Photographing Outdoor Photography help

[ansparks91]

Hey guys,

I'm pretty new to film photography and recently moved out west and haven't been pleased with my photos from the mountains and such. I have a Canon AE-1 with a 50mm f.1/8 lens. The film I've been using is Kodak UltraMax 400 iso and Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 iso. For example, here are some of my photos that I haven't been pleased with attached.

These photos are taken with the Fujifilm Superia 400 iso film and the green and dark colors just look terrible in my opinion. I've been told I should be using 100 ISO film and am wondering what your guys thoughts are or advice? What films should I be using? For the most part I'm disappointed in the Fujifilm photos below, but something like this turns out quite nicely:

The rest of these however I really don't like and seems to be all of the outdoor/mountain/water photography:

These photos are from a different day, it was overcast but also the photos came out pretty dark and was also disappointed:

Also this one came out particularly orange-y.

 

[spiralout462]

I think the exposure looks pretty good. You can always adjust accordingly if you feel that you are consistently underexposing. For example, tell the camera to expose for ISO200. I generally prefer ASA200 or slower for outdoor work but 400 isn't out of line in my opinion. I am shooting Fuji Pro 400h right now. Slower film usually means less/finer grain, but some films have very fine grain, even at ASA400. Some slide film for example.

You are doing yourself a favor by not giving up on the Ae-1 prematurely. I find analog photography extremely rewarding and liberating!

If you don't mind, I recommend Agfa Vista for color negative film {Thanks Gary}. It's similar in price to what you're shooting now, if not cheaper.

 

[Ysarex]

Your photos look very much as they should. The lighting in the scene is high contrast and the shadows are appropriately dark. A lower ISO film will have less apparent grain but will not improve the rendering of dynamic range (light to dark).

How are you getting the film scanned?

Joe

 

[ansparks91]

Joe[/QUOTE]

Your photos look very much as they should. The lighting in the scene is high contrast and the shadows are appropriately dark. A lower ISO film will have less apparent grain but will not improve the rendering of dynamic range (light to dark).

How are you getting the film scanned?

Joe

Ah, I understand. Thanks Joe! I take my photos to a local shop for developing and scanning in high-res.

 

[ansparks91]

I think the exposure looks pretty good. You can always adjust accordingly if you feel that you are consistently underexposing. For example, tell the camera to expose for ISO200. I generally prefer ASA200 or slower for outdoor work but 400 isn't out of line in my opinion. I am shooting Fuji Pro 400h right now. Slower film usually means less/finer grain, but some films have very fine grain, even at ASA400. Some slide film for example.

You are doing yourself a favor by not giving up on the Ae-1 prematurely. I find analog photography extremely rewarding and liberating!

If you don't mind, I recommend Agfa Vista for color negative film {Thanks Gary}. It's similar in price to what you're shooting now, if not cheaper.

Thanks for the tip! I'll check out that film.

 

[Ysarex]

Joe

Your photos look very much as they should. The lighting in the scene is high contrast and the shadows are appropriately dark. A lower ISO film will have less apparent grain but will not improve the rendering of dynamic range (light to dark).

How are you getting the film scanned?

Joe

Ah, I understand. Thanks Joe! I take my photos to a local shop for developing and scanning in high-res.[/QUOTE]

Does the local shop do the scanning on site or send it out? If they do it there you can request a lower contrast scan and also a higher bit depth scan if you're interested in editing your photos.

You're taking photos in available light. More often than not the lighting of the scene will not be ideal. When shooting landscapes the option to fix the lighting is off the table so your only other options are 1. wait for better lighting, 2. photograph something else that's better lit, or 3. plan to edit the photo later. If you select the option to edit the photo later you can have a higher bit depth scan made (16 bit instead of 8 bit). This will require saving the photo as a TIFF file and the photo will be a lot bigger but editing the photo will work better. (They'll charge you too ) You can then save the photo as a JPEG for sharing on the internet after editing.

Here's an example:

That's a film scan untouched. The lighting was high contrast low angle side to backlight -- the sun is low to the left. Much of the complex is in shadow and too dark while the sky is too light. (Color is also off -- scanner did that.) Wait for better light or shoot something else or:

plan to edit the photo.

So your camera and film appear to be working as they should.

Joe

 

[compur]

You might like Ektar 100

 

[timor]

Great start, if you are beginner. The colors, well, you need to find really good lab which is still developing films honestly. It is not fault of the film, but of processing.

 

[gsgary]

Try overexposing colour film and you should get better results
Agfa Vista overexposed slightly, colours are perfect

 

[gsgary]

The first shot is perfect but in the others the camera meter has been fooled when metering with your camera aim it down slightly so the sky does not fool the meter

 

[ansparks91]

The first shot is perfect but in the others the camera meter has been fooled when metering with your camera aim it down slightly so the sky does not fool the meter

Thanks Gary, when you say overexpose it slightly, what exactly do you mean? Let's say I'm using f stop 22, do you mean I should put it down to 16 instead? Or down 2 f stops?

And what do you mean about the light meter and pointing the camera down slightly? (Sorry for the questions!)

 

[spiralout462]

He means tell the camera there is slower film loaded. Example......Turn the ASA/ISO dial to 300 if you have 400 in the camera.

The meter can be fooled into thinking you are shooting a bright scene, especially at sunset. Try metering the forground elements instead of the sky. This may cause the highlights in the sky to be blown out, but the trick is to find a happy medium. This is why "bracketing" became popular when shooting film.

Edit: Gary and others are way more experienced than me, take my opinions with a grain of salt. I think I understand your concerns however.

 

[ansparks91]

He means tell the camera there is slower film loaded. Example......Turn the ASA/ISO dial to 300 if you have 400 in the camera.

The meter can be fooled into thinking you are shooting a bright scene, especially at sunset. Try metering the forground elements instead of the sky. This may cause the highlights in the sky to be blown out, but the trick is to find a happy medium. This is why "bracketing" became popular when shooting film.

Edit: Gary and others are way more experienced than me, take my opinions with a grain of salt. I think I understand your concerns however.

Ahh, okay. I understand now. Thanks for your help! Appreciate it

 

[gsgary]

The first shot is perfect but in the others the camera meter has been fooled when metering with your camera aim it down slightly so the sky does not fool the meter

Thanks Gary, when you say overexpose it slightly, what exactly do you mean? Let's say I'm using f stop 22, do you mean I should put it down to 16 instead? Or down 2 f stops?

And what do you mean about the light meter and pointing the camera down slightly? (Sorry for the questions!)

Shoot it at iso200 but developed at film speed 400 1 stop overexposed

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk

 

[Dave442]

And what do you mean about the light meter and pointing the camera down slightly? (Sorry for the questions!)

This is just a way to get a meter reading that does not take into account the brighter sky or bright snow as you had in a couple shots. It does not give you the meter reading you need to use, but rather an idea of the range in the scene so you can decide if you want to add or subtract a stop or two from the reading the meter is giving while looking at the scene. If you are not in manual mode then you can point the camera somewhere that gives the reading you want and then use AE lock to hold that setting and recompose and shoot. If in manual then just set what you want. The light meter in the AE-1 is probably center weighted.

Overall on you shots I don't think the exposures are really off, it does seem more of the processing or scanning that could be better.