120 film and setting EV

[preston_young]

When your light meter is between readings, is it better to slightly over expose or slightly under expose?

Any guidelines you guys can share?

 

Shooting Tri-x, portra, and Ektar with a 500cm and a 60mm + 150mm set up.

 

Thanks in advance.

[sheldonnalos]

<p>Slight overexposure is generally better than slight underexposure. It will usually give you a better negative with either color neg or B&W film.</p>

[SCL]

<p>I've found that with negative film slight overexposure, positive film slight underexposure - gives most desirable results.</p>

[baisao]

<p>You can't recover information on a negative/positive that is not there, so I lean towards over exposing. I also like to use a compensating or semi-compensating developer to recover more information in my highlights. This makes a slight over exposure nothing to be concerned about.</p>

[steve_parrott]

<p>Another vote for overexposure. It is pretty much accepted that negative film has more highlight latitude than shadow. Underexpose and you may get blocked up shadows, slightly overexpose and chances are slim that you will blow out highlights. Again, that is with negative film. I also agree, best to not take a chance with slide film and underexpose rather than overexpose, as slide film has poor highlight latitude. </p>

[joseph_dickerson]

<p>You state that your light meter is between readings...why not just set your f/stop in between as well.<br>

I can't think of a single camera that won't allow you to do this. Of course, with most cameras you can't set the shutter speeds between marked settings.<br>

A lot of lenses have click stops between the marked settings that indicate half f/stops but you can even set thirds of an f/stops if you're careful.<br>

If you have a camera with built in metering you might be able to tweak the exposure compensation dial to give one third or half f/stops. I could on my Pentax 67II.<br>

JD</p>

[preston_young]

JD, you are right! It does not show it, but there are half clicks between aperture settings.

Makes the use of filters easier!

Thanks!

[preston_young]

Thank you all for your feedback. My takeaway is that my lens have a half stop in aperture, and to OVEREXPOSE slightly

rather thn to UNDEREXPOSE. Ironically, digital is the opposite... Glad I asked.

Thanks again!

[etienne_w]

<p>+1 on overexposing negatives and underexposing slides. Although on a Hasselblad you will never be further away than a quarter of a stop away from your meter reading. I don't know what the shutter speed tolerances are but they might well be over that value.<br>

Cheers,<br>

Etienne</p>

[benny_spinoza]

<p>Like everyone says, overexpose for negative film. However, for positive film, I have been told that overexposing by 1/2 stop is better when it comes to scanning the slide film. When looking at it with the naked eye, overexposing by 1/2 stop looks worse than properly exposing or slightly underexposing. Anyway, this is what I have heard, but in my film days I almost always used color negative film, so I don't have any first hand experience at scanning slides that have been slightly overexposed. Anyone care to chime in?</p>

[david_henderson]

<blockquote>

<p>Anyone care to chime in?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well maybe. The bid difference between neg and slide film as far as scanning is concerned is that with negs you expect to find detail in pretty much all of the neg, and in slides there'll be ( unless you've been really careful and maybe used grads, fill flash or whatever) a much greater chance that in the blacks or the lights- and maybe in both- there'll be detail in the scene that the slide just hasn't picked up and so cannot be revealed by scanning no matter how well its done. The art of exposure management with slides involves understanding and choosing whether you're going to have to accept lack of shadow or highlight detail, or the balance between the two.</p>

<p>Whilst I think that more people , more of the time would prefer to accept black shadows than burned out highlights, this isn't always the case, and it would be wrong (IMO at least) to try to substitute appropriate judgment for a rule of thumb. </p>