verticle shot with F5

I got a F5 for the Chritmas. I took some pictures using aperture priority mode with SB28 flash inside the house, in both verticle and horizontal positions. The pictures came out very nice. But I noticed that about 50% of vericle pictures had silghtly over or underexposure, but 100% of the horizontal picture came out perfectly exposed. I am not a professional at all (I take max. 20 rolles of pictures per year and I use Walgreen drug store for development). Are those slight aberent exposure variation due to the camera design or just my imagination or development lab was not doing a good job. Thanks.

If you are shooting print film, you can't tell anything about moderate

exposure variations from looking at the prints.

Boy, oh boy, I wish I knew someone that would give me an F5 for

Christmas. :-)

 

<p>

 

I'm curious though, you say "I take max. 20 rolles of pictures per

year and I use Walgreen drug store for development." An F5 might be

a bit of overkill for you, don't you think?

First, please allow me to make an apology that I mis-spelled

Christmas. I am sorry for that.

 

<p>

 

Henry, I should have said that 20 rolls/year in the past tense. I

promised that I will take more (and good ones I hope) pictures from

now on.

 

<p>

 

Danny, I noticed the exposure variation based on the following. I took

one roll of 36 frames of Fuji Superia ISO400 in front of fire place

with kids laghing and jumping. The red bricks of fireplace in

horizontal pictures came out with very similar color and tone as the

real bricks, but they showed differently in the vertical ones, some

times is darker, some times is lighter, and the kid's face color and

tone also changed accordingly. I also suspected that the printing

machine at Walgreen over/under exposed, but all of the horizontal one

came out perfectly, so that I abandoned my suspicion. In Nikon's

manual/literature, it was said that F5 has 30,000 picture stored as

database for exposure determination. That makes me think that if the

majority of database pictures are horizontal, camera might be

confused. Please comment what is the best way to evaluate the

exposure. I don't know how to tell the technicians to control their

machine. Thanks.

This is the same Walgreen's that is used by thousands of P&S shooters

right? A $2000 camera body and $1.98 generic drug store

photofinishing.

What's wrong

with this picture? I just hope you didn't get a Sigma 28-200 zoom

to

go with the

F5!

Acutaly it came with a very heavy 80-200mm ED nikon lens. It is so

heavy together with camera, flash (SB28) and all those batteries that

I don't think my tripot (came free with Sony 8 mm video camera as

promotional package) is suitable for this camera. So, please help,

which tripot should I use and which photofinishing service (in Boston

area)? Thanks.

Have the "technicians" print the vertical ones so they match the

horizontal ones. Don't try to evaluate a $2000 camera with $2

processing. If you want to experiment, set the camera to center-

weighted or spot-metering and place the meter over an area of the

scene with a mid-tone reflectance. Take verticals and horizontals, but

make sure the meter stays on the same part of the subject. Repeat each

shot with Matrix and have them printed.

<i>For anyone wondering why I am talking

about tripods, the person who asked the

question asked about them later in the

thread. When I post it ends up at the top,

and can be confusing at times.</i>

<p>

If you are planning to do much outdoor

shooting the Bogen/Manfrotto 3221 (I like

black, 3021 if you like silver) or similar

like the 3221 wilderness are probably the

best buy on the tripod market. If you are

indoors only the 3011/3211 should be fine

since you probably won't need the variable

leg angles. Of course if money is no object

there is the Gitzo carbon fiber series.

 

<p>

 

The list of heads for these goes on forever,

and first you have to decide between panhead

or ballhead. Then you have to decide

between inexpensive but less precise (I just

ordered a Bogen 3055 ballhead - $41) or

expensive precision equipment like the

ArcaSwiss ballheads. They all come with

different types of quick release systems

too. The two most popular are the expensive

and precise Arcaswiss (surprise) style and

the cheap and large Bogen hex style. There

are too many others to list. Unfortunately

Bogen has several different styles of QR

plates, but the most popular heads like the

3047 pan/tilt and the 3055 ball use the hex

plates.

Shoot a roll of slide film and use that for your comparisons. I'd

suggest using a 100 speed film of the Kodak (but not Kodachrome) or

Fuji variety.<p>

<i>Note to others reading this I have nothing against Kodachrome I use

it often and love the results. I just don't think that it's worth

the processing hassles for "quick and dirty" testing.</i>

It's possible that the different flash placement relative to the lens

will affect your results. I am assuming that you are mounting the

SB28 on the F5's hot shoe. If this is so, then the flash is no

longer above the lens as in the horizontal shots, but rather placed

lower and to one side.

 

<p>

 

This will create a dark shadow to one side of the subject. If you

are consistently holding the camera body with the shutter release at

the top (flash at left), the shadow will fall to the right side of

the picture - if you ever hold the camera with the shutter release at

the bottom (flash at right), the shadow will fall to the left side of

the picture.

 

<p>

 

In addition, the vertical framing can change the exposure (from what

it would have been in a horizontal frame) as different areas of the

subject/background enter or leave the frame.

 

<p>

 

I achieve highly consistent horizontal and vertical exposures (and

improve the lighting - especially on verticals) by using a

Stroboframe Pro RL flash bracket which allows the photographer to

flip the camera for vertical pictures, while leaving the flash placed

above the lens - I usually adjust the bracket so that the flash is

approximately 12 inches above the lens. In addition to improved and

consistent lighting, this eliminates any chance of "red-eye".

 

<p>

 

This technique does require the use of Nikon's SC17 cord which

connects the F5's hot shoe with the flash contacts. Also recommended

are Stroboframe's anti-twist plates so the SC17 cord and the F5 are

pin registered to the bracket.

 

<p>

 

Hope this helps!

Wow, Brian, you must be a veteran F5 pro. You really brought out the

key point here (It's like I had showed you my pictures). Actually one

more thing I was not satisfied with the vertical shots is that quite

few of them had prominent shadows on the left side of the person

(right side in the pictures). The few vertical pictures which did not

had shadow were the ones where shadow was falling on the fireplace's

black iron mental. I remembered that I turned the camera via the lens

tripod ring so the two white dots on lens lined up (I was so proud to

figure out this first) and was shooting with camera's vertical trigger

facing upward so the flash was attached on camera's left side . Also

the shadow in horizontal pictures were much less than the verticals,

they were not obvious at all unless I examine them carefully. I guess

that's how the camera's computer was got fooled. Many thanks to you

all taking time answering my question. It does not sound so stupid

now. :-).

The meter that's being fooled is not the one in your camera, it's the

one in the print machine. It is an averaging type that is heavily

influenced by large dark or light areas.