35mm photography problems

[Sgt.]

Canon AE 1 with Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm lens. My first set of pics were shot with Kodak Gold ISO 200 film (all I could find at Walmart locally). Outside photos in shadows came out way to dark (no flash) and all of photos have a green tint. I experimented with different aperature settings and different shutter speeds. A couple of photos came out okay.

 

[480sparky]

No photos.

 

[peterholdmann]

There are a number of reasons that the photos might be coming out underexposed. Did you set the ISO/ASA value to 200 on the camera? If not, it will over or under expose. With an old camera that you just started shooting the first non-technique thing that comes to mind is make sure the battery for the meter is still good. Meter something fairly average in bright sun, set the to ISO 200, and the aperture to f/16, and it should be showing a correct exposure around 1/200 (1/250) of a second.

What mode are you shooting in? Especially in shutter priority, it you might have it set high enough that the aperture can't open enough to properly expose the shot. If you are in manual, you need to increase the exposure for the shade. As a test, maybe set it to program for a roll, and see how those come out. If they are all (or most) exposed correctly, then it probably is a technique issue, if not, then something may be wrong with the camera.

Keep in mind that the meters in older cameras are usually center-weighted, meaning that they take an average mainly out of a circle in the middle of the frame. If you have something bright there it could cause the camera to underexpose the rest of the frame.

Since you said you were shooting outside, the green tint is probably something in printing, although it could also be expired film.

 

[cabledawg]

The AE-1 does use center weighted metering, so like Peter said, if something bright was near the center it could have thrown off the metering. The AE-1 is not a full program camera; it's shutter priority or full manual so you need to pay attention to the "meter" in the viewfinder. It'll show the f stops the camera intends to use with the shutter speed chosen on the dial. If it's underexposed, you'll see the needle bottom out and a red light will flash in the viewfinder. Overexposed and it tops out in the red area. So you want to be somewhere in the middle. There are ways to "trick" the camera into a proper exposure even if the needle says otherwise. I'll try to attach a file for the full user manual; if it doesnt show up, just go to www.butkus.org and look for the proper manual for your camera.



*edit* The PDF file is too big so go to the website above for the manual.

 

[webestang64]

all of photos have a green tint.

That could be from the scans or the printing and most color print films have a blue/green tint with underexposed film.

 

[jcdeboever]

On my Canon AE1 and pretty much most others, I meter for shadows and over expose 1 or 2 stops.

 

[Fred von den Berg]

For colour negative it often helps to overexpose deliberately where the camera allows. With your camera this is no problem. For 200 film set the camera for 160, for 400 set it up for 320. This will almost certainly help you to avoid underexposure and CN film can accommodate this level of steered overexposure without any problems occurring. In fact it will give the colors a really rich level of saturation.