7e & Slides?

[dan_worland]

I hope this is not off subject too much... I bought an EOS 7e a

couple of months ago and got some slide film to test the camera's

metering system (daylight) and the 420ex flash exposure. Well long

story short: I fell in love with slides again (been 26 years since I

shot slides) and ended up buying a updated projector from e-bay. My

question is this: with negitive film when underexposed, the film

looks "thin", would I be safe to assume that with reversal film the

slide would be dark when underexposed?

 

BTW, the only bad slides I have made with this camera have been

photographer error.

[julian_love]

Thats right - underexposed slides are dark. They still usually look better than overexposed slides, which go washed-out looking pretty fast.

 

Of course, correctly exposed slides look best of all :-)

[jim_everett]

Yes. Therefore, the exposure correlation is true too. With negative film, slight overexposure may help preserve shadow detail; with reversal film, slight underexposure may help preserve highlight detail.

[scott_ferris]

Hi Dan,

 

Another interesting slide exposure related point, to project the

slide the "right" exposure is best but to get a top quality print

slight 1/3 -1/2 stop overexposure is better, that is the slide is

lighter, the print will never be as bright/light as the slide. Don't go

too far though as blown out highlights can't be saved, it's not

digital you know! :-)

 

Hope your having fun now youve reseen the light! Scott.

[franciszek_czekala]

The best reason to shoot slide nowadays is to scan them afterwards. Slides scan the best because the scanner does not have to make any guesses about the color. Overexposing a slide leads to film that is totally transparent - there are no details in it. Underexposing makes it darker - but the details are still there. Of course for the purpose of projecting slides you will have to take care to expose them very properly - they say that you should not miss the proper exposure by more then 1/2 stop. It may be difficult with auto exposure - best to use partial metering and manual settings.

[gareth_harper]

In most situations the meter in the EOS30 and 33's I have is pretty much spot on for slide exposure. It's worth bracketing +/- 2/3 rds of a stop if you really want to get it right. Just watch out for the obvious things that will throw the meter, like a big chunk of bright sky.

Slight underexposure for scanning is preferable but not always not always necessary.

I bought the 420EX flash too, and while it's ability to get the exposure spot on most of the time is amazing, it's refusal to auto-bracket or allow me some control of it's flash output really drives me nuts. Wish I had gone for the 550 EX.

[andrew_grant]

I recently tested the meter in my Elan 7 and my just acquired 10D (the reason for the test). I used a spot meter and a grey card. The 10D overexposed by up to a third of a stop and the Elan7 underexposed by up to a half stop. Unfortunately for anyone shooting slides, the Elan7's exposure is only adjustable in half stops. Fortunately for me, I only use it to shoot B&W negative film and I override the DX coded ISO so meter differences are easy to adjust for.

[gareth_harper]

Andrew,

 

You are dead right about the 1/2 stops. Ooops!

As for the old grey card, it's just another photographic myth. Sure it works, but it does not give spot on accuracy.

A calibrated ambient light meter is the only thing I know that is spot on, but then it's not perfect for all situations. Everything has it's pros and cons.

It too use the EOS30/33 meter for B&W film, though the meter is set up for slide film. All I do is adjust my developing times to suit the meter.

[andrew_grant]

Gareth,

 

For testing reflected meters such as meters in the EOS bodies, using partial metering and a hand held spot meter and a grey card in a fixed position is the only way to make a reliable comparison. It doesn't even matter if the card is really 18% grey as long as it is evenly lit.

 

I am not really interested in ambient meters since I am either metering the highlights (with the 10D) or the shadows (Elan7 with B&W negative film).

[gareth_harper]

As I understood it, the only accurate way to measure for the correct exposure is to measure the light falling on the subject, in other words ambient light measurement.

Therefore you should measure the light falling on your grey card with a recently calibrated ambient light meter and compare that with the camera's meter.

Ambient light meters can easily be used to correctly expose any part of the subject, unless that is of course you can't get the light meter to the particular part of the subject you wish expose for.