Digital BW, The Print

Help!!! I have a Nikon coolpix 5700 and a coolpix 995. I have been 
playing with photography for the past 30 years off and on. One of 
the first things I learned with film was to find the true film speed 
for the equipment I was using. Now that I have digital, how do I do 
this same essential task? Let me throw something else into the pot. 
I use an old Sekonic incident light meter, which with the setting of 
ISO 100 seems to give me different results when used in bright 
sunlight and indoors. Let me elaborate, if the subject is fully 
sunlit and the light is coming from behind me; I get the expected 
reading of F/8 @ 1/500 of a second. If I set the camera manually to 
that setting, the scene seems to be underexposed. I have run some 
tests indoors and have gotten satisfactory results using the 
indicated Sekonic readings. It's only outdoors when it appears 
underexposed. Sidelit subjects seem to be close to properly exposed. 
I have tried exposure compensation in the camera to relate to 
setting ISOs of 50, 64, 80, 100. I am holding the light meter on the 
lens axis of the camera in relation to the subject being metered. 

The meter in the camera is extremely accurate for most of the time, 
but I would like to have the handheld meter to check it against. 
that is why getting the meter and me cooperating is so important. 
This quest will probably turn out to be "operator error." This is 
why this is posted, for folks more astute than I am to see the error 
of my ways and help me out of this dilemna.

Thansk for any and all help given

jeades1@...

Help!!! I have a Nikon coolpix 5700 and a coolpix 995. I have been 
playing with photography for the past 30 years off and on. One of 
the first things I learned with film was to find the true film speed 
for the equipment I was using. Now that I have digital, how do I do 
this same essential task? Let me throw something else into the pot. 
I use an old Sekonic incident light meter, which with the setting of 
ISO 100 seems to give me different results when used in bright 
sunlight and indoors. Let me elaborate, if the subject is fully 
sunlit and the light is coming from behind me; I get the expected 
reading of F/8 @ 1/500 of a second. If I set the camera manually to 
that setting, the scene seems to be underexposed. I have run some 
tests indoors and have gotten satisfactory results using the 
indicated Sekonic readings. It's only outdoors when it appears 
underexposed. Sidelit subjects seem to be close to properly exposed. 
I have tried exposure compensation in the camera to relate to 
setting ISOs of 50, 64, 80, 100. I am holding the light meter on the 
lens axis of the camera in relation to the subject being metered. 

The meter in the camera is extremely accurate for most of the time, 
but I would like to have the handheld meter to check it against. 
that is why getting the meter and me cooperating is so important. 
This quest will probably turn out to be "operator error." This is 
why this is posted, for folks more astute than I am to see the error 
of my ways and help me out of this dilemna.

Thansk for any and all help given

jeades1@...

I use the Sunny16 or Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE) rules to test true
ISO. That means
exposing at ƒ16 by using the true film speed as the shutter speed
to check true speed with respect to 
processing. I go downtown between 10:00 and 2:00 on a sunny day, go
to my usuall test block  (a mix of buildings with average tones, not
a bunch of all black glass, nor all white 
buildings) with the sun behind me, and shoot 3 sheets  of chrome at 
ƒ/16 @ 1/60, ƒ/16-1/3 @ 1/60 and ƒ/16-2/3 @1/60. For Fuji
Provia, my local E-6 lab renders the sheet 
exposed at ƒ16 @ 1/60 as correctly exposed, meaning the effective
speed at that lab is ISO 64. When I use the Milwaukee lab, the sheet
exposed at ƒ16-1/3 @ 1/60 is correctly 
exposed, meaning the effective ISO at that lab is ISO 80. (I've never
seen an ISO 100 film actually be ISO 100) 

You could do the same for digital. A lot of it will be determined by
your camera software's selected colorspace, sRGB, Adobe RGB,
ColorMatch RGB, etc,
Photoshops edit space
you have selected in your color settings, if you are properly using
Photoshops color management with respect to assigning and/or
converting to profile, 
your monitors calibration, and the actual cameras software. If the
camera is supposed to be an ISO 100 chip, expose a frame under the
above conditions at  ƒ16 @1/100 
( or ƒ16-2/3 @ 1/60) and see how the image looks. Use the
densitometer in photoshop to check highlights and shadows.

I often see a difference between in-camera meters (Reflected light)to
hand held meters (Incident light. Spot meters are another matter).
The camera meter is reading the actual 
reflected light values and if you have a tricked out matrix metering
sensor, it will compensate for unusually bright areas or unusually
dark areas and give you a pretty good exposure 
based on a number of predetermined situations programmed into the
sensor. 
The hand held meter
only reads light falling on the dome and does not provide any
relevant data
regarding how much light is actually being 
"reflected off the subject" into your camera. 

When I shoot large format architecture, I usually bring my Nikon F100
along and use that to determine my exposure.  Some guys are really
good and never need a meter and 
know the exposure at any given lighting situation. There are some
rules of thumb that correlate to the BDE. Open shade is 3
stops over BDE, overcast day is another 
factor of BDE, etc, etc.

John Luke

if the subject is fully 
> sunlit and the light is coming from behind me; I get the expected 
> reading of F/8 @ 1/500 of a second. 

Actually, in full sun, ISO 100 would yield a correct exposure of
ƒ8 @ 1/400 or ƒ5.6-2/3 @ 1/500. Your are already 1/3 stop
off. 

Another wierd thing about digital cameras- camera processing software
does have an impact of how the image looks. I have an associate at an
in-house studio and he was 
photographing sinks on a grey laminate surface for a catalog. He was
using a Nikon D1x with a manually set exposure of ƒ8 @ 1sec under
studio lighting. A grey stainless sink 
looked perfect on the monitor and densitometer readings read ok. He
swapped out to a white sink, (a common technique when doing high
volume catalog work)did not change 
lights or exposures and the resulting photo of the white sink was
darker. The grey backgrounds did not match. It appears that chips may
be influenced in part by the subject 
matter, and the camera processing software seems to want to take hold
of the image and fiddle with it even when exposing manually.

John Luke

At 02:11 PM 1/8/2003, you wrote:
>Another wierd thing about digital cameras- camera processing software
>does have an impact of how the image looks. I have an associate at an
>in-house studio and he was
>photographing sinks on a grey laminate surface for a catalog. He was
>using a Nikon D1x with a manually set exposure of ƒ8 @ 1sec under
>studio lighting. A grey stainless sink
>looked perfect on the monitor and densitometer readings read ok. He
>swapped out to a white sink, (a common technique when doing high
>volume catalog work)did not change
>lights or exposures and the resulting photo of the white sink was
>darker. The grey backgrounds did not match. It appears that chips may
>be influenced in part by the subject
>matter, and the camera processing software seems to want to take hold
>of the image and fiddle with it even when exposing manually.
>
>John Luke

I had exactly the same thing happen to me this weekend and I've been 
wondering what caused it. I was photographing dental appliances on a 
plaster model of a lower jaw for a local orthodontic lab. Manual exposure 
settings and an umbrella flash with the model sitting on a light table. 
About half of the appliances were just swapped on and off the same jaw 
model, while the other half were on their own models. The exposures using 
the same model with different appliances were pretty consistent, but when 
swapping both appliance and model I sometimes had to open up or close down 
a stop to get the right exposure. I couldn't figure out what was going on, 
but now with your post I surmise that the models varied in their whiteness 
and this variation must have caused the camera to modify the capture 
parameters, even with manual exposure. I wonder if capturing in raw mode 
would have helped this?

Stan

================================
Photography by Stan McQueen
http://www.smcqueen.com

Hello

I don't know the cameras in question, but is there still any automation of
White balance, even with manual settings of exposure? Was it set to a
particular value for the lighting conditions?


bye for now   

Keith Cooper

Northlight Images
http://northlight-images.co.uk
Photography - Digital Imaging - Apple Mac Consultancy

Tel +44 (0)116 291 9092 Mobile +44 (0)780 162 9397

Oce the white balance is set for the session, it's set. 
RAW may be one answer, I'm guessing there must be some sort of levels adjustment going on behind the scenes, like the auto level command in photoshop.

John Luke

Let me elaborate a little more on this problem with the difference 
between the camera metering and the handheld Sekonic meter. If I 
face an evenly lit smooth wall and the wall is in sunlight, and if I 
use 
the Sekonic meter; I get the expected f/8 @1/500. The in camera 
meter more often than not gives the identical reading. If I am out 
in the field, however; and meter a sidelit subject, using the 
handheld meter, on the lens axis; I get the expected f/8 @ 1/250. 
When I use the handheld meter, I am using the camera in the Manual 
mode and set the f-stop and shutter speeds manually. Sometimes the 
image appears underexposed and darker than expected. I'll get back 
to that in a moment. Using the in camera meter, and using Aperture 
priority and letting the camera set the shutter speed; the exposure 
is sdjusted by the software and often appears overexposed. I can 
work with the underexposed image in Photoshop if most of the Zones 
are 3 or above in the lower values and not over 7 or 8 in the higher 
values. If the image is overexposed, then the higher values become 
blank white and appear blown out in the image. What I am trying to 
do is calibrate the hand held meter to correspond with the ISO 100 
the camera is using for exposure calculation. Other than including 
images in email, I can't really show that the exposure compensation 
adjustments make any difference in the image at all. I can phooraph 
a grey scale and make the + or - exposure compensation and see not 
differnce in the high tones or low tones. This should make a 
difference. This leads me to think that the camera is till trying to 
make the corrections also to produce a correct exposure regardless 
of what I try to change.  Still looking for help on calibration of 
the handheld meter.


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "jeades947 
<jeades1@s...>" <jeades1@s...> wrote:
> Help!!! I have a Nikon coolpix 5700 and a coolpix 995. I have been 
> playing with photography for the past 30 years off and on. One of 
> the first things I learned with film was to find the true film 
speed 
> for the equipment I was using. Now that I have digital, how do I 
do 
> this same essential task? Let me throw something else into the 
pot. 
> I use an old Sekonic incident light meter, which with the setting 
of 
> ISO 100 seems to give me different results when used in bright 
> sunlight and indoors. Let me elaborate, if the subject is fully 
> sunlit and the light is coming from behind me; I get the expected 
> reading of F/8 @ 1/500 of a second. If I set the camera manually 
to 
> that setting, the scene seems to be underexposed. I have run some 
> tests indoors and have gotten satisfactory results using the 
> indicated Sekonic readings. It's only outdoors when it appears 
> underexposed. Sidelit subjects seem to be close to properly 
exposed. 
> I have tried exposure compensation in the camera to relate to 
> setting ISOs of 50, 64, 80, 100. I am holding the light meter on 
the 
> lens axis of the camera in relation to the subject being metered. 
> 
> The meter in the camera is extremely accurate for most of the 
time, 
> but I would like to have the handheld meter to check it against. 
> that is why getting the meter and me cooperating is so important. 
> This quest will probably turn out to be "operator error." This is 
> why this is posted, for folks more astute than I am to see the 
error 

> of my ways and help me out of this dilemna.
> 
> Thansk for any and all help given
> 
> jeades1@s...

I am considering switching from MIS-VM to MIS-VM Sepia since I notice that 
I almost never make any print colder than neutral (using the Roark curves) 
and I most often go for the Warm. I am running a 1270 with MIS CFS. What 
would I need to do to make the switch? Does anyone have any recommendations 
pro or con?

Thanks,
Stan

================================
Photography by Stan McQueen
http://www.smcqueen.com