Help - I can't stop! (not 2/3, anyway)

OptiKen · Mar 11, 2016

I posted this here because I mostly shoot rangefinders.
When I read articles regarding setting your camera for different films or development types, usually the author recommends something like, "overexpose by 2/3 stop", or "underexpose by 1/2 stop".

I understand the concept, but have no idea how to adjust to anything other than full stops.

Sooooo.....
How do it know? How do you adjust for partial stop adjustments?

Sirius Glass · Mar 11, 2016

Keep life simple:

Shoot at box speed
Do not include the sky in the reflective light meter reading
If the composition is either all white [very light] or all black [very dark] use and incidence meter
Tell the testinestas to shove it

RobC · Mar 11, 2016

so you are saying your camera only has full stop adjustments on aperture and only full stop adjustments on shutter speed yes?

Well work out what it should be and open up to nearest longer/wider exposure assuming negative film or close down to nearest shorter/smaller exposure if using slide film and you won't go far wrong. You'll always be within 2/3 a stop in the right direction to negate any possibility of under or over exposure in the wrong direction.

What are you using for metering? If its in camera metering then you can do it by altering your camera film speed setting which should be in 1/3 stop increments which means you'll always be within a 1/3 stop which is close enough.

E. von Hoegh · Mar 11, 2016

OptiKen said:
I posted this here because I mostly shoot rangefinders.
When I read articles regarding setting your camera for different films or development types, usually the author recommends something like, "overexpose by 2/3 stop", or "underexpose by 1/2 stop".

I understand the concept, but have no idea how to adjust to anything other than full stops.

Sooooo.....
How do it know? How do you adjust for partial stop adjustments?

If you rate 100 speed film at 80, that's +1/3 stop. If you rate 100 speed film at 160, that's -2/3 stop. I use the aperture to get intermediates, but it's really a guesstimation.

ColColt · Mar 11, 2016

As an example of what I do with 400 film like Tri-X or HP-5, these, normally rated at ASA 400 I use 250 instead. That's 2/3rd's stop more expose that box speed. If I would have found the negatives were too contrasty I would drop back my usually developing time somewhat. Conversely, had they been flat, give more developing time...10 minutes, for instance, instead of 8 1/2 minutes to bring the contrast back up a tad.

In short, when you overexpose a little, as in my case, you undeveloped a bit to compensate.

DcAnalogue · Mar 11, 2016

ColColt said:
As an example of what I do with 400 film like Tri-X or HP-5, these, normally rated at ASA 400 I use 250 instead. That's 2/3rd's stop more expose that box speed. If I would have found the negatives were too contrasty I would drop back my usually developing time somewhat. Conversely, had they been flat, give more developing time...10 minutes, for instance, instead of 8 1/2 minutes to bring the contrast back up a tad.

In short, when you overexpose a little, as in my case, you undeveloped a bit to compensate.

Exactly what I do.....

philosli · Mar 11, 2016

I guess you've a fully mechanical camera or lens aperture adjustment system. In such a case, your only resort is to adjust your aperture setting to be somewhere between the two adjacent stop markings on your lens.

Other than that, your problem won't be solved by film rating. For example, you can rate TriX at ISO 320, but if your hand-held meter reading (setting at ISO 320) gives you F6.7 @ 1/60, you still need to find a way to set your aperture 1/2 stop between F5.6 and F8.

OptiKen said:
I posted this here because I mostly shoot rangefinders.
When I read articles regarding setting your camera for different films or development types, usually the author recommends something like, "overexpose by 2/3 stop", or "underexpose by 1/2 stop".

I understand the concept, but have no idea how to adjust to anything other than full stops.

Sooooo.....
How do it know? How do you adjust for partial stop adjustments?

Help - I can't stop! (not 2/3, anyway)

OptiKen

Sirius Glass

RobC

E. von Hoegh

ColColt

DcAnalogue

philosli

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