This summarizes what I have learned about metering for film and the principles I use.

I welcome comments, questions, or someone pointing out where I have something wrong. I wrote this as a resource so others don’t have to spend so long learning what I learned. There are many ways of explain things so if something is not clear please comment so I can make it more useful.

The best way through is to follow the links from one chapter to the next. Substack makes it difficult to maintain a set of ordered posts.

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In those days the print was the thing. Without the internet and Instagram this is how they shared and distributed their work.

They also worked with large format field cameras where each image was a complete sheet of film. So not only were they interested in making sure the tones of the image ‘fit’ on the negative in the sense it was not over or under exposed they also had to be concerned it would ‘fit’ the more limited range of the photo paper.

This means the zone system has two aspects, making the exposure to get the tones in the ‘right place’ and then development. They used techniques during the development to expand or contract the range of the film. If a photo was taken on a foggy day without bright sunlight they might ‘expand’ the development so the tones use more of the range of the film. If the scene had a lot of contrast then they might contract the development to compress the tones to a smaller range.

The development aspect, however, is really only relevant for those that wish to print their images in the darkroom AND where each image is on a separate sheet of film so that each image can be developed differently. In modern photography even with film these concepts are not mainstream and I have therefore ignored the development aspect. Most people who shoot film today use 35mm or medium format roll films where development of the individual images is not possible. Also people tend to share photos online as JPEGs and when they do print them, do so with digital printing techniques. Digital techniques are a substitute to the development process of expansion or contraction.

Why Do We Care?

Many photographers try and get their images correct ‘in-camera’ that is at the time the exposure is made. Not relying too much in doing things ‘in-post’ (postproduction) with the likes of Photoshop or Affinity. Why is this?

Certainly, from a film standpoint there are many advantages but they also extend to digital work as well. It all boils down to the limitations of your sensor be it digital or analog (film).

If we are talking about slide film at one extreme even a half stop over or under exposed will ruin it. This can’t be recovered by Photoshop, no matter how well scanned the film is. Even with digital sensors highlights that are blown have no texture to them and there is no magic to recover them, the same is true for deep shadows. Clearly there is an advantage to getting the best result in-camera.

So to summarize we will discuss the Zone System but only as it applies to exposure and not the development of film.

How does the Zone System Work?

The basic concept is to divide the range of possible exposure into 11 zones with 5 (V) at the center. (The Zone System uses roman numerals for each zone and I will continue with that tradition. Hopefully it isn’t too burdensome.) There are five zones above the center V and five zone below. It was in Ansel Adams estimation that there were this many discernable differences in exposure on black and white film. Each zone represents a stop of exposure (we will get to the concept of stops or f-stops later) and that moving from one Zone to an adjacent Zone represents on stop of exposure difference. Now film is analog and does not work in these discrete steps but it becomes a useful way of organizing and understanding film’s response to exposure.

Each zone is assigned an attribute to help understand it better. At the center, at Zone V, is what is referred to as 18% gray. To the right you move towards pure black Zone 0 with no detail. In between there are different amounts of detail that are conveyed. The same is true for the area to the left of Zone V except that Zone X is pure white and devoid of tone or texture. (This is the area also called blown highlights.) In each extreme we have reached the limit of the film to convey any detail or information about that part of the scene. Zones 0 and X have their uses. Having a true detail-less black and/or white can be essential to a good image. But too much and well… you understand.

18% Gray

In the dim distant reaches of the development of photography it was decided that 18% gray was the correct value for an average scene. The reasons are not terribly scientific but if you had to pick a number that was reasonable for most photos people took then this was what the meter needed to see. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the 18%, it is just a number but it is the basis for all modern meters. When a conventional average meter looks at a scene it assumes it is going to average out to this 18% gray value and shows a corresponding exposure. This does not work when a scene is dominated by a certain brightness value such as snow or fog.

This 18% gray value corresponds to Zone V in the center of the zone system. The important thing to remember is that it is gray. If you want something to be white (or black) it should not be in Zone V!

Exposure: F-stops, Aperture, Shutter Speed, and Ev

There are a number of terms that need to be understood in order to understand the concept of exposure and metering. Firstly, exposure refers to how much light strikes the film or sensor. This needs to be controlled so that we have neither too much (overexposure) or too little (underexposure) light on the film. This control is achieved by a combination of shutter speed and aperture.

Each film or sensor has a rated sensitivity and this is referred to as ISO. Each doubling of ISO is a doubling of the film or sensors sensitivity. So ISO 200 is twice as sensitive as ISO 100. And ISO 800 is three times as sensitive as ISO 100.

The shutter opens to allow the full amount of light possible through the lens subject to the aperture setting. The longer the shutter is open the more light strikes the film or sensor. The aperture is a variable sized hole that regulates the amount of light by making the opening smaller or larger. Typically this is an iris-like mechanism. The combination of the two ultimately decides how much light gets through.

These two mechanisms then need to be calibrated in some consistent fashion. That is so that we can make repeatable settings each time. The shutter speed is marked in seconds or fractions of seconds 1 second, ½ second. ¼ second etc. These all correspond to a halving or doubling of light. This doubling or halving of light is a consistent idea in photography and is called stops.

The aperture is marked as well but with more arcane, if familiar, numbers 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6 etc. These are called f-stops and also relate to a doubling or halving of light. As the f-stop number gets larger the amount of light admitted reduces. (These numbers are related to the area of the opening and as such are multiples of the square root of two.) When we speak of ‘stopping down’ we mean smaller apertures which means larger numbers. (I know, confusing right?)

Because both shutter speed and aperture are set in terms of this double or halving of light, they become interchangeable. So, if you have the aperture set to f5.6 and the shutter speed at 1/500 second you could ‘stop down’ one stop to f8 on the aperture and slow down the shutter one stop to 1/250 second and have exactly the same exposure.

I will not be going into the detailed reasons why, but the aperture sets the depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) and the shutter speed relates to how motion effects the image. These are important picture-making parameters, but you will have to research them elsewhere.

The next concept is exposure value or Ev. This is a mathematical relationship that gives a single number to express an exposure. Ev progresses in doubling and halving of light values as well. So an Ev of 4 has half the light as an Ev of 5. This can then be translated to an array of different shutter speeds and apertures. Ev is what most meters use to calculate shutter speeds and f-stops. Old analog ones had a manual dial with all the valid shutter speed and aperture combinations and digital meters serve up one combination at a time.

I will be talking a lot about Ev as that is what traditional spot meters started with. Many modern digital meters don’t show an Ev or you do extra work to find it. Note also that the Zone System is divided up into intervals of doubling or halving of light. This means that moving up and down through the zones is the same as changing Ev or apertures or shutter speeds. Now the power of this consistency can be understood.

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Photography is very technical and unavoidably so. The advent of digital cameras and sophisticated electronics has reduced this but the best photographers mostly all have a good grasp of the technical basics. I believe that having a firm foundation on techniques and concepts allows one to build their creative capabilities.

I am an engineer by training and so perhaps it is no surprise I believe this. I also strive for technically excellent photos, that is ones with ‘proper’ exposure, focus, depth of field, contrast, and composition. This is not universally true of all photographers as exhibited by the Lomography scene with delight in defects of old film and cameras. It seems in the age of ‘perfect’ digital imaging there is a backlash that seeks expression in the flaws. ICM (In Camera Motion) is another example of technically imperfect images having an artful appeal. I am not preaching against these expressions but merely hope to help those that seek better exposures. If nothing more it can become a firm foundation for departure from the technically perfect.

My hope is that my newness to the subject enables me to explain it in a way that is plain and helpful. I practice a form of the zone system that took me too long to understand and I hope I can make it more accessible and relevant as a result.

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You match the weather conditions on the right to the film speed (ISO) and then you are presented with combinations of aperture and shutter speed. Some guides like this published by camera and film makers would include seasonal and latitude as part of their attempts to get accurate estimates of exposure.

The reason for this is the eye is notoriously bad at estimating light intensity. The eye and brain constantly adapt to the conditions so it becomes very subjective. It is true that some photographers with years of experience have become adept at estimating lighting. It isn’t practical for most of us nor do I believe it is consistently accurate.

Other techniques included extinction ‘meters’ where you looked at the scene different neutral density filters until the highlights were just apparent. The number of the filter was used as gauge for setting the exposure. Some systems even had small pieces of photo paper that changed tone with exposure to light. It was only with the advent of the selenium and cadmium cells that one could reliably measure light electrically and convert this to accurate exposure values. Thus began the light meter industry.

Most of these light meters were a revolution for photographers and the meters could be seen swinging around their necks on lanyards.

(I refer to this type of reflected light meter as ‘average’ meters in the sense their wide angle of measurement means they average out the overall light from the scene it is aimed at. I do not mean the qualitative meaning of the word average. )

Next came the spot meter where optics allowed the meter to be pointed at specific parts of the scene to be photographed.

Enter Ansel Adams…

It is my understanding that when Pentax introduced their first spot meter the zone system became practical. The meter consists of a small telescope optical system and the meter reading is reflected into the field of view. A small circle in the field of view indicates where the meter is reading from. You place this circle over the area of interest and pull the trigger, then read the Ev from the meter in the field of view.

That number is used to set the dial on the side of the meter to determine the shutter speed and aperture.

the example on the dial above the Ev has been set to 4 (bottom scale) and this means that f11 at 8 seconds and f4 at 1 second are couple of many possible exposures. Indeed, any combination of apertures and shutter speeds that line up will give the same exposure. To my mind, this is why these meters are superior to more modern digital versions. Pentax and others made digital versions but all this means is you could read a number and not a meter needle. In both cases you got an Ev reading to apply to a dial to determine the valid aperture and shutter combinations. The key is you see all the combinations laid out at once. (And you don’t have to go scrolling through the combinations on some LCD screen.)

Note that on these older meters you set the film or sensor ISO on the dial. So the Ev in this sense is independent of ISO. Technically Ev is specified with an intended ISO. Modern spot meters have the ISO selected and present single aperture and shutter speed value.

Once you come to terms with how the meter operates then the next step is the application ot the zone system.

One of the first things people with a spot meter who use the zone system do is attach a zone dial to the meter like the one shown below. This made the meter infinitely easier to use. They are easy enough to make and I still wonder why they weren’t offered this way from the manufacturer.

Zone V sits right over the arrow on the original dial as these both indicate the 18% gray reference. Light exposures go to the left and darker to the right. Now you are ready to use the power of the Zone system.

The Zone System in Use

I want to use an example to understand the limitation of average metering. To do this I will use an old digital camera (Fuji X10) as it allows me to quickly construct the examples without waiting for film processing. Later I will show the same concepts though using real film. I also chose to shoot them as black and white images as I feel this helps convey the idea of lighting and tones without confusing the eye with colors. The same principles apply if the images were color however. All photos have the camera locked to ISO 100 (as is the spotmeter) so only the shutter and aperture represent the exposure. The photos have not been adjusted in Photoshop unless declared so. They are direct from the camera.

The scenes I chose are without any real interest and are ones I can observe outside my window on a cold winter day. I apologize but this is entirely for my own comfort. The point is the same even if the location is not exotic.

Average Metering

The first image I made after I composed the scene was metered using the camera’s average meter mode. I used my Sekonic handheld digital light meter (also an average light meter) to confirm the same exposure (f4 1/250).

The meter and camera did a good job at getting an exposure. It is a gray overcast day, so the light is not very contrasty. The highlights are contained, and shadows appear intact and not too black or ‘blocked up’. The garage door, however, is not white. It is a light gray. If this were whitewater in a waterfall or snow the image would be unimpressive. Who likes gray water or snow? This is the problem with average metering, the meter (or meter in the camera) does not know anything about the scene or how you want to represent it.

How do we get the garage door whiter? First let’s go back to the introduction to the Zone System and look at the zones again. The descriptions help and we see that zone VII or VIII show where the whiter tones should be. I choose zone VII as where I want the garage door to be.

If I could meter just the garage door then I could expose the whole image properly. Here we bring out the spot meter. Now I can just meter the garage door. I get an Ev of about 13 on my meter on this occasion. If I set my meter dial to this Ev I get the following image.

So what happened here? Looking at the Zone table again we see that Zone V is the 18% gray value we referenced before. The camera and sensor did exactly what we should expect. It rendered the white door gray. We wanted white and we know that requires us to set the exposure to Zone VII as discussed above. (If you are wondering why this image above is darker than the one prior even though the aperture is more open, the answer is the light changed over time with cloud cover.

In the figure below I have ‘placed’ the Ev (13) I measured on the door onto zone VII using the zone scale I added to the meter. The added zone scale is a visual aid. It is also a simple matter to know that zone VII is two stops overexposed from Zone V. We can see this if we look at the previous figure we see the shutter speed is the same, but the aperture is f 5.6 which is two stops smaller in size from f2.8.

This is much more satisfactory as the door looks white. The photo overall, benefits from more exposure. The shadows contain more detail and the highlights in the sky are not too blown out (overexposed) (though it is probably a result of the overcast day).

Examining Exposure Across the Zones

To aid in understanding I made this graphic that takes the image above and maps the tones or brightness values like a heat map. The brightest parts of the image are towards the red end of this spectrum which is where Zone X and the shadows or dark portions are shown in magenta for Zone 0 and the intermediate colors show the brightness values in between. This helps understand that there are multiple parts of the image represented by a Zone. For instance, the garage door and the sky are in the same Zone VII. It is important to remember this when metering a scene to find the interesting highlight or shadows to meter but also to be cognizant of the other parts of the image. This is why you often see photographer spot meter lots of various parts of a scene so they build a mental map of where the tones are.

To understand this concept further I made a set of exposures with the spot meter set to Zone V to Zone X. This is all based on the meter reading for the garage door. You can see the progression.

In fact, once you move past zone VII on the door the detail of the panels is lost. This is because the sensor lacks the full range that black and white film might offer. This is typical of different films and sensors. This camera is about 12 years old and represents the technology of that era.

This means I must ‘re-write’ the zone table for this sensor as we have to do with other films as well. For instance, I know from experiments that the zones would look as follows for this sensor…

Zone VIII, IX, and X Pure white (no tone or texture)

Zone VII +2/3 White with tone no texture

Zone VII White with tone and texture

Zone VI Light Gray

Zone V 18% Gray

Zone IV Dark Foliage/Lots of detail

Zone III Shadow Detail Still Held

Zone II Slight Texture

Zone I Tonality still some texture

Zone 0 Some Tonality

Zone -I Pure Black

Basically, the sensor does not perform well in the highlights and does better in the shadows. In reality it could universally benefit from being underexposed by 1 stop as indicated by the lack of texture in Zone VIII and the fact that Zone 0 still exhibits tonality. This is related to the physics of digital sensors and how the camera maker thinks the camera will be easiest to use. Like slide film you want to avoid overexposure if you want to retain tone or texture in the highlights.

Summary

What have we learned so far?

1. Average metering gives decent results for average exposure conditions.

2. Average metering doesn’t know what you want from the scene or what is in it.

3. You need to control the exposure process to get better results or to get what you expect.

4. Every film and sensor has specific exposure characteristics that you need to adapt to get the best results possible.

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In this section, consistent with the subject of the book, I will not be discussing attributes of these film types such as color palette, grain and other aesthetic aspects that might influence a particular film choice. The best source for this insight is Alex Burke’s ebook Film in a Digital Age. It is well worth the price and was one important source for improving my own film work.

Slide Film

Let us take for instance the most challenging film type: color slide film. Also called reversal film, E-6 (for the processing chemistry) or chrome (due to trade names of Kodachrome, Ektachrome, and Fujichrome) these films as the name suggests were created to make slide shows or projected images (the technology is the basis for movie film as well). Hence, they are positive images which is why they are called reversal film.

Slide films can produce some spectacular images and for a long time were the gold standard for publishing and landscape photography. They are also a thing to behold, especially in larger formats as they are complete positive images with rich colors when properly exposed.

Fundamental to the development process is that the film has a very narrow exposure range. Slide film is notoriously susceptible to overexposure but also underexposure. In fact, it has only about five stops of useful range. If we put this on the zone scale, we have been using we can see what that looks like. Where anything above zone VII is blown out pure white and below zone III is pure black.

The rule of thumb is to meter the highlights and place them in zone VII. This is because slide film that is overexposed at all does not create good results. Here are some examples. All taken on Fuji Velvia slide film except where noted.

The first one above shows how disastrous overexposure is. I took this before I had a spot meter and relied on average metering. It shows the lively saturated colors that Velvia is famous for, but the bright sky is blown out and ruins the effect.

The photo above shows the problems with shadows. A bright summer day in the American Southwest, the sky and sunlit rocks are properly exposed however the shadows are completely black and lack detail.

There are different strategies for dealing with this; one of which is not to use slide film in certain situations. In the American Southwest photo above, it makes no sense shooting that kind of film under those conditions. Disappointment will be your companion. Bright sun in the middle of the day creates deep shadows. These are conditions better suited to color negative film. The first lesson is don’t shoot slide film in conditions it is unsuitable for.

For instance, I shot the same film on that same holiday but around sunset where the range of light intensity was much less and Velvia performed well. The highlights and shadows are all intact and the photo has more drama and interest as a result.

The next strategy is subject to artistic intent. There are no hard and fast rules, but it is usually visually preferable to make sure the highlights are properly exposed. Most would agree that the overexposed example above is very distracting. Yet sometimes we cannot fit the full range of light in the five stops slide film gives us. In general, the preference is to lose the shadows as in most cases this is the more appealing choice.

The photo above was taken at sunset in Whitby in the UK. The sky was quite bright, so the image is exposed to hold those highlights. What we get as a result is the texture and detail as well as the rich golden color. What we lose is any features or texture of the sand on the beach. But clearly we don’t feel we are missing anything in the image because of this.

If the highlights had been sacrificed, they would have appeared white and without interest. This was an artistic choice. If both the highlights and the shadows are important then perhaps we are using the wrong film. In these cases, I always meter the highlights and ‘place’ this Ev in Zone VII to determine the exposure. I let the shadows fall where they will knowing that they may be completely black. You can of course meter the shadows to see where they will fall. This may mitigate a choice not to take the photograph (always a good option) or change to a different film type if your camera gives you that option.

That being said, there may well be cases where you want to blow out the highlights and it won’t detract from the photo. The example here is low sun streaming through trees casting shadows in the snow. The conditions are well outside the range of slide film (in this case Fuji Astia) the trees are blocked up, so we are below Zone III there and the area around the sun has no detail (but still retains color) so above Zone VII. The image works because we don’t miss the detail in the tree trunks the silhouettes are enough, and we don’t feel like anything is missing around the sun. This is a case where average metering works and setting the exposure halfway between the shadows and the highlights. I never spot meter the sun as this will always be blown out, instead I pick an area of sky close by for highlights.

If you have the conditions suited to slide film then it all comes together. This photo was taken in a woodland early one foggy morning on Fuji Astia. I do not think any scene that morning had more than five stops between the brightest highlights and deepest shadows. Under the right conditions slide film is magical.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters

Another strategy is useful in some circumstances. A graduated neutral density (GND) filter is a filter that reduces light gradually, starting in the uppermost part of the filter. Because light reduction is gradual it is not noticeable. I use a 2-stop GND referred to as a .6 GND (.3 is one stop). This is the most useful one for landscape work. Because the filter extends across the image, they are only useful where the highlights are distributed that way like a horizon.

I tend to have the filter extend about 2/3 the way down the image but this is subject to taste and the specific composition. There are many tutorials about GNDs online and again Alex Burke’s book is great source of good instruction.

Because my GND filter cuts the light by two stops, I have a take this into account in the metering. If for instance I read an Ev of 10 in the sky highlights and I am using a 2-stop GND then I need to subtract those two stops before figuring my exposure. So, I would use an Ev of 8 and then look up the aperture and shutter speed.

Here is an example where the rising sun was brightening the sky and forcing me to compromise between capturing the color and texture of the sky and the detail and color in the shadows. A GND nicely solved the problem. The sky colors are saturated and good shadow detail is retained. The GND did cover the top of the foreground tree but this darkening is not too apparent, so I got away with it. This can be a problem in some cases.

(As a side note I find a GND can be good in some woodland settings even though the image lacks a traditional horizon line. Often time when a woodland image is being contemplated with the top of the canopy in view the light from the sky casts a much brighter direct light on the treetops as opposed to lower down where the light is dominated by reflected and hence less intense light. A GND can help restore some tonal balance from the top to the bottom of the image.)

I treat most slide film the same and place the highlights in Zone VII. This includes Fuji Velvia 100 and 50, Provia 100F, Astia 100 (discontinued), and Kodak Ektachrome 100. I shoot them all at box speed except for Velvia 50 which I shoot at ISO 40 as it seems to prefer a little more exposure; there seems to be a consensus about this with photographers.

If my camera supports it then I try not ignore 1/3 stop increments in exposure settings, as I think trying to get that extra 1/3 stop better exposure pays dividends in slide film. For especially important images you may wish to bracket +/- 1/3 or 2/3 stops.

Some photographers have reported up to an extra stop of dynamic range with the new Ektachrome E100. If true this would be good news. It may bear some experimenting for those with a generous film budget. I would love to hear some credible evidence for or against this assertion.

Summary

So what have we learned about metering slide film?

1. Slide film has a limited dynamic range of about five stops or five zones.

2. Slide film handles overexposure poorly.

3. Slide film makes underexposed parts of the image black and this is generally preferable to overexposing.

4. Slide film does not work well with bright light and deep shadows like a bright sunny day (high contrast scenes). It may be best to use color negative film for those circumstances.

5. In general meter the highlights and place them in Zone VII and let the shadows fall where they will.

6. Use a GND when possible to reduce the range of light in a scene with too much contrast.

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In the highlight zones VI to X it looks a lot like black and white negative film. In fact, some color negative film may keep delivering at least color if not texture beyond zone X. (This is the basis I believe behind assertions that some color negative (Kodak) film can exhibit 14 stops of dynamic range. Overexposure results in some color and not pure white like slide film.)

In general, color negative film will show washed-out color as it is overexposed. Some people prefer this look and so aim to overexpose the film intentionally. Keeping the highlights less exposed tends to result in more saturated colors. Thus, exposure can be used to manipulate the color palette of an image. On the shadow side color negative film is extremely limited. Underexposed color negative film can tend to look muddy and grainy with odd color shifts.

Consequently, the rule of thumb I use for color negative film is to meter for the shadows you want detail in and keep it in zone III or above. Then let the highlights lay where they will, knowing the film will handle overexposure gracefully. I still meter the highlights so I can visualize where they will be on the zone scale. Sometimes that lets me choose more exposure for the shadows and move them up a zone or two.

The photo here was taken in the winter in Vancouver BC on Kodak Portra 400. I was on a business trip and brought my Rolleiflex and my Sekonic average light meter due to its smaller size while traveling. I made an average meter reading and much of the detail of the rocks in the foreground is lost. There is room for more exposure in the highlights. If I had metered the rocks and placed them in zone IV or III there would be more detail there and the film would have handled the highlights just fine.

Here is another photo on the same trip with the same film, camera, and meter. In this case I was more careful and tried to get the meter to only ‘see’ the shadows. I then placed this in zone III by underexposing two stops. This was mostly successful. The tree trunk shows color and texture while the bright sun is clearly overexposed but in a nice way and the broader sky remains blue and the glow of the moss on the tree limbs holds color and detail. The shadow in the lower right still holds details as well.

Next is a photo I took around sunrise on the Llyn Peninsula in Wales. This was one of the first photos I took using my newfound understanding of the zone system and my newly acquired spot meter. I metered the deep shadows at the base of the cliffs and placed that Ev at Zone III. It captures all the detail and has accurate color in the shadows. It was early morning, and the highlights did not challenge the upper end of the film’s range. (Kodak Porta 400, Fuji G617 camera)

Finally, a fall and a winter image with bright sun showing the full range of color negative film. Both images were metered in the shadows in the foreground and adjusted to zone III or IV. The highlights were left to lay where they were. Again, the film holds texture and color in the highlights. In both cases the sun was rising and the conditions changing quickly so it helped I had film that I did not have to meter repeatedly like slide film to assure a good exposure. The fall image on the left is Kodak Ektar 4x5 large format while the winter frost scene was Kodak Portra 400 on a Fuji GSW 690 camera.

It may still be warranted to be aware of the highlights and a GND may be a good idea when it can be used to bring the highlights down. For particularly bright skies for instance this may help preserve more detail and assure more saturated color.

These are general rules of thumb for color negative film. Each film has its own characteristics. Fuji recently discontinued their Pro 400H film, but Kodak continues to have strong candidates like Portra 160, 400, and 800 and Ektar 100. Portra tends to have soft muted colors (though there are differences between the speeds) while Ektar is more saturated. They each have their own responses to over and underexposure.

Metering Black and White Film

When metering black and white film (none-C-41 type) we can fall back to the original Zone system as this is what it was made for. Meter for where we want the highlights and shadows depending on what parts of the image we want to preserve. Since conventional black and white film handles shadows more gracefully than color negative film we can look to underexpose the shadows more. This is very much dependent on how the film is exposed and developed, however.

EXPOSE FOR THE SHADOWS DEVELOP FOR THE HIGHLIGHTS

Outside the scope of this article is another aspect of technique for getting the most out of black and white film. Like metering, the film’s box speed is specified to get average results and in some cases make the film look ‘faster’ than it really is. Experienced photographers in black and white film photography advocate matching the development process to the film and the speed the film is shot at. For instance I shoot Ilford FP4+ a film with a box rated speed of ISO 125 at ISO 80 and develop it 20% less time than recommended in HC-110. I overexpose to make sure the shadows pick up detail and then ‘under-develop’ the film to keep the highlights intact. This is often determined by a series of controlled experiments. A good rule of thumb however is to halve the ISO and reduce development time by 20%. Some developers however are so-called full speed developers like Ilford’s DD-X and give good shadow detail without overexposing the film and so allow the film to be shot at box speed.

Alternatively we can treat black and white film just like color negative film as a simple rule of thumb. That is meter the shadows and place them in Zone III, or even Zone II if needed, and let the highlights fall where they will.

C-41 Black and White Film

C-41 black and white film is metered and exposed in exactly the same way as color negative film. C-41 black and white film (Ilford XP2 400 and Kodak T400 CN) is color negative film where the dyes have been selected to just express a monochrome palette. Kodak’s offering has the same orange mask as their color film as it is meant to be used to make prints using the RA-4 color print process. The results will be a black and white print. Ilford’s offering however looks like a normal black and white negative after development so it can be used to make prints with a conventional black and white photographic paper.

Summary

What are the takeaways for color negative film?

1. Color negative is almost bullet-proof to overexposure.

2. Color negative film does not perform well when underexposed.

3. Meter for the shadows and place them in zone IV or III.

4. If the shadows are metered properly you can choose to let the highlights take care of themselves as the film handles overexposure very well.

5. Color negative film is useful for rapidly changing light because it is not always necessary to meter and control the highlights.

6. Despite its tolerance to over exposure a GND still may be useful to compress the tonal range of the image. This can result in more saturated colors in the highlights.

7. For simplicity we can treat black and white film like color negative film

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Some people carry a digital camera and use the spot meter from the digital camera. It may seem silly to carry a digital camera but if you are determined to shoot film and especially large format it can be a good compromise if you already own one. You set the camera ISO to the ISO of the film you are shooting and use the exposure parameters given. Shooting shutter priority or manual lets you set even stop shutter speeds to the same value on the film camera. A digital camera can also help visualize long night-time exposures as well which is tricky with just a light meter.

If you have a conventional average meter, then you want to estimate highlights for slide film and shadows for color negative film. Sometimes you can find a good proxy for highlights. The sky is often the brightest subject in a landscape so aim the meter at a broad patch of sky and use that as a highlight setting.

When I visited Sante Fe New Mexico I had my Yashica Mat-124G TLR loaded with Delta 3200 which I metered at ISO 800. I had my compact Sekonic meter for easy travel so I did not have access to a spot meter. A very successful strategy for those bright southwestern days was to meter the sky and overexpose by 3 stops. This placed highlights in zone VIII leaving plenty of range for the shadows.

For estimating shadows, you can aim the meter at a broad area of shadow. Move the meter around until you register the lowest value and use that.

Here is a photo where I did just that. Taken on a bright sunny day at St Cybi’s well on the Llyn Peninsula half the well was in a deep shadow. The camera was loaded with Portra 160 (color negative film so I would look to the shadows first.

This reading I took aiming the meter (Sekonic 308S) only at the shadow and got a shutter speed say at 125th sec for handheld and an aperture of f8. Now this would place the shadow in Zone V if used this setting. But I want the shadow to be blacker and not the 18% gray of Zone V. So I have to move this to Zone III or two stops darker. I can advance my meter one stop at a time and ignore the shutter speed to f11 then f16 or just know that 2 stops underexposed is f16 at 125th sec. If I want to I can also meter the wall at 125th second shutter and count out where it falls in the zone system to understand if the highlights will fit in the range of the film.

You can also consider moving if the subject allows. If there is a deep shadow you want to capture detail in it may be possible to walk right up to meter the shadow directly. The same may be true of highlights.

Finally, it is often said that the ground is often a good substitute for 18% gray and so can give a reasonable Zone V value.