How I expose Black & White Film

In this video I go in depth about how I rate and meter my black and white film photography

[@user-lf9lm9mq8s]

after Many years of hobby photography, metering has always been something of a mystery. This excellent video helped me so much. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and approach.

[@marlonsouza9224]

Incredible! So much insight!! This is a masterclass! Thank you so much!!

[@damsjs6866]

Well done - thank you for the clear and understandable concepts. I would love another video with more tests on where to meter. That was incredibly helpful and a great learning tool. You are a terrific teacher.

[@1Bujbuj]

Love your videos, very to the point and explained really well. Great work!

[@jbezerk]

Im trying to educate myself further exposing film and this is an amazingly instructive video. The tip of metering facing up, and the concept of second most lit spot are very practical. Thanks for your content!

[@jimphilpott902]

I have just started a project with a medium format camera, shooting B&W film. Your video is most helpful as I learn to read light.

[@LiboMatshazi]

Enjoying your videos so much and feel like I’m finally finding someone who speaks on film in a an unassuming but yet authoritative way that is getting it across so very clearly and about your process. Where else can I find your work?

[@nicolaslevy2657]

So great to hear that my videos make sense to some people. I spend so much time re-recording and editing down to get my point across as clearly as I can, good to hear it’s working. Gotta say I enjoy making pictures more than sharing them. I post to IG sometimes, under @lenicolas and I have been meaning to update my website www.nicolaslevy.no since the first lockdown in 2020….

[@res.publica]

Been enjoying this sequence of videos. One thing thats not clear to me is, once you take your meter reading from the 2nd brightest, thats under open shadow, do you expose at that meter reading. Or if you place that reading 1 stop under exposed. Fascinating subject, and appreciate your approach.

[@JasonRenoux]

Exactly the question I would like to know the answer for. It is zone metering after all and middle grey, is well, it's middle grey.

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Sorry I missed your comment. I expose to that meter reading!

[@Larpy1933]

Thanks. I appreciate you sharing your deep knowledge and experience.

[@hansolhwang-su3sc]

Very good information !

[@jetblakink]

Excellent explanation. I'm still trying to get my head around it though!… 🙏🏿

[@eddierivera8274]

9:23 is a message some of us need to be reminded of regularly. It's easy to forget when you're on autopilot and ridiculously tempting to obsess over the technicalities of a "proper" exposure. Who cares if the road and the wheel well has detail!

[@photomaster1]

Thank you for taking the time to show how you make your art, interesting how you meter your light using the bulb and not the spot meter.

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi, thanks for your kind words. In short, I don’t think spot meters are useful. Because they tell you the reflected light from a specific subject, and nothing about the source. I point the dome at a light source and it tells me the setting that will make any subject look like itself. A spot meter will give you a different reading for a white dress and a black tuxedo, even if they’re under the same light. And here’s the kicker : both those settings would be wrong, as they’d render the dress or the tuxedo median grey! Point the dome at the lightsource, and you get the setting that will render the dress white and the tux black. No extra thinking or compensation necessary. Now for scenes with multiple light sources, it gets even worse. For example the white house in the video, how would you do that with a spot meter? The white facade is probably gonna read 1/1000s and the shade under the cars 1/4s. By the time you figure out how to expose this one i'd have already moved on to the next scene ;) But in the end whatever gets you negatives that you like is the right solution for you. i made this video so that beginners have a simple framework that works and is easy to use. So many people online make it sound like you have to learn and understand the whole zone system to have a chance at making a correct exposure, i wanted this one video being a counterpoint to that. have a great weekend!

[@jeffmarttt816]

wow! thank you so much for sharing this all! this is very helpful!!

[@benny2109]

What a gread video and some gread work to handle a scene. But there is one or two qestions left for me. First... how do you handle your meter? I think its importent if your dome light (kalotte) is facing the light source or straight to the camera (half light source half shadowed)!?! How do you handle it? And only to understand.... if i want more contrast in the negative i can only metering the first light zone? Cheers Benny

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi Benny! Yes you got it. Metering for the brightest light source will give darker shadows, which can lead to more contrast. I always point the dome straight at the light source. Wherever you decide to point the dome, what’s important is to be consistent, so you get repeatable results.🤓

[@mynewcolour]

Brilliant. Thank you.

[@peteb5461]

fantastic presentation, really enjoy these. Would love to see and hear more on your development process too :)

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi Pete. I’m not sure my dev process deserves a video. Basically I keep things as consistent as possible. Always rodinal, always 20 degrees, always the same agitation pattern… 1+25 for low contrast scenes, 1+50 for high contrast, and if I’m trying to protect the highlights, I’ll shorten by 10-15%. ✌🏻

[@peteb5461]

@@nicolaslevy2657 Well that will do me :) I have some original rodinal (not the R09) so will get practising. Keep up the great work, absolutely love the way you describe and explain the subject.

[@FF-ii6ly]

Great method!

[@twosents]

Awesome!

[@MichaelCarter]

My struggles are with 16mm movie film, namely 3378, and how to get skies to print while also getting some darker parts to develop.

[@MrBiginvegas]

of course depending on light conditions 16mm B&W loves a yellow or green or orange or red filter for contrast in skies.

[@donjose1010]

Thanks for the video, Nicolas. Really educational. If I rate my trix400 at 800, do I meter for 400 or 800? If the answer is 400, does it makes sense to develop at 1600?

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi, if you rate your film for 800 speed, then you meter for 800 speed. What’s important is that you keep metering for open shadows, not for the brightest part of the scene. Then of course you develop longer, or tell your lab that the film is pushed 1 stop. It’s the longer development that will give you brighter mids and highlights, while the voluntary under exposure (you rated your film 800) will give you nice inky blacks.

[@joseuribe430]

great info, thanks for sharing your knowledge. Perhaps you can help me with my b&w film development. I primarily shoot Tri-x 400 @1600. I like the grain, edginess, contrast. Contrary to the norm, I meter for the highlights to get deep shadows as if it was digital. However, as you can imagine the shadows are a little deeper than what I'd like. My developer of choice is xtol and push development two stops. What do you recommend in development to get a little more detail in the shadows? Thanks by the way

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi, thanks for stopping by! If you haven’t seen the video I posted about “Expose for the shadows, develop for highlights”, I recommend you give that a watch 😎 Short answer is : there is nothing you can do about those shadows in development. What you need is simply to expose more at capture. BTW, if one normalises around metering for open shadows, like I do, what you’re doing by metering for highlights is underexposing by 2 stops. So if it were me I’d call what you’re doing rating your film at 6400. As for the ISO standard for film speed (ISO 6:93) they describe metering as “an average of the scene” so again, by metering for highlights rather than an average, you’re underexposing by at least a stop. So according to the ISO standard you’re really shooting at 3200 if not faster. So I’d advise this : set your meter to 800 and keep your metering technique and development unchanged. You’ll be closer to an effective ISO1600. Cheers!

[@joseuribe430]

@@nicolaslevy2657 thank you very much for sharing

[@joseuribe430]

I'll give that a try! Thank you for your suggestion @@nicolaslevy2657

[@adtechniques]

hello, thank you for sharing video. One thing thats not clear to me is, as youd said on your last video: "Expose for the Shadows, Develop for the Highlights", we sould mertering for the shadow to keep the best details. But in this video, you meter reading from the 2nd brightest. So do you longer the development time after that?

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi! I can see how this is confusing, sorry I wasn’t clearer. Let’s think of a scene has having direct sunlight, open shadows, and deep shadows. When we say expose for the shadows we don’t mean the deepest shadows, but the open shadows ; areas of the image that don’t get direct illustration from the main source, but get some illumination from bright parts of the image. Now if a scene is more complex, and doesn’t break down this way, I suggest that one meters from the second brightest light source. Another way to do it would be to remember the usual ratio between direct sunlight and open shadow (usually about 2 stops) and when you’re in a situation that’s complex to break down, you just meter for the brightest area, and over expose that reading by 2 stops. In either case, you develop as normal.

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

When the light is the sky which is very big and far away I thought you could ignore light falloff

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Correct. But there are cases when all parts of your frame do not “see” the same amount of sky. If your subject is on a rooftop, skylight reaches it from all directions, but if it is on the ground in a narrow street, the buildings block a lot of the skylight from reaching the bottom. Think of it like a well, if it’s narrow and deep enough no light can reach the bottom, no matter how bright a day it is.

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

@@nicolaslevy2657 I see the reason. It's like how the ground surfaces act like negative fill.

[@elsueniero5922]

when you say you develop for highlights (previously) you develop for the average of the whole roll?

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Basically “develop for highlights” means shorten the development by 10% if there’s bright highlights (big white clouds, backlit scenes…) and lengthen it by 10% if you shot under very flat light (cloudy days, blue hour…) If you have very different lights on the same roll I’d develop standard or slightly shorter. Rather have good highlights on the contrasty frames, even if it means the flat frames will turn out a bit more dull. You can always increase contrast on dull frames, but you can’t recover detail in whites that were overdeveloped.

[@SS-jt9ex]

You failed to say that you need to shoot the whole roll at the same iso.

[@nicolaslevy2657]

Hi. Yes, that felt obvious to me, but I should’ve mentioned it for the beginners out there. ✌🏻

[@lukemakayabu4369]

“If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself,” thank you for sharing invaluable knowledge @lenicolas