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Tanks on Film

Tom

Member
Joined
8 Sep 2007
Messages
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Location
Kawanabe, Kagoshima, Japan 鹿児島県南九州市川辺町
I have been thinking recently about having a go shooting tanks on medium format film (or even 35mm). My question is, how would I go about exposing the image without having the benefit of trial and error with lighting?

Say I use a light meter, where would I meter from? I can't hold it underwater, and presumably it won't be accurate to meter from outside the tank. It also wouldn't be accurate to shoot digital first then transfer the settings, as film is 'slower' than digital.

Is it a case of picking a rough exposure for IS0400 film (or more likely 160 as my limit is 1/500 and F16) and shooting a range of apertures or speeds to make sure? But then how would you make sure the background is well exposed, even and balanced with the layout itself?

Would be good to hear if anyone's tried it :thumbup:

Tom
 
Metering green grass usually gives good results, so try it on a green leaf of one of your plants and see what that gives you.

Dave.
 
You can submerse it of course but you should put it in a clear vacuum bag, jar (if no input is required) etc.
 
Tom said:
Say I use a light meter, where would I meter from? I can't hold it underwater, and presumably it won't be accurate to meter from outside the tank.
Huh? Why not? How does your digital camera meter?

Tom said:
It also wouldn't be accurate to shoot digital first then transfer the settings, as film is 'slower' than digital.
This is not true either. ISO 100 digital equals ISO 100 on Film. Digital ISO was invented specifically to mimic film ISO.

I've never had any trouble using film to shoot tanks. The only trouble is that each film has it's own colour response so that getting white balance is a little trickier if you are shooting with tank lighting only. I can't see what the big deal is. How do people think photos were taken 20 years ago?

Tom said:
Is it a case of picking a rough exposure for IS0400 film (or more likely 160 as my limit is 1/500 and F16) and shooting a range of apertures or speeds to make sure? But then how would you make sure the background is well exposed, even and balanced with the layout itself?
It depends on the camera, the exposure mode as well as what parts of the scene are important to you. That's why Ansel Adams invented The Zone System, and that system is the basis for just about ever meter ever put in a camera. If a particular rock or fish or leaf is the most important element in the shot then just spot meter it and compare that exposure value to the spot meter values of the lightest and darkest portion of the frame. Pick the best compromise, or just average the exposure. You can also use centre weighted metering to bias the exposure towards the centre third of the frame or use matrix metering if the camera has that - or compare the three values.

You can also select any of these meter modes and simply bracket the shots at 1/3 stops or half stops above and below the chosen meter values.

If using flash or studio lighting then life is a lot easier.

Develop the film and make corrections from there.

Fuji Velvia is great for tanks because it has a very high sensitivity to greens and cyans but the downside is that it has a very low ISO therefore it's only really good for stills when using tank lighting only. If the tank lights are too weird then you need to shoot with colour filters to compensate, but that means further loss of exposure.

Best to start with a 400 print film as these are more forgiving.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
Huh? Why not? How does your digital camera meter?

odly enough, they can vary. I used to have a mamyia med format camera and tried it....way out. all lenses can throw this out.

I had a meter, that you could point at an area-grass-sky-face, and it would take a reading from this. :thumbup: it was about £100 though. then things were good.
 
Thanks for the replys :thumbup:

ceg4048 said:
Tom said:
Say I use a light meter, where would I meter from? I can't hold it underwater, and presumably it won't be accurate to meter from outside the tank.
Huh? Why not? How does your digital camera meter?

I was meaning with flash. I had assumed that I would have a different reading if I held the meter a foot underwater, as opposed to at the same level outside the tank? Maybe the box of wet stuff would alter the exposure. And with tank lights alone, if I let my Canon 5D expose how it thinks it should every time, I would give up.

ceg4048 said:
Tom said:
It also wouldn't be accurate to shoot digital first then transfer the settings, as film is 'slower' than digital.
This is not true either. ISO 100 digital equals ISO 100 on Film. Digital ISO was invented specifically to mimic film ISO.

When shooting in the studio, I used 2 cameras and 2 lenses. Canon 5D with 50mm. Canon AE1P with 50mm. Both at ISO125, both at 1/60 (max sync on AE1P). On the 5D I shot at F16, whereas the AE1P had to shoot at 8/6.3. This was for the same shot.

ceg4048 said:
I've never had any trouble using film to shoot tanks. The only trouble is that each film has it's own colour response so that getting white balance is a little trickier if you are shooting with tank lighting only. I can't see what the big deal is. How do people think photos were taken 20 years ago?

By shooting film all the time and understanding how to use it! How do you think people learn? By asking questions. 20 years ago is more advanced than the gear I'll be using too, but anyway.

ceg4048 said:
Tom said:
Is it a case of picking a rough exposure for IS0400 film (or more likely 160 as my limit is 1/500 and F16) and shooting a range of apertures or speeds to make sure? But then how would you make sure the background is well exposed, even and balanced with the layout itself?

It depends on the camera, the exposure mode as well as what parts of the scene are important to you. That's why Ansel Adams invented The Zone System, and that system is the basis for just about ever meter ever put in a camera. If a particular rock or fish or leaf is the most important element in the shot then just spot meter it and compare that exposure value to the spot meter values of the lightest and darkest portion of the frame. Pick the best compromise, or just average the exposure. You can also use centre weighted metering to bias the exposure towards the centre third of the frame or use matrix metering if the camera has that - or compare the three values.

You can also select any of these meter modes and simply bracket the shots at 1/3 stops or half stops above and below the chosen meter values.

I'm afraid my camera doesn't want to spot meter :lol:
5539387258_69f66d54b5.jpg

ceg4048 said:
If using flash or studio lighting then life is a lot easier.
Develop the film and make corrections from there.

Trial and error will get very expensive at around £20 for 12EX! That's why I'm asking all the questions :thumbup: If I had the money for that I would just shoot.

ceg4048 said:
Fuji Velvia is great for tanks because it has a very high sensitivity to greens and cyans but the downside is that it has a very low ISO therefore it's only really good for stills when using tank lighting only. If the tank lights are too weird then you need to shoot with colour filters to compensate, but that means further loss of exposure.

Best to start with a 400 print film as these are more forgiving.

Cheers,

Thanks for the recommendation :)
 
Tom said:
I was meaning with flash. I had assumed that I would have a different reading if I held the meter a foot underwater, as opposed to at the same level outside the tank? Maybe the box of wet stuff would alter the exposure. And with tank lights alone, if I let my Canon 5D expose how it thinks it should every time, I would give up.
Tom I'm not getting this at all mate. It's not clear to me how you arrive at an exposure setting when you use your 5D to shoot a tank. I assume you spot meter the main area of interest, take a shot and then look at the results on your LCD. Camera meters try to make everything look like an 18% grey card, so they find a middle ground between the brightest and darkest element in the frame. In the confines of a tank though, the contrast varies wildly. A digital shot can be fixed easily with curves or levels, but on the film you have to decide what's most important and what element in the shot can be compromised. If you don't want to compromise then the lighting solution with strobes is more complicated. These are the zones and examples of what fits them:
ZONE
0..........Pure black
I...........Near black, with some tone but no texture
II .........The darkest part of the image which shows detail
III ........Average dark materials and low values showing adequate texture
IV ........Average dark foliage, dark stone, or landscape shadows
V..........Middle grey, clear blue sky, dark skin, bark/wood
VI ........Average Caucasian skin, light stone/sand shadows on snow
VII........Very light skin; shadows in snow with acute side lighting
VIII ......Lightest tone that still has texture, textured snow
IX ........Slight tone no texture, glaring snow
X .........Pure white, light sources and specular reflections

The difference between each zone is 1 stop. So lets say you have a scene with dragon stone, sand and hairgrass in the same scene. The dragon stone is Zone III, the sand is Zone VI and the hairgrass will be Zone V. That means there's a 3 stop difference between the lightest element (the sand) and the darkest (the dragon stone). This is completely independent and without special attention to the light. If the scene is lit by a uniform light source, regardless of the intensity, these elements stay in their zones.

So, if you spot meter the hairgrass, the sand will be 1 stop lighter, which is OK, but the stone will be two stops darker, which means it will have adequate, if not spectacular texture and detail. If you wanted better detail in the stone you would have to shine more light specifically at the stone and re-measure.

So the Zone is a sliding scale. You spot meter the elements in the scene, compare how many stops difference each element has and decide which element Zone V should be. When you do that, you have essentially fixed the sliding location of the zone scale and each element then falls into it's zone.

For example, if I decide that I wanted optimal detail in the dragon stone that would mean I'm sliding my zone scale to the stone. The stone becomes Zone V. The sand is 3 stops brighter and therefore would now be in Zone VIII. The hairgrass would be Zone VII. The stone would be exposed perfectly, but you would tend to wash out the rest of the image.

So when shooting film, you need to get more data points within the frame. The more spot metering points you take, the better will be your assessment of the image. You definitely need to spot meter. something like this that has spot metering ability: Sekonic L758 (this is just the latest model. The part you need, the part that hasn't changed it's design for 50 years, is found in older models.)

I don't see the need for underwater gymnastics here. Camera meters see the world in terms of reflected light. You don't need to measure incident light because everything is relative.

In fact, you can practice this right now with your 5D. The 5D has no idea what it's looking at, so it's matrix metering just compares the scene with it's database and determines a metering solution based on the closest average match. Use the spot metering function and find the zones of the elements. Then take the shot and see if the the LCD confirms what you mapped out.

This is what people did 20 years ago. But, we're living in The Matrix, and like chimpanzees in the lab, we just know how to press buttons and get gratification. It's kind of like the drivers here in USA. No one knows how to drive a manual shift any more because everything is automatic. When I take my car to the shop some of the mechanics freak out because they can't figure out how to move the car.

Cheers,
 
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