daylight balanced film

[a2studio]

Hello, i have a question about using daylight balanced film. If the film stock is daylight balanced would you leave the camera selector at tungsten or switch to daylight? Does the tungsten setting mean there is no filter involved, so for a daylight rated film this is the correct setting to use? Or is the selector switch to tell the camera what type of film is being used? Thanks for any help!

[Alex]

There is no one size fits all answer to this question. When the filter switch is set to the bulb setting, the 85 filter is moved out of the way.

When the filter switch is set to sunlight, the built in 85 filter is switched INTO the path of light that is coming through the lens.

However, some film stocks such as Kodak 200 T and 500 T negative film stocks can ignore the sun filter position by the way the film cartridge has been notched.

There is a way to tell if you have a functioning filter and what is happening when you switch back and forth between the two filter settings that are found on most cameras.

Put the camera on a tripod, set the exposure meter to automatic, and then flip the filter switch back and forth slowly, see if the f-stop shfts 2/3 of one f-stop as you slowly switch back and forth.
If the exposure meter moves back and forth, then everything is working normally.

By the way, this test will not work when the camera is within one f-stop of either being fully closed, or fully open.