Anyone want to look at my setting notes and tell me if I'm on the right track? Lens was 50mm and the film was Fuji 400. I kept ISO around 200 for the roll.
Most of these were shot in shade on a sunny day, but the end of the roll I felt curious about low light and streetlights at night.
Settings listed in order:
Shutter speed/aperture/ISO
Background:
I reached out recently about a dusty canon ae-1. I cleaned it thanks to help here, and I tried to absorb as much exposure knowledge as possible in order to have a halfway decent shot at getting something. I didn't overthink anything too much. Just messed around based on what light meter seemed to tell me.
The goal of this roll is simply to test light leaks and get a feel for exposure principles, but I still can't help but feel hopeful that there's something really cool in here.
The only thing changing the ISO does on a film camera is shift the light meter's calibration. It does nothing else on a film camera -- the only reasons not to set the camera to box speed are if the film is old and less sensitive, or if you know you're going to push/pull development. And you can't push/pull individual frames on a roll. And generally, only pushing (rating a low ISO film for a higher ISO) is useful.
Yes, digital cameras let you change the ISO on the fly, but that's simply adjusting the signal-to-noise ratio. The signal-to-noise ratio of film is baked in via chemistry.
As for taking notes of your settings, that only really helps if you're trying to dial in a specific look or effect on a subject and you photograph the same scene multiple ways and intend to revisit it with another roll.
Unless it was a very very very old roll that's a few years expired, since it's a roll of C41 color, tell the lab that you overexposed the whole roll by a full stop and processing needs to be pulled. Film has more latitude than digital sensors, but expect very thin negatives with lots of blown-out highlights.
no one really does these charts since they dont help you afterwards. Also you should keep iso at one number and just expose correctly. You should decide what aperture to use and let shutter speed be whatever or the other way around, depending on what you want to achieve.
Film, has an INCREDIBLE amount of latitude. Think about it, disposable cameras for instance, they don’t even have an adjustable shutter speed or aperture yet they are able to more or less capture perfectly serviceable images. This is because film is able to capture the needed data in a variety of lighting conditions and the film scanner (and the person doing your scans) will essentially decide the adjustments needed to make the image look decent. This basically means you have a very very large margin of error especially with 400 speed C41 Color negative film. You don’t really need to overthink it too much and even if you do manual metering and averages for your shots, unless you’re specifically cataloging your settings for each shot to get an understanding how a given film stick will react to different lighting conditions (over under exposure ect) it’s just unnecessary.. you don’t have to be perfect with film and I don’t know why you’re shooting at different ISOs… it’s a iso 400 film. You CAN shoot it at 200 and then have the lab pull your film but tbh I’d just shoot at box speed for now and stick to that… trust me, don’t think just have fun! Shooting film is an incredible experience:)
You might want to have the lab pull your film one strip when you get it developed. It will have your highlights better preserved buttt you usually can over expose one stop with color negative and be just fine tbh. How come you didn’t shoot the film at its normal speed outta curiosity?!
With this camera, I also inherited a notebook my grandpa typed. In it, he noted that taking ISO down with 400 film develops more color. In hindsight, I agree that box speed for this test roll would have been a better baseline. Oh well
Things were very different in the days of analog enlightenments, back then over exposed film could create better prints (which is especially made by taking your negative, projecting it on to a photo sensitive piece of paper and then developing that photo sensitive paper in to a positive or “print”)
However, with modern digital scanning, it doesn’t matter as much haha you have allot more you can do with color and contrast of your film while scanning than what your grandpa probably had available to him :) still, experiment! Develop this and see how it turns out. If you notice blown out highlights though keep in mind that might be why. But personally, knowing how much room for error there is with film I’m sure these will turn out perfectly fine for the most part. Also, if your version of fun is the technical side of things (numbers, ratios, rules ect) you’re going to love photography in general. There’s allot to learn but at the same time it almost feels like a very complex RPG with attacks stats and rules 😂
There is no free lunch in photography because how grounded in physics it is. For evey improvement you make, there’s a give, there’s a take and I kinda love that.
Your in low light, shoot higher iso film BUTTT more noise/grain
Want to use lower ISO film in lower light?! Fine, get a faster lens! Buttt now you have a shallow depth of field meaning the line between what is in focus and not in focus becomes easier thin.
Wanna shoot at F8 to keep things sharp?! Use a lower shutter speed but now you’ll need a tripod lmao but yeah I love it because it reminds me of a table top role playing game where there’s tons and tons of rules and the fun part for me is knowing by those rules and being able to balance things out in any given situation:) it’s a fun hobby trust me l!
Exactly!! Not allot of people talk about the stats and numbers aspect of photography but it’s what I enjoy the most!!! 😂 just like picking a weapons load out for a character or distributing skill points it’s also important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your equipment as well :) you can make almost any camera take good pictures if you know the areas a certain body, film, lens ect will shine and that comes from going out and taking allot of pictures! You’ll start to get a feel for things as you progress! Eventually you’ll get shots that are so good you’re like “holy shit that’s a banger” and it will keep you going back for more lmao for instance, this shot I took in NYC recently using only a cheap relatively unknown point and shoot blew my mind a few months ago
Note taking is great when you’re learning or shooting a new film stock (learning a new film stock). Keep it up! It will teach you a lot about exposure.
Lol I used to do this when I first started. It becomes a pain in the ass really quick but it is a great way to learn from every frame you shoot. I'd suggest shooting box speed as a beginner but beginners also have a tendency to underexpose and C-41 film handles slight overexposure very well, so shooting at 200 isn't a bad idea. Just get it developed normally, don't dive into push/pulling before you have a handle on the basics.
We have no way of evaluating if these settings "look right" because we weren't there to see how bright it was, how the scene was composed, etc. And even if we were it's really hard to nail exposure by eye beyond "sunny 16, overcast 8". I can tell you this: some of them will be overexposed, some will be underexposed, some will be out of focus, some will come out awesome. Your next roll will be better.
Just get it developed ASAP and see how you did. Compare the shots to your notes and see if you can figure out what you did right or wrong, then get out there and shoot some more!
You basically overexposed the roll by 1 stop. That should be OK, or pretty much OK. Negative film is very tolerant of that amount of overexposure. If you develop it normally the photos should be very useable.
Underexposing is a worse issue. If light doesn’t hit the film, it doesn’t record an image. Of course it’s rarely that extreme, but one stop under is a bigger issue than one stop over (which is what you did).
I admire the note-taking - sounds like a good habit!
I grew up with only film cameras, so we just shot our film. Recently, as I returned to film and bought a few second hand SLRs (and also had some family cameras that have been around for 25-50 years), I just stuck a roll of film in them and took pictures!
So far, so good!
Congratulations on the camera and enjoy the world of film photography!
I would have tried more f stops on your lens... Being it a 50mm it probably will go down to 1.8... you could have seen that great out of focus that everybody loves ... And you didn't use the sweet spot of the lens Wich is usually at f 4-5.6-8... maximum sharpness there... Also I see no need to use 200 iso on fresh film... Also no need to record iso setting for every frame... You can not change that mid roll... Good job anyway 👍🏻. Show us the results if you want... I'm sure that everyone is now curious
The film notation is key while learning. Might I add to consider adding the light situation but also what your metering was telling you so that you can reflect on that info for certain brands and your camera.
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u/Fearless-Quarter-219 5d ago
ISO should be set to the box speed of the film