Re: [Leica] technique for night shooting (heavy stuff)

[Dennis Painter <dpainter@bigfoot.com>]

Erwin,

Could you post some of the results on the web?  Would the web allow us
to see the detail and differentiation?

Dennis


imxputs wrote:
> 
> In case somebody out there is stll interested in exploiting image quality
> potential, here my findings
>         for shooting with the Noct and Delta3200 in the night.
>         Goal: to shoot in available darkness a high contrast subject with a
> full tonal scale and deep shadow
>         differentiation.
>         I used a model dressed in a white shirt and a black miniskirt with
> black stockings and black shoes.
>         Shots were taken in the street with just the light of some lamppost
> and in dark corners of cafe's with
>         very dim lighting.
>         Exposure metering technique in all situations: incident metering. In
> the cafe shooting the meter
>         reading was deliberately overexposed by a half stop to help deep
> shadow rendering. I used the
>         D3200 at EI 1600 (at first) and my exposure reading was 1/15 at 1:1.0
> (incident metering)
>         This is 2/3 of a stop underexposure (D3200 is nominally ISO 1000). In
> these circumstances heavy
>         pushing is possible (the white shirt will reflect enough light on the
> emulsion to get decent grey
>         densities even when pushed 2 stops. You will not see any shadows of
> course and the white shirt is
>         not black (on negative) but greyish. Printable but not real white.
>         So I settled for EI 1600 and got the grey values in the shirt as
> expected and no difference between
>         the dark skirt and the black stockings. That would be an indication
> that the deep shadow recording
>         should be correct. (Development in D76 undiluted 10 minutes)
>         So I made a new series at EI1000, same circumstances and as planned
> now I got a fabulous tonal
>         range of corect density (white shirt very dark on negative and finely
> differentiated grey values
>         between skirt and stockings). It really is very nice to take pictures
> in scantily lit dark corners from a
>         inherently contrasty subject with finely graded tonality and correct
> white/black densities. In addition
>         the uncanny ability of the Noct to penetrate the darkness and give the
> impression that the scene is
>         more evenly lit than it was in reality lends additional pictorial
> interest to these images. Of course
>         reportage dyhards and pushprocessing promotors would not in the least
> be interested in Zone
>         system tonal scales in the deep dark corners of the human habitat, but
> well it is nice it can be done.
> 
>         Erwin