P.L. Dunbar Classes


B1 Photo (May 1)
April 30, 2007, 2:15 pm
Filed under: Photography

Exposure Guide for Transparency Film

© 1996 Kevin C. O’Neil, Eastern Light Nature Photography, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

The “System”

This “system” provides accurate exposures guides for the most common lighting situations faced by photographers using transparency film: Normal or Low Light and Bright Sunny Days. This system is not “unique” or “special” in any way. It is the system used by almost all nature photographers (whether they know it or not). Although these guides are generally applicable to print films, because of the wider latitude (i.e., ability to provide proper exposure where the range and contrast of light is great) of print films, the compensation suggestions may not be great enough to provide for proper exposure for print films.

Two Simple Rules

Two simple exposure compensation rules to remember with slide film are “LO-DC” and “LC-DO.”

In Normal or Low Light, and when the tone of the subject matter is Light, you need to Open up to ensure proper exposure. If the subject matter is Dark, you need to Close down to ensure proper exposure. LO-DC means Light Subject, Open Up – Dark Subject, Close Down

On a Bright Sunny Day, and when the tone of the subject matter is Light, you need to Close down to ensure proper exposure. If the subject matter is Dark, you need to Open up to ensure proper exposure. LC-DO means Light Subject, Close Down – Dark Subject, Open Up

These may seem not seem logical at first, but you need to remember that your camera exposure meter is calibrated to properly expose an 18% gray card (a medium tone subject). When you meter a subject lighter than 18% gray under Normal or Low Light, such as snow, the camera meter “tells” you how to expose the snow as if it were a medium tone subject. The resulting image of snow therefore looks gray! When faced with this situation and you are using slide film, you must compensate by opening up 1.5 to 2 stops so that snow is white (i.e., Light/Open).

The opposite is true. If shooting a dark subject under Normal or Low Light, such as a black bear, your meter will give you the proper exposure for an 18% gray card, turning the black bear into a gray bear (or at least a tone of black that is much lighter than the bear actually appeared). Because the subject is Dark, you need to Close down (i.e., Dark/Close).

On a Bright Sunny Day, the rules of exposure shift. Rather than attempt to explain this here, accept it as “truth” and experiment. You’ll be pleased with the results. This exposure rule is often referred to as the “Sunny f/16 Rule.” This means that on a Bright Sunny Day with few clouds in the sky, the proper exposure for a subject with front lighting is f/16 at a shutter speed closest to your ISO film speed. If I was shooting Fuji Velvia (ISO 50), the proper exposure would be 1/60th of a second at f/16, or a combination of shutter speed and f-stop equal to this (i.e., 125th at f/11). One note of caution, always avoid shooting on a Bright Sunny Day unless the subject matter or timing leave you with no alternative. The resulting images are generally not as good as ones taken under better lighting conditions (early morning, late afternoon or on cloudy days).


30 Comments so far
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overexposing a photograph can be annoying, so this is a very cool thing, i think my camera has it, because i pointed at a light tha was turned on, and the shutter speed increased. and then i turned off the light, lowering the speed of the shutter, so it obviosly can detect amounts of light entering the lens, and adjust it accordingly

Speaking from beyond the grave,
Cory Tibbitts

Comment by cory tibbitts

This article was primarily talking about the different exposure rules from transparency film. It also helps to improve your understanding of what to do on a sunny day or in normal or low light. I thought it was pretty easy to understand and gave good examples of what and what not to do.

Comment by Katie Huang

This article provides a lot of good information about this “system” for setting up your camera so you don’t underexpose or overexpose your photographs. It’s also important, of course, to remember to light-meter off of something middle-gray. Overall, this article was a good, quick refresher course.

Comment by Elizabeth Hicks

again, herzog, this article would have been much more helpful if you gave it to us BEFORE we did a slide project. a lot of my slide film came out dark. i think it had more to do with my shutter speed than my aperture. does the ASA of film determine the type of chemicals used in developing or just the time needed to develop?

Comment by jack matthews

from the looks of it the article was mostly about exposure3 time and systems of setting up your camera for the reason that you dont over or underexpose your photographs. you know mostly all of this stuff is new to me lol i dont know how good or bad that is according to this class.

Comment by Caleb Kheradmand

This is an interesting article, I did not know about exposure rules for transparency film, so this article was quite educational, and now I know much more. It helps in telling me what to do in different lighting, and examples are given for each situation.

Comment by Rahul Sharma

This is a very informative article about the function and importance of exposure calculations. This is great in low light situations to get the best results. My experiences with exposure calculations have been altogether succesful, and hope to increase my skills in the future.

Comment by Alex Culler

Exposure is a very important subject. This article was written in 1996. It just tells you what to do with certain types of film. Woe unto the soul who does not develop a certain type of film right. That is why memory cards rule! The digital age is fast approaching and pretty soon this country will be ruled by a technological ape named Charleton Heston who will require everybody to get a digital camera.

Comment by Seth Schattner

This article was mostly talking about the different exposure rules from the transparency films. This might’ve helped some students BEFORE we did the slide project! This article provides a lot of good information about this unique way for setting your camera so you don’t underexpose or overexpose your photographs.
This article is a good one for people who have not done this type of photography before.

Comment by Chris Profitt

i didnt know there was any different kind of film other than black and white and color and maybe another kind of random film but transperancy film must be that kind lots of different situations and stuff cool article cant wait fir the next artile yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Comment by curtis madison

this article is full of helpful information dealing with light. overexposing and underexposing is a problem that we all deal with. light metering is key in situations where there is too much light, or too little light. this article was a good reminder of things we have already learned.

Comment by evanne cornette

This was a semi-interesting article; like Rahul, I did not know the exposure rules for transparency film. This article was very informative and explained how to shoot this particular type of film quite well. The black bear example was quite nice also.

Comment by Laura Young

I Thought this article was osmewhat interesting, it talked about the different exposure rules from transparency film. i thought it was pretty easy to understand and gave good examples of what and what not to do.over all this was a pretty good article and i hope that i can take this information and use it in my future photography.

Comment by Jessica Hatton

Very informative article that talks about the rules for exposuring different types of shots. This would have been very nice to have in the begining of the year (although I don’t really think that I would be able to understand it at the first of the year). I will keep these in mind so I can use them later.

Comment by TJ Sweda

i like this article a lot i usually like most all the articles that give you lessons and tips or little pointers that will help you become a better photographer its much more fun than the ones the goes and talk about the new photo shop and its tips

Comment by mitchell lisk

This article was sort of interesting. It had a lot of good facts in it. This article might have been helpful if we had it before we did our last project. This gave some good details about over and under exposing your film, and had some good example in it like the one about the black bear.

Comment by Allie Mayhugh

An exposure guide, just what I need! This article walks one through the process of dealing with specific lighting situations. As a helpful hint, the author gives abbreviations, “LO-DC” and “LC-DO” to promote two simple rules. I do wish that this idea could’ve been introduced earlier because it might’ve turned out to be very useful.

Comment by Kerri Venable

This article is very informative. It could have been very beneficial to me before I shot the latest film, because when I developed it, it came out dark. I plan on doing extreme photoshop to lighten the pictures. Overexposing can be the worst thing to do when developing pictures, because it’s the worst feeling to develop something and find it was ruined.

Comment by Grace Hatton

The article’s content is nessecary information for photography. I should know this, but often during shooting I forget this clever acronym. I should have thought more often about this during shooting my slidefilm for this class; many of my photographs were not correctly exposed.

Comment by Alyssa Eliopoulos

This article was fairly confusing to a simpleton like myself. I ask myself what this would help me achieve, and I am lost for the answer. Opening and closing seems to alwars stay the same for me, and I cant figure out why there would be a change when only the amount of light is affected.

Comment by Cody Brady

this article was not intresting to me seeing that i do not have a camera anymore. otherwise this article would be useful to me. this article was a guide on the correct exposure for trancparency film. if i had a camera this would be good for me if i was going to shoot transparency film.

Comment by eric cruse

These are some pretty cool rules and tips to get your film the right color and lightness that you want. Some of my slide film came out dark but I think it might be from developing them. Plus I used barnott’s scanner so my pictures didn’t come out the highest of quality.

Comment by Allison Maggard

This all seemed to be nesasary info, wow my spelling is off today., I need to know this information yet I always seem to forget these rules and all that stuff when I got to shoot. I can’t help it. But if I remember them thistime my slide film should turn out to be good.

Comment by Adam DeSimone

This article gives good advise how to use/set the aperture in common situations using a slide film. The compensation rules LO/DC and LC/DO appear very helpful to me. The way the artcile is written makes it very easy to understand and follow the directions.

Comment by Katharina Meermann

To me this seems like another one of those obvious articles that we need to hear from time to time, just like i call so many of the ones we read. this article to me just goes back and tells us the things that we did at the beginning of the year and with our night project- Fix your shutter and aperture appropriately!!! It’s so terrible to get hazy or discolored pictures because you didn’t use your law of reciprocity or bracket.

Comment by Ashley Fleming

this is a really good article to have on here because i think it is really informative and helpful. these tips are really important and helpful because lots of times your film will get exposed. there is nothing worse that working hard to shoot a roll of film and process it only to realize that you have over exposed or under exposed your film.

Comment by maddie rogers

when i was shooting my film i was doing all this article said about opening up if its too light and closing down if its too dark but i didnt realise that when i was shooting i was using the wrong film speed(and by this i mean that i was using what was on the canister instead of 1 higher than it said) so my film sisnt come out but other than that i understand how to shoot color positive film now

Comment by justin van camp

This is a meaty article that gives helpful hints for shooting slide film in a variety of situations. As most people said this would have been better if we had gotten it before our project. The sunny f/16 rule is one that I have heard of before but have not actually ever used. Then again I do not often find myself taking photographs in the uber bright sunlight.

Comment by Greg Artiushin

This article was basically about rules on how to take the best pictures possible on either sunny or cloudy days, I personally have always had problems taking pictures on cloudy days because there just isnt enough light to get into the picture, so the picture turns out weird. I can also have problems on sunny days, if its too bright outside, the picture might not come out the way i want it too, i thought this article was mostly simple to understand, thanks for the great article.

Comment by Cassie Harris

this was a bunch of stuff about slide info and how things that will help us but we havbe almos already completed our projects so it kinda defeats the purpose. so that is all i have to say about that! it jumed up and bit me in the buttocks!

Comment by Brooks Fitzpatrick




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