Exposure issues

rickyg

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I recently was given a Minolta Maxxum 7000 and am trying to learn to use it. I have been using the automated shutter settings, but adjusting the aperture for Depth of Field stuff. Well out of 2 rolls of film I've taken, one was completely blank, and the other had 8 pictures out of 24, with the other 16 completely blank.

I assume this is an issue of over exposure, since the negatives look clear (with two exceptions that look black which i assume were underexposed). I have READ alot about photography, but have had maybe 100 pictures of real experience with a SLR.

The 8 pictures that came out fine I assume are because I left the default camera settings for aperture and shutter speed.

If im making the aperture larger, should I be setting the camera to -.5 or -1 adjustment when using a larger aperture in order to adjust for the ammount of light (as opposed to allowing the camera's chip to do so)?

These may be basic questions, or I may have answered them myself, but I'd appreciate any input you guys could give.

Thanks,

RickyG
 
OK.. let's start with understanding the negatives. Think of it this way: Imagine the film starts out clear, and wherever light hits it, it turns black. The more light... the denser the black. So, if you film is nearly clear, that would be UNDEREXPOSURE, or not enough light. If it is completely clear, that would be NO exposure, which could be due to a couple of things. Likewise... if your neg is very dense or dark, then it's OVEREXPOSED.

When you shot these two rolls, did you use flash at all, or did you shoot with the available light?

Pete
 
What you have described may be a camera malfunction. If the film is not transported through the camera, the roll will be blank. If part of the roll is properly transported and then the transportation malfunctions, part of the roll will be blank.

Unfortunately, the Maxxum 7000 has automated motorized film transport instead of a mechanical system. That is where I run out of information. I cannot tell you how to go about checking a motorized system. Sorry.
 
Christie Photo said:
So, if you film is nearly clear, that would be UNDEREXPOSURE, or not enough light. If it is completely clear, that would be NO exposure, which could be due to a couple of things.
...

When you shot these two rolls, did you use flash at all, or did you shoot with the available light?

Pete

Hey Pete,

No I didn't use flash, most of these were taken right around noon outdoors, so I didnt think I needed to. From your explanation it sounds like I UNDERexposed most of my negatives, with a couple overexposed.

Any tips for how to avoid this in the future? my Camera has a +/- setting. I assume it's to adjust for it's default settings. To help underexposure, should I be setting this to +1 or so, and test out various settings?
What would I need to do to properly expose pictures if I switched it to completely manual and had to set the Speed and aperture myself?
Sorry for the question bombardment, thanks for any help you can give.

I am working under the assumption that the camera is not having mechanical failure for now since others have been able to use it successfully.
 
Doesn't your camera have a built in light meter of some sort? I don't know anything about Minoltas but I have a Pentax built in the 70's that has a meter, and I thought that all SLR's had some sort of light meter. Anyway, if you were shooting around noon, then you had more than adequate sunlight to expose the film. Using the Sunny 16 rule, your aperture should be somewhere in the neighborhood of f/11 or f/16 and I would think your shutter speed at noon with that aperture would be somewhere around 1/125 or 1/250 maybe? Was it anywhere in this neighborhood?

Guess I should've also asked what film speed you were using too.
 
Doesn't your camera have a built in light meter of some sort?

It does and I was going off that one since I don't yet have a good feel for cameras. I was making the aperture larger so that I'd have a smaller DoF, and the camera should have been auto adjusting. I'm gonna run some tests tomorrow fooling around with the settings, taking pictures under the same conditions and just messing with the default exposures. Hopefully this will give me more of an understanding of how my camera works. any other suggestions are still appreciated.
 
So you were using an aperture of something like what 5.6 or even larger like 2.8 or so? Then your shutter speed should have been something like what 1/2000 or so assuming something like 100 film speed? Did you have it in Av mode?

I would suggest taking a pen/paper and writing down details about each exposure. I once made a table for each roll that had exp number, aperture setting, shutter speed setting, time of day, etc. Then when you get your film back, you can see what went right and what went wrong.
 
I went back and set the camera to +1.5 stops from the default meter reading. I still got a few underexposed pictures but I did much better this time. I figure it's gonna take me at least a hundred shots to get used to correct exposure for this camera, and several hundred for understanding it in different lighting situations.

I have been writing down the exposures, but It's difficult for me to relate which exposures relate to which pictures in my pharmacy develop film. Any suggestions for keeping track?
 

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