Fuji Provia 100 Problems

[joshua_insel]

<p>I have been shooting with Fujichrome Provia 100 lately using a Canon AE-1. Whenever I have shot using it outdoors on a bright, sunny day, when I get my photos back, they always appear to be overexposed no matter what I do. Here are a few photos I took recently. I know I shot one of them using 1/1000 shutter speed and f/1.8. What should I do to stop this from happening?</p>

<p><img src="http://i59.tinypic.com/4zt8p3.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/30mo568.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i60.tinypic.com/2m6ketj.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i57.tinypic.com/2eeary8.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i58.tinypic.com/2rq13ww.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i60.tinypic.com/29m585d.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p> </p>

[wblynch]

Stop shooting at f/1.8 in the bright daylight.

 

Sunny 16 suggests you should be shooting those scenes at about 125th on f/11

 

A 1000th of a second is 3 stops faster so that would be f/4.

 

F/1.8 is more than 2 stops overexposed. And that's if your camera is truly on speed, which is unlikely.

 

I know the fashion these days is to shoot wide open but you can't if you want good exposures.

[joshua_insel]

<p>Well, I think I figured out my problems. The Canon AE-1's automatic exposure setting does not work well on very sunny days, and since I am relatively new to film photography, I somehow managed to mix up how f-stops work. I thought the lowest f-stop meant the smallest aperture. I feel really stupid now.</p>

[wblynch]

It's all part of learning and having fun. Don't feel stupid. We all have to go through it.

 

But you might want to try some cheap color print film for experimenting with.

 

Keep in mind that these cameras are old now and don't always work like they are supposed to. But they are great fun

and can make beautiful photos.

[donbright]

<p>The title of your thread should be changed also, as Fuji Provia 100 is not the problem.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>If the cameras meter doesn't work well on sunny days its likely that it isn't working well on any days, and needs to be fixed or ignored and another means of measuring light put in place.</p>

<ul>

<li>A hand-held meter?</li>

<li>Sunny 16/the instructions in the film packs?</li>

<li>Another camera's meter?</li>

</ul>

<p>Whatever, slide film is much more critical of exposure error than colour print films, or b&w film , or a dslr. In short unless you are absolutely confident in the accuracy of your exposure process you're unlikely to generate consistently good exposures with slide film which demands not only accuracy , but a means to control contrast when the range of contrast in the scene exceeds the ability of the film to capture it well. Trying to get good results from slide film without the ability to measure and control exposure well is going to be very difficult for you.</p>

<p>It is the case also that f stops work the same way for digital photography as for film.</p>

 

[Colin O]

This might be adding more possibilities for confusion and/or exposure error, but if you want to use wide apertures in order to minimise depth of field, you could also experiment with neutral density filters.

[dave_redmann]

<p>This may be sacrilege to say here, but for teaching beginners about exposure, the instant feedback of digital is very useful.</p>

<p><em>The Canon AE-1's automatic exposure setting does not work well on very sunny days.</em><br>

That was not my experience using one years ago. Of course, equipment does fail, especially as it gets old.</p>

<p><em>I know I shot one of them using 1/1000 shutter speed and f/1.8.</em><br>

How do you know? If you set the camera to 1/1000 s and f/1.8, then you weren't using the auto-exposure system, you set the exposure manually. To use auto-exposure, you set the lens so that the aperture says A, and you set the shutter speed, and the cameras picks the aperture for you. Yes, the aperture it picks is sort-of shown by the needle in the finder, but IIRC (it's been years) the wider apertures are not marked precisely.</p>

<p><em>Fujichrome Provia 100 ... a Canon AE-1 ... outdoors on a bright, sunny day ...</em><br>

As others have said to some degree, with Provia 100F outdoors on a sunny day, if you set the shutter speed to 1/1000 s, the appropriate aperture will be somewhere between about f/2.5 (if the subject is heavily backlit) and f/5 (if the sun is directly behind the camera); f/1.8 would be a substantial to major over-exposure unless the subject is very shaded. Provia 100F does not handle over-exposure well.</p>

 

[joshua_insel]

<p>The meter on the camera appears to be working fine. It registered as very bright when I took these photos. I took most of these using automatic exposure, and I adjusted the shutter speed until the meter was below the red line, which meant doing either 1/500 or 1/1000. </p>

[martin_jones1]

<p>If you are confident that you are using the camera correctly, do you have another camera you can compare meter readings with. In any event a sunny day with the meter set to ISO 100 should yield exposures of 1/500 sec at between f5.6 and f8. In your shot of the cherry blossom I would even expect the meter to indicate f11 at 1/500 as the large mass of white flowers would fool the meter into underexposing. Similar to shooting snow in bright light. In these conditions take your meter reading from the grass in the foreground as this represents a good mid-tone for metering purposes.</p>

<p>I have an AE-1 along with other FD bodies and just recently it is indicating overexposure of around two stops under most conditions. I will have to do a clip test with this camera against one of the FD bodies I am confident are exposing correctly and check the results. (2 stops over exposure on B and W film is fairly obvious).</p>

<p>At the end of the day, if your camera is faulty the repair cost may not be worthwhile. If I find that my AE-1 is consistently overexposing I'll just compensate with the film speed on the meter. I.e. If I am 2 stops over then set the meter to ISO 400 for Provia 100F.</p>

[joshua_insel]

Is the light meter reading supposed to change with the ISO setting? It doesn't on my camera. When I use 400 ISO film, I

always try to get it around the center or a quarter of the way above, and my pictures always come out fine that way. The

strange thing is that once I used Fuji Velvia once, and those came out fine, but I always have problems with Fuji Provia. I

even bought a roll of Provia 400 once, and I got overexposed pictures with that. It was a bright, sunny day, and I used

automatic exposure and shutter speeds of 1/250 and 1/500.

[gerry b.]

<p>Is it just me, or do these positives look like they were processed improperly? I To me these do not look like overexposed slides at all, they look like someone souped them in the wrong developer.</p>

[gerry b.]

<p>Or they were scanned with wrong media settings.</p>

[joshua_insel]

<p>No, I have other pictures on the same roll that I took when it wasn't as bright out, and they came out fine. However, I took these photos several months before I had the roll developed. Could that have to do with anything?</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I doubt the delay in finishing the roll was a factor. I've delayed as long as a year in finishing a roll of Provia 100F, with the loaded camera kept in a drawer at room temperature around 75F. There were no visible differences between the first and final exposures on the same roll, despite being many months apart.</p>

<p>The main problem was overexposure, probably two or three stops overexposure as Bill Lynch estimated - judging from the hard shadows and guesstimating the lighting was around EV 15. The appropriate exposure settings would have been 1/1000th @ f/4-f/5.6.</p>

<p>Also, faster shutter speeds on some cameras, particularly older focal plane shutter cameras, weren't always accurate. The real shutter speed for a nominal 1/1000th might have been closer to 1/700th, and rarely faster than the nominal speed. So when shooting slide film in daylight it's best to run a few test frames to determine whether it's appropriate to stop the lens down a bit to compensate for shutter speed error. That little bit of error would usually go unnoticed on color negative film prints.</p>

<p>A little overexposure can sometimes have a pleasant pastel effect with some slide films in some lighting conditions, although generally any true highlights will be blown. But it's a matter of taste. I liked to overexpose Kodachrome up to a full stop for beach photos under bright hazy daylight.</p>

<p>By the way, if you do prefer to use a fast lens wide open be sure to use a good lens shade, especially if you also use filters. Fast lenses are prone to veiling flare which can reduce contrast and saturation. A lens hood makes a big difference with most lenses, although some 50mm f/1.8 lenses have deeply recessed front elements that are well protected by the lens barrel itself.</p>

[gerry b.]

<p>Hmm, on my monitor the blown highlights are grey, not white and they are not particularly light in tone. And there are a lot of colors that are not washed out, they are actually pretty intense, especially the greens. I've shot thousands of Provia slides, with bracketing and sometimes with some significant overexposure, and I've never seen a look quite like this before.</p>

[Colin O]

I'm not familiar with the Canon AE-1, but I downloaded the manual and it says that setting the ASA (ISO) is "absolutely necessary for getting correct exposure", so the needle in the viewfinder must take the ASA (ISO) setting into account

 

Really - reversal film is expensive enough - instead of wasting your money, you need to ensure you know how metering/exposure control is supposed to work with the camera (that is, the combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO), and also determine if your meter/shutter are not operating as intended. As Lex says, the shutter may well not be operating at the speed marked on the dial. I think it would definitely be worth using another method of metering to compare with the camera's internal meter.

[joshua_insel]

If it is an extremely bright day out, shouldn't I need an aperture between f/16 and f/22? On the light meter, that's what the needle points

at. When I have it set to a shutter speed higher than 1/500, the meter is above the red line.

[dave_redmann]

<p><em>Is the light meter reading supposed to change with the ISO setting? It doesn't on my camera.</em><br /> Do you understand that on the AE-1, you have to manually set the camera to the film speed? You manually set it to ISO 100 or ISO 400 or whatever is appropriate for the film. Yes, there are some cameras that automatically detect the film's speed based on a pattern on the film canister, but the AE-1 is not one of them.</p>

<p>If you are manually setting the film speed on the camera and its meter nevertheless reads the same for ISO 100 and ISO 400, then there is something wrong with the camera.</p>

<p><em>If it is an extremely bright day out, shouldn't I need an aperture between f/16 and f/22? On the light meter, that's what the needle points at.</em><br /> Not necessarily. Normally, there are three things that work together to give the correct (or incorrect) exposure: (1) the film speed (ISO 100, ISO 400, etc.), (2) the aperture (f/2, f/5.6, f/16, etc.), and (3) the shutter speed (1/8 s, 1/60 s, 1/500 s, etc.). If you change one, then to keep the same exposure you have to change another. So, for example, on a very bright, sunny day, with the sun at your back, and Provia 100F in the camera, you can use with equal correctness 1/60 s and f/20, or 1/125 s and f/14, or 1/250 s and f/10, or 1/500 s and f/7.1, or 1/1000 s and f/5.</p>

[leo_tam1]

<p>Okay, late to the party, but I hope this helps<br>

Set the ISO of your film on the camera; let's assume it's ISO100 - take it outside on a bright sunny day- set shutter speed to 1/125- leave lens on A - it should state a F stop of 16 or so - if yes- meter is working<br>

Raise the shutter speed, and your lens will open up (lower F number)<br>

Lower the shutter speed, and your lens will stop down until it hits it's minimum </p>