Metering for shadows

Saturday, 7 March 2026

Negative film holds highlights far better than it holds shadows. The old advice to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights is the single most useful thing I was told.

In practice that means metering off the darkest thing I want detail in and opening up a stop or two. Skies blow out gracefully on film; shadows that fall off the bottom are just empty.

My negatives got denser and, at first, harder to print. Then I learned to develop a little less to pull the highlights back, and the prints finally had the range I was after.