Camera School
Module 5 · Fieldwork · about 2 hours

Fieldwork

Six assignments, three in a Brooklyn loft studio and three in Yosemite Valley. You'll use the same 503CX and the same meter as on the bench, with real light that changes through the day.

Each link opens the place, the hour and the lens set up for youSave your results from the contact sheet

Before you start

Both places work like the bench: drag to look around, work the camera with its own controls, and meter with GlassMeter on the phone. A few things are new:

  • Your film is real, in a sense. Every frame you fire is developed with the film you loaded, and lands in the tray. Twelve frames to a roll, as always.
  • The light moves. Time passes, the sun moves, clouds come and go. You can pause the clock, or drag it to any hour.
  • Handing in work. Open the contact sheet (the thumbnail beside the phone's shutter button) and press Save sheet. For a class, hand in the sheet with a sentence for each frame: what you metered, where you placed it, and the settings.

In the studio

The Loft Studio is a converted warehouse floor in DUMBO, Brooklyn, with tall windows over the East River, a still life, and continuous lights with a set of classic lighting setups ready under Light.

Assignment 1 · 20 minutes

A full range of tones

Goal: one picture of the still life with real black, real white, and everything in between, with detail at both ends.

  1. Open the seamless and choose the Chiaroscuro setup under Light.
  2. Spot-meter the darkest shadow you want detail in, and the brightest highlight you want texture in. How many stops apart are they?
  3. Place the shadow on Zone III, and check where the highlight falls. If it lands above VIII, soften or move the light until it fits.
  4. Set the lens and make the picture. Then make a second frame metered by averaging alone, for comparison.

Check yourself: in your placed frame, can you see texture in both the shadow and the highlight you metered? Is the averaged frame better or worse, and why?

Assignment 2 · 25 minutes

Three lights, one subject

Goal: see how much the direction and size of a light changes a subject.

  1. At the seamless, keep the composition fixed: don't move the tripod between frames.
  2. Make one frame each with the Window light, Rembrandt and High key setups. Meter each one fresh, using an incident reading.
  3. Lay the three frames side by side on the contact sheet.

Check yourself: where are the shadows in each, how hard are their edges, and which picture feels the most like a painting? Why did the incident reading suit this better than a spot reading?

Assignment 3 · 20 minutes

By the window

Goal: a quiet still life in daylight, the way painters and photographers have always used a north window.

  1. Open by the west window, with the jug and the citrus against the glass, the river and the bridge behind.
  2. The sky outside is far brighter than the jug. Spot-meter both, and decide: do you keep the view, or the jug?
  3. Make one frame for each choice. Try the 150 mm lens for a tighter frame.

Check yourself: could your film hold both the view and the jug? If not, which frame is the better picture, and what would you change about the light to have both?

In Yosemite

The Yosemite Photo Safari is the valley at full scale, with the real sun and moon for any date and hour, weather, waterfalls and wildlife. These three assignments follow in Ansel Adams's footsteps, in the valley where he made most of his best-known work.

Assignment 4 · 25 minutes

Moonrise

Goal: a moon with detail over a landscape that still holds texture, made with the technique Adams used for Moon and Half Dome.

  1. Open Moonrise over the valley at Tunnel View.
  2. Fit the 250 mm lens and frame the moon with the ridge below it.
  3. Spot-meter the moon and place it on Zone VII. Spot-meter the land: where does it fall? If it's too dark, wait for the moon to clear the ridge earlier in the evening, or accept a silhouette.
  4. The speed will be slow. Use the pre-release, wait a second, then fire.

Check yourself: does the moon show its markings, or is it a blank white disc? Why would the moon be overexposed if you'd metered the whole scene?

Assignment 5 · 20 minutes

Snow in black and white

Goal: white snow that still has texture, on black-and-white film.

  1. Open After a January snow. Tri-X is loaded.
  2. Spot-meter sunlit snow. The meter wants to make it gray. Place it on Zone VII, or VIII for bright, flat snow.
  3. Check where the dark granite and the trees fall.
  4. Make the picture, then make one more at the meter's reading, without placing the snow.

Check yourself: compare the two frames. Which one looks like snow? How many stops apart are the two exposures?

Assignment 6 · 25 minutes

Water, slow and fast

Goal: show the same falling water two ways, by choosing the shutter speed first.

  1. Open Yosemite Falls at peak flow.
  2. Lock the shutter speed on the phone at 1/500 and meter: the aperture follows. Make the picture.
  3. Now lock it at 1/2 s and meter again. If the aperture runs out at f/22, add the ND8 filter with the phone's filter button: it cuts three stops. Use the pre-release, and keep the release pressed until the shutter closes.
  4. Compare the two frames.

Check yourself: which one shows what the water looks like, and which shows what it feels like? Both frames had the same exposure. What changed?

When you're done

Look back over your contact sheets and pick one frame from each place that you'd print. For each, write down what you metered, where you placed it, what fell where, and what you'd do differently. That reflection is worth more than the pictures.