Film In The Snow

Dave Colangelo · Jan 4, 2017

So ill be heading to VT in a week and a half for the long weekend. Unfortunately a back issue will most likely prevent me from skiing so Ill have a weekend to spend alone with the Hasselblad and the 50mm I have on the way (oh boy am I excited :1219:

) . On any note I have not shot film in the snow yet really and would love some suggestions on how to deal with metering and nailing the exposures due to the glare that typically occurs etc. I have read to meter and then shoot a stop or two down to properly expose everything, is this true?

I, unfortunately don't have a spot meter so ill be running with my Gossen Sixtomat for the weekend. I could always use my D3300 to meter but I enjoy the process of film and would like to not use my Digital to double check (thats no fun!).

All suggestions welcome!

Regards
Dave

Ysarex · Jan 4, 2017

Dave Colangelo said:
So ill be heading to VT in a week and a half for the long weekend. Unfortunately a back issue will most likely prevent me from skiing so Ill have a weekend to spend alone with the Hasselblad and the 50mm I have on the way (oh boy am I excited) . On any note I have not shot film in the snow yet really and would love some suggestions on how to deal with metering and nailing the exposures due to the glare that typically occurs etc. I have read to meter and then shoot a stop or two down to properly expose everything, is this true?

I, unfortunately don't have a spot meter so ill be running with my Gossen Sixtomat for the weekend. I could always use my D3300 to meter but I enjoy the process of film and would like to not use my Digital to double check (thats no fun!).

All suggestions welcome!

Regards
Dave

Take an incident meter reading and use it -- no need for compensation. Take a reflected light meter reading and increase exposure between 1 and 2 stops depending on the amount of snow coverage. 100% coverage think 2 stops. 70% coverage think 1 stop. 30% coverage think 1/3 stop.

Joe

Derrel · Jan 4, 2017

With SLIDE film, yes, read the brightest area, and stop the lens down about 3/4 of a stop. With color slide film, you want to palce the highlight values so they look bright, but not over-exposed. This is the way we tend to meter and expose digital color positive as well.

With B&W negative film, you will defintiely want to meter, and tend to OPEN UP the lens aperture, or slow the shutter speed down by one full stop, or a bit more, otherwise you'll get muddy looks. On snow scenes, if you meter directly off of the very,very brightest snow, I would add 1.5 to 1.7 EV, to make the snow appear pure, brilliant white.

Color negative? It liikes to have a good, generous exposure based on the shadow-side value of scenes.

****If you've got incident light metering, that will play your highlights prety well on color slide film. But, these days...reflected is all most people will have.

have fun!

Dave Colangelo · Jan 4, 2017

Derrel said:
With SLIDE film, yes, read the brightest area, and stop the lens down about 3/4 of a stop. With color slide film, you want to palce the highlight values so they look bright, but not over-exposed. This is the way we tend to meter and expose digital color positive as well.

With B&W negative film, you will defintiely want to meter, and tend to OPEN UP the lens aperture, or slow the shutter speed down by one full stop, or a bit more, otherwise you'll get muddy looks. On snow scenes, if you meter directly off of the very,very brightest snow, I would add 1.5 to 1.7 EV, to make the snow appear pure, brilliant white.

Color negative? It liikes to have a good, generous exposure based on the shadow-side value of scenes.

****If you've got incident light metering, that will play your highlights prety well on color slide film. But, these days...reflected is all most people will have.

have fun!

Thanks for the advice! my meter will do both incident and reflected however I will be shooting mainly landscapes and I may not be able to always get near the subject to get a good incident reading.

My plan now is to shoot mainly BW, I have some Ilford 100 Delta which I have been using for most of my outdoor work so far as well as some Ilford 50 that I want to try out. If its really dark i have some Ilford 400. For color its going to be ecktar 100.

Regards
Dave