Help!!!!

Andrew,

First I am not sure why color negative film have a lot of variations but I think because it has very low contrast that is the curve has very gentle slope so the printing paper has very steep slope and a small variation in the negative becomes a larger variation in the print. Typically color negative film has the slope of about 0.6 and the printing paper about 1.8.

Your underexposed shot almost always come back to your in a washed out manner because most operators think you want a bright image. Besides I believe using the printing machine normally without any compensation would result in same. To make the print dark (low key) regardless of how the film was exposed the operator must intervene.

Default metering of scene isn't the best however it's much better than what the OP did by deliberately underexpose the film. If the OP were to set the ISO at 400 and EC at 0 in my opinion the shot of the woman in the dark would be fine and the shots of the street would still be slightly underexposed but not at bad as what the OP got. I recommend it because it's the simplest way if the OP is a beginner.

Thanks, BeBu.

I'd assumed that Scarletfield had already taken some shots with default metering, and was trying to experiment with low-key as a new thing. Maybe not.

Surely using the default metered exposure for the street would produce a less noisy version of the same street image (assuming the version we were shown was brightened at the print stage, as we surmise) - not the much darker image apparently intended. I still suspect that getting a substantially dark print out of the print shop can more or less only be achieved by telling them that was the intent. Or avoiding the print "interpretation" process with slide film or digital.

Fortunately this is a level of pain I've not suffered for a while. Of course, it's only pain if you're not doing your own printing.

Thanks, BeBu.

 

I'd assumed that Scarletfield had already taken some shots with default metering, and was trying to experiment with low-key as a new thing. Maybe not.

 

Surely using the default metered exposure for the street would produce a less noisy version of the same street image (assuming the version we were shown was brightened at the print stage, as we surmise) - not the much darker image apparently intended. I still suspect that getting a substantially dark print out of the print shop can more or less only be achieved by telling them that was the intent. Or avoiding the print "interpretation" process with slide film or digital.

 

Fortunately this is a level of pain I've not suffered for a while. Of course, it's only pain if you're not doing your own printing.

That is why I bought the Df (my first DSLR) when my wife made me get rid of the darkroom.

I admit I have not read the comments above more than to scan over them

BUT, I think I get the gist of it, to wit:

You have to learn how to walk before you run.

Learn what proper exposure is and how to get it -- then you can play around with with over/under exposure, and all of the thousands of parameters that can be varied

Or avoiding the print "interpretation" process with slide film or digital.

 

Of course, it's only pain if you're not doing your own printing.

You do "print interpretation" when you PP a RAW file. We consider PP with digital as a norm while making your own print in the darkroom is not. Yeah, when I shoot film I am going to use only slide film. I started with slide film and switch to color negative when I learned how to make my own prints. Now when I shoot film I am back to slide film.

True, BeBu. And I'm thinking in terms of the plain JPEG out of the camera; I edit any slide that I scan too, but I consider that to be as "advanced" as doing your own printing.

(To be fair, I might not be scared off doing my own printing of black and white film, if I had space and time to do it. Colour scares me, because you can mess up the tones so easily - and editing the image digitally, no matter the source, is so much easier and more flexible that I don't really feel the need.)

Andrew don't be scared of B&W processing. Many years ago my late father started me on it in a home darkroom, my mother was not happy losing the use of the cupboard! and later when I met my wife we got into B&W processing and our romance developed (pun intended).

It can be great fun and you can get a great deal of satisfaction form home processing.

Andrew. Be very scared of B&W processing. It's a slippery slope to losing all interest in the pictorial content of your photographs and getting totally hung up on chemical and mechanical processes.

I had 40 years of that cr*p when film was the only way to do it, and my first digital camera was a breath of fresh air.

The medium and process don't matter a damn as long as the final picture pleases you. Suffering for one's art is greatly overrated!

Time (and money) wasted beggaring about with film is time that could be spent taking pictures and improving your 'eye', IMO.

:-) I'll attempt to take both of those piece of advice. (Currently my house doesn't have anywhere light-tight, unless I kneel over the chemicals in the under-stairs cupboard, which doesn't seem wise. But I'll bear it in mind if I move.)

time that could be spent taking pictures and improving your 'eye'

I certainly need it. And I know RJ has seen my photos on Nikon Wednesdays!

I meant no insult to you or your pictures Andrew. In fact it was more a reflection on what I would do if I had my time over again.

My time with film has given me a perspective between it and digital however, and of the two, digital offers by far the more creative freedom.

Using film is comparable to painting with the canvas, pallette and your hands hidden in a box; a box that can't be opened until days later. Who would willingly do that?

:-) Don't worry, RJ, I was being entirely tongue in cheek. (Even if I did take it personally, it still would have been constructive, and my own opinion of what I really need to do.)

Shooting more film would do me good in that the enforced discipline would slow me down a bit, although I really need to try to develop the content of my fridge. But I'm most inclined to play with large format if I'm going to do that. Ironically, though there's nice weather today for once, I'm too busy to go out and take advantage of it.

"Shooting more film would do me good in that the enforced discipline would slow me down a bit,"

- I keep hearing this as a reason (lame excuse?) for using film. Sorry! I don't follow the logic as to why film 'slows you down'. Or even why being slowed down is a good thing.

There's such a thing as 'working the subject' - I.e. exploring angles, distances, framing, etc. and digital allows that much more freely (literally) than film. It's a bit difficult to fully concentrate on taking pictures when each click of the shutter is sounding like a cash register 'kerching' in your head and clocking another few tens of pence into the red column.

Money aside; the ability to instantly see the result of an exposure or lighting change, or that the subject blinked during the exposure, is priceless.

I won't even touch on the ecological impact of wasting silver, plastic, chemicals and packaging materials!

RJ: I agree, and I'm not going to give up shooting digital any time soon. When I've shot film, though, I've found myself more hesitant to take the shot because I know it'll waste money. That does slow me down and try to think more about positioning myself. For a landscape, that may be a good thing (although so is being able to try ten different similar variations). It's obviously useless if you're trying to capture some action, or if you need to know whether everything has worked when you capture it.

In theory, shooting film might make me less prone to taking a shot with a telegraph pole coming out of someone's head (I am useless at paying attention to the background). In reality, it would probably just mean I'd have more reason to be annoyed at taking the useless photo, and guarantee I couldn't notice and re-shoot in the field.

My argument for large format is that the time it takes me to faff with focus and setup might be enough to allow me to notice compositional snafus. It would, of course, also mean I missed the light!