lighting 
doesn't change will also give you consistent results.  Again try this approach 
and bracket and adjust dev accordingly.  This method has the benefit of high 
speed in that once exposure is set you only need to take note of lighting 
changes which on a sunny or overcast day don't change much.  On broken cloud 
days then lighting may change frequently. 

rob


At 12/09/2004 15:27 -0400, you wrote:
><quote who=Rob Champagne date=[040912 14:52]/>
>> And what is it that you don't like about the way they come out.
>> i.e. to much contrast, too little contrast, over exposed, under exposed.
>
>   They are overexposed for the most part. I just don't know if I am
>overexposing in the camera or overdeveloping. I was hoping there was a method
>in which I could take a controlled shot using controlled methods to test if my
>current setup is correct.
>
>   Is there not a way to calibrate a system?
>
>> are you printing them on silver gealtin or scanning them for digital prints.
>
>   I do silver prints and I scan for the web. I never print from the scan. I'm
>not concerned with the scanning. I just want to make sure I am starting off
>with the best possible negative.
>
>   Thanks.
>
>   J
>
>-- 
>Justin F. Knotzke 
>jknotzke@xxxxxxxxxx 
>http://www.shampoo.ca 
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