Film beginner's questions

gsgary, we are talking about black and white negatives. or pehapes it is your use of dark and bright. If the negatives are dense and the prints are too bright they are overexposed. If the negative is thin the prints will be dark, which is underexposed.

yes, it is wonderful to learn how to read the negative, but one starts out they may be clueless about what is what. It would be helpful to find someone in your area that may be able to mentor you and show you a set of negatives that are normal, over/under exposed.
 
gsgary, we are talking about black and white negatives. or pehapes it is your use of dark and bright. If the negatives are dense and the prints are too bright they are overexposed. If the negative is thin the prints will be dark, which is underexposed.

yes, it is wonderful to learn how to read the negative, but one starts out they may be clueless about what is what. It would be helpful to find someone in your area that may be able to mentor you and show you a set of negatives that are normal, over/under exposed.

That's what i meant dark negs will let less light through, overexposed neg
 
Reading through this thread, I see that ryunin is metering the scene AS IF he were using color transparency film or digital capture--by metering the brightest sky value, locking that value in, and the re-composing and photographing. That is not a the way to meter and expose a scene when one is shooting B&W negative film; that is a method called "pegging the highlights", and is the way one exposes narrow-latitude transparency film.

As far as using the "Matrix" metering of a camera, to me "Matrix" means,specifically NIKON's own color-evaluative light metering, and no other brand. But it is also a huge mistake to use a multi-point, whole-frame light metering pattern as the basis for reflected light readings done using a camera as the "light meter". Nikon's Matrix metering is RGB color-aware, as well as distance aware, and it uses distance, focus distance, and RGB values, as well as simple reflectance values, to discern the actual color of subjects, and as such it is a "smart" metering system, and not a "dumb" metering system which measures ONLY reflectance values.

If you want to use a camera as a reflected light meter, you need to use it in something other than "Matrix" if it's a Nikon camera, and some other mode than evaluative, or multi-area, or honeycomb metering if it is another brand. The best choice would be a very narrow-angle metering pattern like spot metering, or selective metering. A reaal, honest to goodness reflected light meter with an analog scale would be a wonderful tool for a beginner--an old-styler meter like a Weston Master IV would make the Zone System come to life, especially if you happened to have the original instruction book for it. Failing that, a newer meter like a Gossen Luna-Pro, with the analog scales, would really,really be helpful for a beginner to understand how to "See" the entire range of exposures, and see the way to "shift" light readings from one actual point to the desired point on the negative's scale.

One of the biggest problems is lack of understanding, and if the OP is measuring a bright highlight value and failing to "place" that at the right zone, or if the OP happens to read a deep shadow area and fails to place that at a low zone, and instead shoots at the suggested reading, it's possible he has terribly underexposed and then over-exposed shots, alternating throughout the rolls he's shooting.
 
gsgary, we are talking about black and white negatives. or pehapes it is your use of dark and bright. If the negatives are dense and the prints are too bright they are overexposed. If the negative is thin the prints will be dark, which is underexposed.

yes, it is wonderful to learn how to read the negative, but one starts out they may be clueless about what is what. It would be helpful to find someone in your area that may be able to mentor you and show you a set of negatives that are normal, over/under exposed.

i agree that i am asking too many questions now, i am meeting a guy tomorrow who is experienced in darkroom, printing and exposure and is willing to help me, i will bring a bunch of my negatives and we will have a look at them and he will give me some basic advice how to start my first shooting negatives that i will later develop in my own "darkroom", probably a bathroom
 
good that you have found someone to sit down with and review the negatives, etc.


you haven't been asking too many questions, that is how we learn.
 
Reading through this thread, I see that ryunin is metering the scene AS IF he were using color transparency film or digital capture--by metering the brightest sky value, locking that value in, and the re-composing and photographing. That is not a the way to meter and expose a scene when one is shooting B&W negative film; that is a method called "pegging the highlights", and is the way one exposes narrow-latitude transparency film.

As far as using the "Matrix" metering of a camera, to me "Matrix" means,specifically NIKON's own color-evaluative light metering, and no other brand. But it is also a huge mistake to use a multi-point, whole-frame light metering pattern as the basis for reflected light readings done using a camera as the "light meter". Nikon's Matrix metering is RGB color-aware, as well as distance aware, and it uses distance, focus distance, and RGB values, as well as simple reflectance values, to discern the actual color of subjects, and as such it is a "smart" metering system, and not a "dumb" metering system which measures ONLY reflectance values.

If you want to use a camera as a reflected light meter, you need to use it in something other than "Matrix" if it's a Nikon camera, and some other mode than evaluative, or multi-area, or honeycomb metering if it is another brand. The best choice would be a very narrow-angle metering pattern like spot metering, or selective metering. A reaal, honest to goodness reflected light meter with an analog scale would be a wonderful tool for a beginner--an old-styler meter like a Weston Master IV would make the Zone System come to life, especially if you happened to have the original instruction book for it. Failing that, a newer meter like a Gossen Luna-Pro, with the analog scales, would really,really be helpful for a beginner to understand how to "See" the entire range of exposures, and see the way to "shift" light readings from one actual point to the desired point on the negative's scale.

One of the biggest problems is lack of understanding, and if the OP is measuring a bright highlight value and failing to "place" that at the right zone, or if the OP happens to read a deep shadow area and fails to place that at a low zone, and instead shoots at the suggested reading, it's possible he has terribly underexposed and then over-exposed shots, alternating throughout the rolls he's shooting.

yes, i was clueless, by using spot metering i thought i was "making Sure" the picture would not be overexposed where i desperately needed texture (face and hands) but as you suggest i was going up and down and only outdoors had some consistent results / only yesterday i realized with my digital camera that spot metering a white wall makes the wall middle gray, anyway when using matrix for all kinds of shots within my apartment and with both dynamic and low contrast scenes, the matrix came up with excellent solution, without over or underexposing, but then of course this doesnt' work if we want to have much more details in dark areas and want to sacrifice lights and windows

i think an analog hand held light meter sounds like what most experienced photographers advice - i am shopping tomorrow for films, developing stuff and will check the meters in the shop
 
I am so excited. I have just met the guy from a Czech photo forum who saw some of my negatives and shocked me when he pointed to some parts that I'd mistakenly ruined as I'd forgotten to change the shutter speed - it was left at 1/90s manual, for no batteries situation with FE . I thought those were ruined and those where the images I wanted to retake after I checked the setting and metered according to the sky, of course much shorter time. He said those "ruined" ones were good and those where I stuck to metering according to the sky were underexposed losing details in shadows. I couldn't believe it, but trusted him. Then he taught me how to basically meter in the cafe we were sitting. I went home, tried to scan the "ruined" part of the negative and thought for sure it wouldn't be any good, that sure it would be overexposed. Although after scanning the images did look awfully bright, the histogram of the scanning software didn't show any overexposure. I opened the scanned images in the photoshop, again, no problem with overexposure, so I twisted the curves - decreased the midtone brightness, decreased contrast and I got a beautifully detailed, neutrally toned image! Incredible, next time I will make sure I don't underexpose and really meter according to the shades and don't worry about highlights. That will be the first step, I guess. I was sooo wrong! I have bought all the chemicals today and the guy's going to help me develop my first film - unfortunately underexposed as was my bad habit until tonight.

At last I am beginning to see the direction of my future learning. And from now on, photography will be even more exciting to me. Thanks for all the tips, it is so difficult to explain things when people don't meet in real life. I will go through this thread again and everything will make more sense now.
 

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