Validation of meter and exposure compensation

redbandit · Feb 15, 2023

shooting delta 400 at 400 iso .. meter said one thing,, camera agreed. Took the shots.. so far the only means to take the overall well balanced and nice looking negatives to a useful print,, has been to use contrast setting 0.

started with grade 2, most things nice... expect one person was solid dark blob.. contrast grade 1 made said person 50 percent dark blob... grade 0 has person alot better, overall only 10 percent is darker or in shadow that was in shadow in actual moment of photograph being taken.

inside house, should one take the meter reading and keep it, or should one slow the shutter down one notch to compensate?

koraks · Feb 15, 2023

Sounds like you mostly have a problem with a lack of shadow detail. Meter for important shadows and ensure they don't drop into murky nothingness. Take a partial/spot meter reading at an important shadow area and underexpose that by 1 or 1.5 stops - not more. If the scene contrast is very high, you can consider rating the film a stop slower and reducing development by 15% or so.

snusmumriken · Feb 15, 2023

It is all about how you use the meter. Show us the scene, then we can advise.

faberryman · Feb 15, 2023

redbandit said:
shooting delta 400 at 400 iso .. meter said one thing,, camera agreed. Took the shots.. so far the only means to take the overall well balanced and nice looking negatives to a useful print,, has been to use contrast setting 0.

started with grade 2, most things nice... expect one person was solid dark blob.. contrast grade 1 made said person 50 percent dark blob... grade 0 has person alot better, overall only 10 percent is darker or in shadow that was in shadow in actual moment of photograph being taken.

inside house, should one take the meter reading and keep it, or should one slow the shutter down one notch to compensate?

Sounds like a film underexposure and/or print overexposure issue. If so, as you have discovered, using a lower print contrast filter is not the remedy.

aparat · Feb 15, 2023

Did you remember to stop down the enlarger lens? I wasted a few sheets recently by making this rookie mistake.

Chuck_P · Feb 15, 2023

aparat said:
Did you remember to stop down the enlarger lens? I wasted a few sheets recently by making this rookie mistake.

Good point.....I did that with the test strip of my most recent print i made.......and it's always a relief to realize there's a definite concrete answer for the unexpected result you are seeing.

cowanw · Feb 15, 2023

It may be that the range of brightness of the scene exceeded the capabilities of your film. That would mean the dark blob man needed extra illumination at the time of the image.

redbandit · Feb 15, 2023

cowanw said:
It may be that the range of brightness of the scene exceeded the capabilities of your film. That would mean the dark blob man needed extra illumination at the time of the image.

thats what i may have needed to do as dark blob actually was teh focal point of the scene, and was the spot i had my camera take the meter reading on.. room has 3 36x48 windows side by side 10 feet form the people.

But i am not sure its a "too much for film speed" issue

Sirius Glass · Feb 15, 2023

One thing to do outside is to meter the subject only or meter without the sky. The sky will fall were it should. Try this and see how it works for you, I have used it for sixty years.

Pieter12 · Feb 15, 2023

Big question is what is the contrasty range of the scene and how are you metering?

cowanw · Feb 15, 2023

You are right, it is nit a speed issue. It is the fact the choice of exposure sets one point of illumination and lets the others fall where they may. For simplicity, you choose your 18% grey and the rest of the scene falls on either side of light or dark. They can only fall as far as the film will let them so the sun and and a white highlight will look the same even if they are many multiples of luminance apart. so too will the black tuxedo and The depths of Mordor. Smarter to make you scene all fall within 5 stops.

redbandit · Feb 16, 2023

interior scene mind you... as the contrast grade went down to 0, the whites or shoudl i say off white wall paint got lighter, but a black printer got greyer, not black.

koraks · Feb 16, 2023

redbandit said:
as the contrast grade went down to 0, the whites or shoudl i say off white wall paint got lighter, but a black printer got greyer, not black.

This suggests the contrast of the negative was OK, but you really had insufficient shadow detail. Hence, the meter reading you took wasn't suitable for the situation. You mentioned metering specifically for dark-blob-guy. What kind of meter does your camera have? If it's center-weighted or integral, then it has been thrown off by windows & bright walls. A separate spot meter is one solution, taking a meter reading that excludes bright areas is another. When using cameras with a meter that's easily thrown off by highlights, I always do the latter.

redbandit · Feb 16, 2023

koraks said:
This suggests the contrast of the negative was OK, but you really had insufficient shadow detail. Hence, the meter reading you took wasn't suitable for the situation. You mentioned metering specifically for dark-blob-guy. What kind of meter does your camera have? If it's center-weighted or integral, then it has been thrown off by windows & bright walls. A separate spot meter is one solution, taking a meter reading that excludes bright areas is another. When using cameras with a meter that's easily thrown off by highlights, I always do the latter.

vivitar v3800n

Meter: TTL, center-weighted averaging (SPD cell)

better then the canon i have.... but at same time in other rooms camera meter was matching the sekonic light meter i just got, ie take a reading with the sekonic, cycle through aptions till i get one that works for me aperture wise. take camera, adjust aperature and shutter speed to that reading and see if it matches.. it was.

Validation of meter and exposure compensation

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Validation of meter and exposure compensation

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