exposer question

i recently started with color slide films.somebody told me that the

exposer should be one stop down when using slide films. is it right?

if so should i adjust the film speed dial in my OM10 Camera when i am

in auto mode?

I don't usually shoot slides, but last time I did so, I shot most slides outside. Because the sky was in many of the slides, the OM10's meter tended to underexpose without special adjustments. The slides were acceptable but I would still have liked a bit more exposure. So I would certainly not underexpose a stop by default in those circumstances.

Hi Jaydip,

 

Sometimes a little underexposure seems to give the effect of increased color saturation and contrast. But, although I am new to slides myself, I think a whole stop underexposure is too much. I would say shoot a roll of whatever slide film you are using bracketing every shot by half a stop. Compare the results side by side on a light table. If you think the 1/2 stop underexposed slide consistently comes out better, then you can dial in a new ISO value to compensate.

 

I've read that some people shoot Fuji Velvia at EI 40 - which is OVERexposure by about half a stop, but others shoot it at the recommended EI 50 and get fine results. Its a question of calibrating your particular meter and personal preference. You would be better off not following any advice blindly.

 

-A

If you underexpose, you'll get underexposed slides. Shoot normally.

if you're projecting the slides, slight underexposure is OK because the projector punches through deep shadows. People usually reccomend about a third stop. If scanning, expose normally-- the scanner's dmax will be too low to get shadow detail.

Traditional thinking was to underexpose slide film by 1/3 stop, which tended to increase the color saturation. Much more and you just get dark slides.

 

As others have suggested, IMO you should just go out and shoot several rolls of slide film in different lighting situations to begin to get a feel for what happens.

 

In general, I advocate every aspiring photographer starting with slide film as a learning experience. Why? If you screw-up, the slide will show your mistakes right in your face. There's no saving a slide that's way over or under-exposed, the detail is lost very quickly if you get outside of the film's dynamic range. It's much like the highlights on a digital SLR; if you blow the highlights, they're never coming back. The shadows are savable, to some extent. But if you get the exposure right for a slide, it's a thing of beauty.

I used to shoot a lot of slide film, but not so much any more. My hunch is that 1 full stop of under exposure would be too much. That being said, some under exposure USUALLY results in a better looking projection. I would think 1/2 stop max would get you in the ball park. Like others have said, take a few rolls out for a test drive as YMMV.

No, expose as the meter indicates at the film's rated speed.

 

Underexposure for slides went out some time in the early-to-mid 1970s.Up to that time, Ektachrome was widely felt to be wrongly speed-rated by Kodak by 1/3 stop. Someone who has used Ektachrome 64 since then (not me!) might like to comment on whether this is still so, but EPN, E100G etc. should all be shot at the rated speed. AFAIK no-one ever thought Fuji films should be underexposed.

I'm with the "expose correctly" crowd. Underexposed slides are just that - dark.

 

The trick is to avoid following crowd mentality, such as arbitrarily rating Velvia 50 at 40 just because some magazine writer does. Maybe it works for him because of his personal metering quirks and biases. We all have 'em.

 

The general rule of thumb with slides is to expose for highlights to avoid featureless whites. Sometimes this means sacrificing shadow areas. That's a choice we make at the time we shoot.

 

But practice with your camera and one type of slide film - several rolls - to see what works for you. Fuji Sensia 100 is good for starters. It's affordable and forgiving of exposure errors, as far as slide films go. Not too contrasty, not too saturated and most folks who've tried it like it.

You have check it with your equipment and see how you like it. If you like underexposed slides or your meter overexpose just do what is best for you. There is no receipe for good photographs.

I have shot colour slide and black/white almost exclusively the past 25 years and, believe me, slide film is most unforgiving. Negative films tend to have very dynamic exposure ranges (+/- 7 stops), slide film on the other hand has a range of approx +/- 2 stops (and even that might be generous). Remember a 100ASA/ISO slide film is a just that, a 100 slide film. What you have to learn to do better is second guess your camera's exposure meter. An (averaging) camera meter can be biased by lots of dark (or light) surfaces in a shot relative to a mid range subject and will over (under)expose.

 

Initially bracket the shot (i.e. as suggested by the meter, then 1 stop over, 1 stop under). You can then compare the 3 (or 5...) slides to get a handle on the tricks of exposure relative to the scenes taken.

 

It is really the best way to learn the ins and outs of exposure.

 

Then you can move on the Zone system!

As for the "personal metering quirks and biases," yeah, we definitely have them. Now that I've started contact printing and taking a more careful look at my negatives, I can see that I have a clear and definite tendency to either under-expose or under-develop (I'm not sure which--but I'm using Fuji's recommended times for both N and N+1 processing). The vast majority of my negs are too thin.

 

My approach to learning correct exposure, BTW, is not to use slides, but to do contact prints. Here's my theory: print on to RC2 paper and expose so that you can just barely see the sprocket holes, if at all. This will make sure that the base fog level of the film is about as dark as the paper will go. If you're not getting clear, bright highlights in the print, you then know you're not using the dynamic range of the film.

 

Of course, a problem with this approach may be that the dynamic range of the paper is much less than that of the negative. I went nuts for a while before I figured that out, wondering why shadow detail in the negative was disappearing when I managed to get highlight detail, and vice versa. That's what convinced me that printing is important, and exposing the negative is only half the job.

Try doubling your ASA speed and telling your lab to push process accordingly. I find this works very well with Kodak pro Ektachrome 100 film. You get more speed leaway, and better saturation.

 

Cheers,

Ray Hull