Ziess Biotar 58mm 2.0: unbelievable lack of contrast

ersambuca · Jan 27, 2022

Buzz-01 said:
Ah ok, your confusion makes more sense to me now. You shoot in shutter priority mode, where you set your shutter speed and then get an aperture suggested after metering.
In the case of using a genuine FD mount lens it would be perfectly fine like you do. Meter wide open and then go to the suggested aperture.
However, your Helios or Biotar is almost certainly connected via an adapter, and in this case the camera has no way of knowing what aperture the lens is set to, or what its widest aperture is, in order to adjust its meter reading automatically.
Chances are that it suggest a totally wrong aperture because of incorrect assumptions inside the camera.
Possibly this is what the store owner was talking about when saying the internal meter cannot be used.

I've never used the AE-1 myself so I cannot tell you whether or how you can meter stopped down with that camera. Others might be able to help you out with that.
But if you own a smartphone, I'd suggest to use a smartphone light meter app and meter the scene with your phone. Then select those settings on your camera and take the shot.
This way you omit the camera's internal meter completely and should get fairly accurate exposures.

thank you again for your comment, I think we are getting somewhere to understand what is going on. Please don't leave me now :'-)

You said "the camera has no way of knowing what aperture the lens is set to, or what its widest aperture is".

I don't get this. Why does the camera need to know those information? If a shutter speed is set, and the ISO value so, reading the amout of light that is coming through the lens, the meter only has to tell the only missing information, which is the aperture. Where am I wrong?

Thank you again for your patiance!

ersambuca · Jan 27, 2022

Marcelo Paniagua said:
Agree with everyone else. Not contrast issue but underexposed. Alway meter stopped down and don't use aperture priority witn lenst that don't have a lens connection to the camera. You can always meter (not aperture priority) with the camera full open and then close the required steps. Adjust speed on doing that.

that is exactly what I do!

Wallendo · Jan 27, 2022

ersambuca said:
thank you again for your comment, I think we are getting somewhere to understand what is going on. Please don't leave me now :'-)

You said "the camera has no way of knowing what aperture the lens is set to, or what its widest aperture is".

I don't get this. Why does the camera need to know those information? If a shutter speed is set, and the ISO value so, reading the amout of light that is coming through the lens, the meter only has to tell the only missing information, which is the aperture. Where am I wrong?

Thank you again for your patiance!

Unless the camera has some mechanism to read the maximum possible aperture of the lens you use, the camera doesn't have enough information to calculate the proper exposure. In your setup, the camera doesn't know when metering wide open, at which aperture it is reading and therefore cannot appropriately calculate any exposures. Apparently it makes some kind of default guess which is likely not f2.

Marcelo Paniagua · Jan 27, 2022

The problem is that the camera is reading an amount of light. It needs to know the actual and current aperture to made a proper guess about what the correct aperture would be. Nikon, Canon, etc, have a way to know what aperture is set on the lens to check how much more to open in order to get a correct exposure. If you lens is set to 2.8 and camera determine that scene needs half the light to get an appropiate exposure it will set the aperture to f/4 for example. The way to communicate the aperture is mechanical or electronical, but it does need to know what the current aperture is in order to give an estimated apertured, based on much light it need to add or deduct for the exposure. If more light is needed, it will increase aperture, if less light is needed, it will decrease. Again, camera needs to know what the current aperture is to give you this estimate. M42 cameras attached to a Canon EF by an adapter can't know the actual aperture but can know the shutter speed. Sorry if too confused.

EDIT The way to communicate the aperture is mechanical or electronical,

Marcelo Paniagua · Jan 27, 2022

Don't feel bad or afraid to ask questions. Been there, done that

Wallendo · Jan 27, 2022

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART119937

This is Canon's explanation of stopped-down metering.
With your lens, you would not need to move the lever on the camera, but it would otherwise work the same.

reddesert · Jan 27, 2022

ersambuca said:
You said "the camera has no way of knowing what aperture the lens is set to, or what its widest aperture is".

I don't get this. Why does the camera need to know those information? If a shutter speed is set, and the ISO value so, reading the amout of light that is coming through the lens, the meter only has to tell the only missing information, which is the aperture. Where am I wrong?

Thank you again for your patiance!

For open aperture metering, the camera needs to know the difference in f-stops between the open aperture that it's metering at, and the taking aperture that it's telling you to use. In principle it only needs the relative difference in number of stops, but it still needs to know.

For the generation of cameras that predated open aperture metering, including most M42 screw-mount cameras and lenses, there wasn't a linkage from lens to camera providing aperture information. So the cameras had stop-down metering, where you would press a button on the camera to turn on the meter and stop down the lens to the taking aperture (effectively a DOF preview lever). The camera would then indicate +/- to tell whether you had enough light or needed to change the aperture or shutter settings.

I don't know if your Canon AE-1 can do stop down metering (Edit to add - the link above shows how to do it on the AE-1P). Some cameras will go into stop down metering mode when you push the DOF preview (if there is one). You could use a light meter app. Or you could try to find a camera such as a Pentax Spotmatic, or a variety of M42 mount SLRs from other makers, that was natively designed to work with stop down metering and manual aperture lenses.

I agree with the other posters who said that it's hard to tell correct exposure from scans. If you take a picture of a problem negative and a good negative (just a cell phone picture with the negatives held up to a light, for example) then it will be pretty clear if you have an exposure problem.

abruzzi · Jan 27, 2022

with most post ~1965 cameras and lenses, they had what was called "open aperture metering". If you look at the front of many of these lenses, they say "auto" on the lens. Its not auto focus, its "auto stop down". Open aperture metering was an automatic way to let you view through the lens at full aperture, but allowing the camera's meter to reflect the selected aperture. In these lenses, there is a pin or ridge or something that tells the camera body what the max aperture is. There is a second mechanical coupling that tells the camera what the set meter it. Both pieces of info are critical since the meter is going to see a certain amount of light, and it needs to know how much to adjust that based on the selected aperture. So if you have an f2 lens, but you stop the lens down to f2.8, the lens doesn't stop down (until you trip the shutter), so the meter keeps seeing f2 light, but because it reads the aperture setting, the meter knows that it needs to halve the light to get the correct setting for f2.8 (one stop down is a halving of light.) If you select f16 it needs to reduce by 2^6 or six stops of light. When you trip the shutter, then lens automatically stops down, the mirror flips up and the shutter opens.

Preset lenses, on the other hand don't usually communicate the set aperture to the meter. Meaning the meter is only correct when the the actual aperture blades are in the position they will be when the shutter opens. The usual approach to using a that doesn't stop down automatically is to focus and frame wide open, then stop down, set your meter so with the lens stopped down, the meter reads the correct exposure. Then take the picture. The preset lens adds one other feature for convenience--once you've figured out your correct exposure, as above, you can turn the preset ring to that aperture, then open up the actual aperture so that you can do more focusing and framing, then you can easily and quickly turn the aperture ring down to what you preset it to,then trigger your shutter.

MattKing · Jan 27, 2022

ersambuca said:
Then I set the aperture wide open on 2.0 and I focus. Then, always wide open I meter, maybe this is the mistake? When I meter wide open, of course at a selected shutter speed, let's say that the meter points me f8.0., so I stepped down to 8.0 and I take my shot.
Is this wrong? Is there something I am missing?

We need to go back to the beginning a bit.
Correct me if I am wrong, but this is an image of your viewfinder:

When you say that "the meter points me f8.0" you are saying that the needle is pointing to the 8 on that scale. And if you had a Canon FD lens mounted on that camera, that would be what you would set on that lens, unless you were using the auto-exposure function on the camera, in which case you could set the lens to "A" and the camera would do the work for you.
But here is the part that you don't understand - those Canon FD lenses, or even the older FL lenses that only meter stopped down, have a tab in the lens mount that tell the camera what the maximum f/stop of the lens is.
The meter in the camera depends on that tab to do its work.
Although you see that 1.2, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 ... progression in the finder, what the meter actually does is measure the light, factor in the maximum aperture of the lens it is measuring that light through, and then calculate not what aperture to set, but rather how many stops the lens needs to be stopped down from the aperture indicated by that tab.
Your Zeiss lens plus any adapter in use either lacks that sort of tab, or has one in a location that communicates a different maximum aperture for your lens.
As a result, when the meter reads the light, it is assuming a lens maximum aperture that is different from the actual maximum aperture of your lens. When the needle in the viewfinder points to an aperture, it is actually telling you to stop down the lens to a certain number of stops less than the maximum (not actually the number shown) and, as it turns out, that aperture is one that gives the film less exposure than is needed.
I'm guessing that your lens plus any adapter in use is communicating to the camera that you have an f/0.7 lens - three stops faster than than the lens actually is. It might be f/1.0, or it might be f/1.2 or it might be a range of possibilities.
If the meter thinks that you have an f/0.7 lens attached, other than being amazed at how rich you must be it will, as a result, end up telling the meter needle in the finder to point to a setting that will result in film that is three stops under-exposed.

Kodachromeguy · Jan 27, 2022

abruzzi said:
with most post ~1965 cameras and lenses, they had what was called "open aperture metering". If you look at the front of many of these lenses, they say "auto" on the lens. Its not auto focus, its "auto stop down". Open aperture metering was an automatic way to let you view through the lens at full aperture, but allowing the camera's meter to reflect the selected aperture. In these lenses, there is a pin or ridge or something that tells the camera body what the max aperture is. There is a second mechanical coupling that tells the camera what the set meter it. Both pieces of info are critical since the meter is going to see a certain amount of light, and it needs to know how much to adjust that based on the selected aperture. So if you have an f2 lens, but you stop the lens down to f2.8, the lens doesn't stop down (until you trip the shutter), so the meter keeps seeing f2 light, but because it reads the aperture setting, the meter knows that it needs to halve the light to get the correct setting for f2.8 (one stop down is a halving of light.) If you select f16 it needs to reduce by 2^6 or six stops of light. When you trip the shutter, then lens automatically stops down, the mirror flips up and the shutter opens.

Preset lenses, on the other hand don't usually communicate the set aperture to the meter. Meaning the meter is only correct when the the actual aperture blades are in the position they will be when the shutter opens. The usual approach to using a that doesn't stop down automatically is to focus and frame wide open, then stop down, set your meter so with the lens stopped down, the meter reads the correct exposure. Then take the picture. The preset lens adds one other feature for convenience--once you've figured out your correct exposure, as above, you can turn the preset ring to that aperture, then open up the actual aperture so that you can do more focusing and framing, then you can easily and quickly turn the aperture ring down to what you preset it to,then trigger your shutter.

This a clear and easy to understand explanation.

Buzz-01 · Jan 27, 2022

ersambuca said:
thank you again for your comment, I think we are getting somewhere to understand what is going on. Please don't leave me now :'-)

A lot of answers have been given since my last visit, they all explained more or less what I mean. Most important is that your camera has no way of knowing what wide open is on your Biotar lens. On Canon lenses there is a lever telling the camera that for example your 24mm is f2.8 wide open, but your Biotar doesn't have such a lever. So the camera doesn't know how much stops the aperture needs to close down from wide open for correct exposure.
Does it make any sense to you?

AgX · Jan 27, 2022

ersambuca said:
Why does the camera need to know those information? If a shutter speed is set, and the ISO value so, reading the amout of light that is coming through the lens, the meter only has to tell the only missing information, which is the aperture. Where am I wrong?

Film sensitivity and exposure time given are not enough. To calculate from the incoming light the final aperture, the camera needs a reference aperture. Think of metering the same scene full open with lenses of same angle, one of F1.4 "speed" and of F3.5 speed, to give a realistic example. You get different meterings. Thus the camera must be given the information what the full open aperture is of those lenses to do the math.

Typically the lenses offer this information, either by mechanical or electrical means.

You likely got Canon FD lenses too, they are perfect for learning all this, as they got nearly all the necessary operations dedicated to a different actuator.

Consider staying with the Helios lens and instead spending time and saved money on working through some books on photographic basics. Reading thoroughly a camera manual or even better a book dedicated to that model helps too. Also do not necessarily trust the advice of sellers. I do not own a Biotar, my most advanced Zeiss lens is a Tessar. I hope this does not come over as arrogant, but instead you get my point.

Bill Burk · Jan 28, 2022

ersambuca said:
You said "the camera has no way of knowing what aperture the lens is set to, or what its widest aperture is".

I don't get this. Why does the camera need to know those information? If a shutter speed is set, and the ISO value so, reading the amout of light that is coming through the lens, the meter only has to tell the only missing information, which is the aperture. Where am I wrong?

Thank you again for your patiance!

Search on Google for Butkus AE1 then you can find a copy of the manual...

I am reading it now and understand all your problem.

Read the manual chapter "Stopped-down Metering"

Your instructions are to choose the shutter speed you want to use.
Then Push the stop-down slide towards the lens until it locks.

Then adjust the aperture until it reads at the battery check mark, which is at 5.6

No matter what the lens is really set at, that mark is the mark for correct exposure.

ersambuca · Jan 28, 2022

First I need to heartfully thank everybody. This was my first thread on this forum and I can't believe I got to receive so much help. I would offer a pint to all of ya.

I think I defenetely got to a point here.

AgX said:
Film sensitivity and exposure time given are not enough. To calculate from the incoming light the final aperture, the camera needs a reference aperture. Think of metering the same scene full open with lenses of same angle, one of F1.4 "speed" and of F3.5 speed, to give a realistic example. You get different meterings. Thus the camera must be given the information what the full open aperture is of those lenses to do the math.

I think I struggled so much so far, despite the huge amount of information I recieved, because I had a missing piece of the puzzle that apparently is given for granted by all of you.

Given a shutter speed, given an ISO and give a certain amount of light, there is not a universal, one and only f aperture needed.

Out of the example agX wrote, a bell ringed in my mind. Why the hell should I have different meterings? I would have bet good money on it. To be honest I still think that if I had two lens with same focal lenght and different maximum aperture, pointing the same scene, I would still get the same metering. But what made me understand what I am missing was trying to meter a white wall with the lens on and... without any lens at all (making sure that the frame was still only including nothing but the wall)! I thought that it doesn't matter what the current aperture is, why would the meter need a reference? there is one and only aperture needed right now (given ISO and shutter speed) to have a correct exposure. Instead the result of the metering was a difference of 4 stops.

Now I feel I got the biggest thing to understand more or less, so I guess I can little by little figure out everything else...

Like, given what we said, I guess that even the stopped-down metering would not work... Because the meter would probably still need an aperture reference, and also cause my camera works in Shutter Speed priority, and the meter only suggests f aperture, not shutter speeds...

AgX · Jan 28, 2022

ersambuca said:
Like, given what we said, I guess that even the stopped-down metering would not work... Because the meter would probably still need an aperture reference, and also cause my camera works in Shutter Speed priority, and the meter only suggests f aperture, not shutter speeds...

Your camera does NOT work in shutter speed priority, in this case.
As repeatedly stated in this thread, to use an lens that does not tell the camera its max. aperture for metering one must set the camera in stopped-down metering-mode.

In this mode the meter does not suggest an aperture, but an exposure time (shutter speed).
(With older cameras, it rather confirms a choice of shutter speeds you made. You have to turn the shutter speed dial, unless a needle is at a certain mark.)

Concerning the two lenses of same flocal length but different maximum apertures (lens speeds) used for open aperture metering at my example: at the lens with smaller max. aperture lesser light will reach the meter. The camera then will not know whether this lessening is due to the subject now having become lesser lightened or because you used for metering a lens of lesser max. aperture. So it must be told.
As said typically this is done automatically. If the set shutter speed is not apt exposure the to set the apt aperture for actual exposing, the camera must know the exact value to set at exposing, or to propose to you. It only can do so if knowing the aperture at which ope aperture metering has been done. This is its reference from which to calculate gthe aperture value for exposing.

In stopped-down metering mode the camera takes the lens output as reference for setting ot proposing a shutter speed. Here it cannot calculate any aperture values as it got no knowledge of the aperture at metering.

Similar issue as with two lenses above you got with handheld light meters, when attaching accessories as a spot attachment. The meter must be told of such to correct for any reduction of light coming in being caused by loss in the attachment itself.

cowanw · Jan 28, 2022

I am pretty sure however you can work in Aperture Priority. I do this with a Hartblei tilt-shift lens on a Contax 645. You choose the aperture and it does not have to be referenced at a particular stop. The camera measured the light that is passed and chooses the shutter speed. As you manually stop down, the camera sees less light and the shutter speed as chosen by the camera slows appropriately.

AgX · Jan 28, 2022

Yes, some cameras offer in stopped down mode an autoexposure by setting themselves an apt shutter speed.

MattKing · Jan 28, 2022

The AE-1 doesn't have an Aperture Priority mode.

ersambuca said:
Given a shutter speed, given an ISO and give a certain amount of light, there is not a universal, one and only f aperture needed.

This is actually correct, as long as you replace "needed" with "recommended".
Your problem is that you aren't understanding how the meter in your camera works.
In addition to measuring the light, it is also referencing the open aperture of the lens mounted on the camera, based on the lever/tab built into the Canon FD or FL mount lens on the camera.
However, your lens doesn't have that lever/tab, so the meter is referencing the starting point wrong.
With your lens mounted, the scale in the viewfinder is wrong - if the needle says f/8, and you set your lens to f/8 you are making a mistake.
You need to ignore that scale, other than the battery check mark opposite the f/5.6.
Then you need to use the stop down metering process, as described by Bill Burk in his post, as follows:

Bill Burk said:
Search on Google for Butkus AE1 then you can find a copy of the manual...
I am reading it now and understand all your problem.
Read the manual chapter "Stopped-down Metering"
Your instructions are to choose the shutter speed you want to use.
Then Push the stop-down slide towards the lens until it locks.
Then adjust the aperture until it reads at the battery check mark, which is at 5.6
No matter what the lens is really set at, that mark is the mark for correct exposure.

cowanw · Jan 28, 2022

MattKing said:
The AE-1 doesn't have an Aperture Priority mode.

That is important to know, eh!
Still, it might be worthwhile to look for a old film Canon that does have AE (is there one?) if only to focus and compose wide open and then stop down to shutter speed of choice.

MattKing · Jan 28, 2022

cowanw said:
a old film Canon that does have AE (is there one?)

I believe cowanw is referring to a Canon with Aperture Priority AE, not merely AE.
A Canon AV-1, perhaps.

reddesert · Jan 29, 2022

If you have an aperture priority camera, it still needs to have a stop-down metering mode in order to meter properly with a manual-aperture lens. Many cameras will do this - if the lens doesn't contact the aperture sensing linkage, the camera will meter in stop down mode (as if metering aperture = taking aperture). But it is not guaranteed. There is no substitute for reading the manual.

ersambuca · Jan 29, 2022

Ok friends. Sunny day yesterday in Berlin, I shot a whole roll in stopped down mode. so:

Canon ae1 + zeiss Biotar

1. wide open, I focus. 2. I stop down to the desired aperture. 3. I set the shutter speed till the needle points the stopped down metering mark. 4. shot.

Now, before I show you the negative of the roll I yesterday shot this way, I want to show you first the negatives of the photos I posted at the beginning of this thread, the ones that showed me the difference in contrast (or exposure...) between my Canon fd lens and the Biotar.

Here is the Canon FD in a sunny day.

Here is the same day the Biotar, shot in the wrong mode! In the left upper corner you still can see some shot from the Canon. The difference is noticable, still note sure if that is a difference of contrast or exposure.

Finally, here are the negatives of the shot taken yesterday with the Zeiss stopped down metering:

what I think is that the photos are well exposed, the negatives are not light neither are they too dark. I think they only lack contrast! May the negative be underdeveloped? I don't think so, the numbers of the film look very dark and black.

So I am happy to see that the problem of the underexposure is solved and that the stopped down metering is effective, but still, something is wrong! I can see from the scans that this lens is good performer in details, but the dynamic range of this negative is very short. I got no whites I got no blacks.

Thoughts?

Dali · Jan 29, 2022

Did you check by looking through it at full aperture if the lens is clear or hazy?

ersambuca · Jan 29, 2022

Dali said:
Did you check by looking through it at full aperture if the lens is clear or hazy?

yeah it's good and it's been cleaned it up properly during a little fungus removal manteinance

Dali · Jan 29, 2022

When you write « Biotar », you mean the Zeiss lens or the Helios 44-2?

Ziess Biotar 58mm 2.0: unbelievable lack of contrast

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Ziess Biotar 58mm 2.0: unbelievable lack of contrast

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