Gorges de l'Areuse, Switzerland

[joolsb]

I thought it only fair to put up one of my shots for general comments.

This was taken in the Gorges de l'Areuse in Western Switzerland about 10 days ago.

Tech. details: 150mm, 4" @ f32, Velvia 50 Quickload.

There's a little more shadow detail in the original but my scanner obstinately refuses to have anything to do with it...


http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/large ... ckground=4

[Mark Pope]

Nice shot Jools. I like the movement of the water.
I do wonder whether it's a touch dark, but then this might be my laptop screen.

Cheers

[joolsb]

Thanks Mark. I think I might try and return there on a more uniformly overcast day. As it was, clouds were moving fast and the light was changing from one minute to the next. Not easy conditions for LF photography!

I tried my best to get the contrast to within 4 stops or so but even so, I think I was pushing my luck by using Velvia 50.

[Chong]

Hi Jool,
You have chosen quite a challenging lighting condition to phtograph. Sometime it can make good sense to come back again when the lights are better.

For situation like this, 2 or 3 stops graduated ND placed on the top would make all the difference. However the reflection in the middle may be harder to control. If you take a reading of the shadows and decide to place this at Zone III (2 stops under what you spot meter suggested) will place the highlights at zone 8 to 9. Basically it will mean that the highlights would be blown out with no details. Then this will bring you to the question whether you could live with blown out hightlights with good details in shadow or vice versa. Personally I would take two exposures and decide which one is best. I would be probably more incline towards blown out highlights with good shadow details. The ND filter would hopefully keep the top correctly exposed.

Hope you find it useful.

Regards

Chong

[Mark Pope]

One thing that I've just thought about is whether it's possible to pre-flash transparency film the same way that you do B&W negative if you want to get more detail in the shadows?

Anyone tried this or is it just a dumb thing to do?

[joolsb]

Thanks Chong for the useful critique. I still have a lot to learn about spot-metering, that's certain!

I am now kicking myself for not thinking of using a grad in the field as I'm sure that it would have made all the difference to the shadow detail. I guess I'm still in the mindset of only using grads to control skies. It's so easy to forget they can be used in other situations, too.

For the record, I was using a polariser and an 81b...

[Joanna Carter]

Jools, you might be a Velvia 50 fanatic but I have recently been doing a bit of experimenting with Astia 100F for difficult lighting like this. It seems to have about 7 stops range and, allthough the colours aren't so saturated a little filtration and fiddling in the printing stage can do wonders.

If I were using a grad in this shot, I would place the line from about 1 o'clock to about 8 o'clock to take back the left side rather than just the top.

[Chong]

Hi Jool,
I can't see what benefit polariser would do to this scene. Could you tell us why you have chosen to use polariser? If your intention was to take off the reflection this may cause harder to distinct the water from the river bank. Some reflections may actually lift the bottom up a bit. I can understand the use of 81b as this would correct some of the blue you would encounter in shadow.

Yes, I agree with Joanna in regards to the position of ND grad. The top right side is just a block of black and would not benefit from ND grad.

Regards

Chong

[joolsb]

Chong, I often check out a scene with a polariser before taking the shot to see if there's any benefit. In this case, it brought out the colours better and eliminated a lot of glare from the water.

Joanna's suggestion regarding Astia sounds quite interesting. I tend to stick with Velvia 100 (or 50 as in this case) and Provia 100 and therefore have never got around to checking out Astia....

[Chong]

Hi Jool,

Thanks. I often use polariser too because it's very glary here in Australia. However, judicious use is still warranted as some scenes may actually suffer if used inappropriately. I have found that water reflections may be more pleasing than one that had been polarised. IMHO I think your shot would be better off without polariser as you are already using a very saturated film. As I had pointed out the reflection may lift the bottom out of shadow.

The other thing that you would already know is exposure compensation for polariser and it is important to know whether your polariser need a 2 1/2 stops or 2 stops (1/2 a stop may make or break a picture). I am using one which has got 81b (warm up polariser) and this need a 2 1/2 stops.

Lately I have been using 8x10 Fuji Astia 100F and I am surprised that Jo found it to have such wide latitude. I certainly has not tried to push it to that extreme and IMHO I think 7 stops is pushing it . It is certainly less vivid than velvia but it does produce very pleasing trannies when you exposed it correctly and great for portrait too.

I hope you find all comments useful and please do correct me if I am wrong.

Regards

Chong

[joolsb]

Thanks Chong! All the comments have been interesting and useful. I don't always use a polariser where water is involved - it depends on what effect I'm going for. In this case, it emphasised the flow of the water without distracting specular highlights.

As regards filter compensation, I take my meter readings through whatever filtration I'm using - with the exception of grads, of course. It's a lot less hassle like that.