What negative Exposure compensation to use in country with bright light like India?

Hi,

 

Would it be a good idea to underexpose with exposure compensations for let’s say 2 stops ?

 

I am using a canon A1 film camera.

 

 

 

What I’m trying to avoid is a film that is too contrasty because of the heavy light.

 

 

 

Please feel free to advice me on the settings to use.

 

thank you.

I think this is a very bad idea.

 

First of all... bright light does not automatically mean overexposure. That is, there is no automatic need to underexpose, just because you are photographing in bright light. That is the whole point of a meter - it meters the light and sets appropriate exposure settings. Trust your meter, and stay away from the exposure compensation dial.

 

Second of all... colour negative film (which I am just assuming you will be using) is much more tolerant of overexposure than underexposure. If you underexpose your photos, you will probably be sadly disappointed with your images. If you overexpose, probably you won't even notice (because the film will handle a little overexpsure just fine).

Would it be a good idea to underexpose with exposure compensations for let’s say 2 stops ?

 

Two stops is too much, try 1/2 - 1 stop. That will give you better exposure of clouds and light colored buildings, because those will tend to over-expose with "average" metering of the whole scene. Slight under-exposure will also produce stronger and deeper colors, whereas over-exposure will make colors weaker and palish, and highlights will blowout somewhat. If you have access to a digital camera with manual mode, take a few shots both under-exposed and overexposed, then study them, you'll soon see how they look, and which you would prefer, if any.

Exposure compensation is used to allow for different types of subject, not because of the general level of brightness. For example with backlit subjects, compensation of plus one or two stops might be used, as a centre weighted meter would be fooled by the bright background resulting in the actual subject being underexposed. Or for a snowy scene, again probably plus two stops, otherwise the meter would expose the snow as mid grey, as it does not "know" that snow is supposed to be white, or nearly so.

Over the past many years I've noticed a style/trend among Japanese hobby photographers, which is to overexpose their colour photographs by a stop or two. The resulting images are high key with open shadows and washed out colours and highlights and and an appearance of low contrast. Here's a flick'r example, and another. I don't know if that is what you are after?

It is relatively simple to reproduce the look in digital, but requires a bit more attention on film If you still want to maintain details in the highlights.

Edited March 2, 2022 by NHSN

Colin O has it, I think.

 

If you are in fact using C/N film, exposure latitude is broad enough so that in printing or digital post-processing you can make quite delicate adjustments if the original exposure according to the light meter is reasonably OK, and it will normally be so.

 

Slide film is much less forgiving, but hard to find and expensive these days.

Would it be a good idea to underexpose with exposure compensations for let’s say 2 stops ?

No. The TTL exposure meter in your camera automatically adjusts for the overall brightness of the light, and exposure has no effect on contrast. Except if you underexpose so much that shadow detail is lost, and then the effect is to increase contrast.

What I’m trying to avoid is a film that is too contrasty because of the heavy light.

Then use a film with an inherently lower contrast - Portra for example - and avoid Fuji colour negative film which, IME, doesn't handle high contrast subjects at all well.

 

If shooting B&W film you can 'pull' the development time by 10 - 20% to cut contrast.

If you are using the Sunny-16 rule, then you might adjust about a half stop in tropical regions.

 

But usually Sunny-16 is only within about half a stop, anyway.

 

Tradition in temperate zones is to reduce half or one stop for snow or

bright sand on the ground, which reflects more sun.

 

For anything other than Sunny 16, especially with a meter, then you don't

adjust anything -- the meter does.

I agree with rodeo_joe and John Seaman. When using negative film, you do not want to underexpose unless you desire a build up of grain and loss of detail in the shadows. If I saw a whole lot of light colored buildings in a Canon A1 viewfinder, and I was shooting color print film (or C41 B&W), I would probably add a stop + of exposure compensation since my CW meter assumes that it is always looking at an 18% neutral gray scene. Instead of that, I might point my camera at the mostly shadow portion of the image (or darker tones) and lock exposure. Can't comment on using true B&W film since it's been way too long since I used it and developed my own negatives.

 

Portra is a good recommendation for a lower contrast color print film. Back in another era, I used Fuji NPH as my standard lower contrast color print film and like the results, but have no experience with later versions of the film.

With manual cameras, or automatic cameras in manual mode, I tend to give

a little more exposure with negative film, maybe round to the next larger

whole f/stop.

 

With automatic cameras, though, even with an exposure offset

knob, I don't tend to do that. It is a different thought process.