LARGE FORMAT PHOTOGRAPHY IS FOR BEGINNERS! (Part 3, Images & Some Technical Issues) By Roger Daines
Exposure Transparency film is best exposed for the highlights; it favours slight underexposure and black and white film for the shadows as it tolerates some over exposure. You want detail in the highlights with transparency film and detail in the shadows for black and white. I use the Zone system to establish the exposure I need when on location, especially for landscapes.
Metering For example, Velvia 50 has only just over 4 stops of latitude so accurate metering is very important. Familiarity with using the Zone system is important. The zone system is broken up into 10 zones where zone 0 is black without any detail and zone 10 is white with no detail. Zone 5 is the mid tone. Velvia is best exposed between zones 3 to zone 7 to capture as much detail as possible. Spot metering of the scene is important to ensure you capture as much information as the film will record. This necessitates metering all the areas in the image and averaging the exposure to stay within 4 to 5 stop range if you are using E6 film. C41 and black and white. Page 7
July 2021 Volume 6 Number 5