Requesting advice for "Original" Rebel exposures.

[grant_musgrave]

First the background

 

It has been a long time since I have used a film body; I currently

use a 300D and shoot exclusively with primes (20mm f2.8, 35mm f2.0

and 50mm f1.4).

 

This weekend I begin a short holiday in the South Island of New

Zealand and during this time I will spend one day skiing in

Queenstown.

 

I haven't done much skiing and I expect to fall over a lot!

Therefore I'm not willing to take my 300D or primes with me.

However, I do want to take a camera onto the slopes to shoot some

holiday snaps along the way. So I have just bought myself a

cheep "original" film Rebel and an old 35-135mm f4-5.6 USM zoom for

the slopes.

 

As I will not be able to test the Rebel before I go, this brings me

to the following questions.

 

1) What is the metering like on the Rebel? Can I get away with

using Evaluative metering and using Exposure Compensation on the

mountain? If so how much? My partner, a "non photographer", will

be taking some shots of me and I don't want to add in the extra

complication of using partial metering.

 

2) I am planning to take Kodak Max 400 and having the local photo

shop burn them to CD. I may print any good shots onto A4. Should

I go for slower film? What are your options on this film?

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[koen_hufkens]

Skiing and snow don't match all that good with a iso 400 film => way to much light for this kind of speed. Use iso 100 film, doesn't matter wich one these day's.

 

Use fill in flash if you can. Most "portrets" will come out a lot better this way, certainly if you stand on a slope with nothing but snow behind you and no spot metering (because of the person handeling the camera).

 

In b&w I tend to overexpose my pictures 1 stop so snow is white and not greyish. But I don't recommend that trick for color film, would do more harm then good.

[socke]

Do you mean T-max B&W film or T400CN B&W for C41 processing? The last one can be processed in a minilab the former is usualy processed by hand and scaning will be timeconsuming and expensive. I have most of my "clasic" B&W processed by fotoimpex and get the negs and index prints. I have my C41 B&W, mostly XP2, developed at a local minilab but don't order a CD or prints as they have to low resolution and to high JPEG compression.

 

For wintersports I'd take a slow color film, Fuji Superia extra probably, and have that developed with the cheapest possible prints and a CD.

 

As for metering, for portraits partial metering with fill flash from the integrated flash should be fine.

 

 

Volker

[awindsor]

I would use a slower film (Reala 100 for fine grain and nice saturation, maybe NPS 160 for the extra lattitude since you can adjust contrast digitally afterwards). Even dialing in +2 stops exposure compensation for shots with lots of white snow there will be plenty of light.

 

Partial metering would be better but with negative film and exposure compensation you should be fine with Evaluative. Negative films have quite a lot of lattitude. Not having used the this camera I cannot tell you much about how it meters.

 

For the shots you take yourself you could use M mode since, I believe, this shifts the camera into a centre-weighted average metering pattern. In some situations (sun behind subject and reflecting off snow) you will need more overexposure than you can dial in with exposure compensation.

 

Where are you going in the South Island other than Queenstown ? The Fox and Franz Joepsh glaciers have the most amazing rainbow hues in the crevasses. The lake at Queenstown is also wonderful. There is a steamer you can take on the lake (the "Earnshaw" IIRC).

[jbq]

Go for slow film. ISO 100 at most. Reala sounds like a good choice.

 

I've had very satisfying results with Velvia 50, around Sunny/16 (which seemed to be about 1 1/2 stop of exp comp).

[PuppyDigs]

If there is mainly snow in the image--e.g., landscape of snow field with mountain--open up 1 to 2 stops. Otherwise your image will be underexposed, resulting in gray snow.

 

I agree with the other postrs, ISO 100 is the way to go. The orginal Rebel only had 1/1000 sec top shutter speed so you may have problems on a bright day with ISO 400 flm (not to mention ISO 100 print is much sharper).

[mormegil]

I would say go with Sunny 16 too. So that's 1/ISO @ f/16 in bright sunlight. f/11 2 hours before sunset or 2 hours after, and f/8 1 hour before and after.

 

 

When you're on snow, I think you should close down 1 stop.

I wouldn't trust evaluative on snow. With evaluative, it would depend on how much of the frame the subject fills. If you do go evaluative, I guess you should EC +1 or +2 for the snow.

[mark u]

I'd add that it may be worthwhile having the flash popped up in M mode to cater with backlit situations (so long as you're not too far away - bear in mind the range is very limited with 100 ISO).