[Leica] technique for night shooting (heavy stuff)

[imxputs <imxputs@knoware.nl>]

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