B&W Film & Blown Out Skies

Freester

Freester

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Mark
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Right film gurus. I've read about blown out skies, and how a yellow, orange and red filter are necessities when shooting B&W to avoid blown out skies with B&W and film. However explain to me one of these similar shots the sky is blown out and the other isn't, if you please :)



The differences:

Good sky shot with HP5+, Nikon F4s, Nikkor 70-210 with U/V Filter.

Bad sky shot with FP4+, Canon EOS100 and Nifty 50 EF lens.

Both shot using the equivalent of Matrix metering on similar winter days with harsh sun behind me getting late in the afternoon.

So is the U/V filter making a difference? Or is the metering on the Nikon F4 better? Or do you say 'go away Freester there's too many variables and it could be anything...'?

Any insight gratefully appreciated....

Mark F
 
The Nikon F has only 5 segment matrix metering so with the one on the right the sky only occupies about 25% of the area, meaning that as the players etc are promement in the frame this is where the majority of the meter has taken place.

The bad one with the nifty fifty more than half the image is in sunlight so the metering system has picked up on that and hence the blown out look.

Had you used a similar 70-210 on the Canon you proably have got the same effect as with the Nikon. Like the player '2' looks fine.

The filter mentioned Orange and Red will make skys darker simpley because they are opposite blue in the colour wheel, but if any of the players had say a Red shirt then they would look a lot lighter.

Oh the UV filter will make no difference. :D
 
cherryrig said:
What ISO was the film, what f number of the lenses, what was the 70-210 zoomed to

There is quite a bit too pick from really

How were they developed and what developer

etc etc
Click to expand...

Sorry forgot.

Good one HP5+ @ ISO400. Dev'd in ID11. 70-210 zoomed to about 180mm. It was f/4.0 shutter speed was around 1/1000 / 1/750 in Aperture Priority.

Bad one I FP4+ @ ISO125 Dev'd in ID11. I really can't remember the exposure settings but focal length 50mm if that helps ;o)

Knikki said:
The Nikon F has only 5 segment matrix metering so with the one on the right the sky only occupies about 25% of the area, meaning that as the players etc are promement in the frame this is where the majority of the meter has taken place.

The bad one with the nifty fifty more than half the image is in sunlight so the metering system has picked up on that and hence the blown out look.

Had you used a similar 70-210 on the Canon you proably have got the same effect as with the Nikon. Like the player '2' looks fine.

The filter mentioned Orange and Red will make skys darker simpley because they are opposite blue in the colour wheel, but if any of the players had say a Red shirt then they would look a lot lighter.

Oh the UV filter will make no difference. :D
Click to expand...

At least the UV filter is ruled out! I think I get what you are saying. Need to read and digest for a bit! Thanks!
 
Looking at the lighting, it looks like the first shot has clouds behind the subject and these are reasonably dark, resulting in a lower subject-brightness range. You still have some blown out highlights - look at the logo on the player's shirt.

The second one looks like the sky was very bright and I suspect that the subject brightness range is just too great. With film, you've got about a five stop range where you will get detail. Outside of this, there's not much detail to be had. You could try reducing your development times as this will help to curtail the highlights.

A UV filter won't make a difference. A yellow or orange filter may have helped on #2 - it would have darkened the sky down and might have brought its value down sufficiently to stop it being blown out.
 
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