Help: What went wrong with the photo

[ehmj]

Hi,

It's my first time using film to shoot and I'm not sure what went wrong for almost the whole roll of film turning out so grainy. There's only a couple of shots that came out clear in the entire roll, while the rest were grainy(?) like the photo below. The two photos were taken about 5-10 minutes apart.

Used iso 400 film. Just wanted to know if the photo turned out this way because it was overexposed? Thanks!

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Under-exposed.

 

[ehmj]

Under-exposed.

How do you tell whether it's under-exposed or over-exposed? Grainy photos are usually caused by under-exposed shots? The film negatives for both shots:

Trying to understand so that I don't waste future rolls of film. Thanks!

 

[dxqcanada]

Very dark negative = too much light exposure.
Very light/thin negative = too little exposure.
That one in the middle is very over-exposed.

Grainy looking prints can come from both under and over exposed when the Print Tech tries to compensate.

Something may have gone wrong with your auto-exposure system, the internal light meter, or you set shutter/aperture incorrectly.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Under-exposed.

How do you tell whether it's under-exposed or over-exposed? Grainy photos are usually caused by under-exposed shots? The film negatives for both shots:View attachment 158378

Trying to understand so that I don't waste future rolls of film. Thanks!

You can’t really without knowing what type of film (you didn’t say negs in the. op) or seeing the original negs. So I guessed. It was one or the other and over exposure usually has to be quite extreme to produce those results while under exposure is quite easy and common.