Just got my second roll of K40 back!

[technicolour]

Hi,

I just got my second roll of K40 back, and its very pleasing. I took the last 10ft in very low light at a freinds party and the film has perfromed admirably!

The first bit is a bit overexposed in places (the camera meter is totally auto) which im a little dissapointed about, it did this in my first roll too but i reckon a 81 filter or something should knock down a few stops and sort that out.

Anyway, thats made my dad! [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/film.gif[/img]

[Alex]

or day?

If you have a meter "lock" on your camera. Sometimes you can find a spot in the room to set your exposure to, then "lock" the exposure at that reading.

Does you camera tell you what the f-stop is?

[technicolour]

no there are no exposure controls at all, its a very simple camera. All it tells you is if theres enough light or if there isnt.

I was thinking about getting a ND filter, or warming filter for use in daylight?

[Alex]

Technicolour, Please share the name of the camera.

If the light meter is not located through the lens, but actually through a viewfinder, (some are made that way, but not many) you could gain parital control of the auto metering in a myriad of ways.

If the auto exposure meter is activated by light coming through the lens, then any filter you put on the camera will be automatically compensated for, and would probably negate the effect you want.

The one exception would be if you are shooting in such bright lighting conditions that the camera cannot iris down far enough to properly adjust the picture.

[technicolour]

The camera is a Chinon 213 XL

its a very simple camera, and i think its TTL metering as it has no lightmeter or anything around the lens.

is there not any way i can control overexposure?

[Alex]

The camera reads the "notches" on the film and decides whether the ASA is 40 or 160.

If you study the way Ektachrome 125 is "notched", and make that same notch on the K-40, you will achieve a f-stop underexposure from where you are now.

The problem may be that that is too much of a shift.

I have never tested the notches to see if the camera can be fooled into thinking the film is ASA 80, rather than 40 or 160.

That would be the best workaround of all.

[Alex]

I just checked my camera. It looks like there are two "sensors" in the camera that depress independently from each other, so you probably cannot fool the camera into thinking the ASA of the film is 80 ASA.

[technicolour]

Alex,

If the 85B filter drops the ASA of K40 to 25 ASA the perhaps adding another filter to that may drop it down a little more. I only get overexposure in normal dalight where whites and shiny surfaces are totally obliterated, you can only see subjects within about 20ft of the camera (in this case i have a lot of people dancing right in front of me) but i tried filmming someone standing about 30 foot or so away and they appeared very out of focus and there was very little detail.

If the camera thinks the ASA is larger, will it let in less light?

[technicolour]

I see what you mean now

The people close up came out fine, but the camera has a fixed focus lens so I cant alter the focussing at all. The main problem I have it the camera overexposes badly in bright conditions. Say for instance your filming a group of people their faces will come out far too bright, and the sky is totally white as well. Because of this the light seems to diffuse around sharp edges making it appear out of focus. The camera however seems to work far better in slightly low light, where there is no bright relflections or anything.

Please can you explain what backfocus is?

Thanks

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by technicolour:
I see what you mean now

The main problem I have is the camera overexposes badly in bright conditions. Say for instance your filming a group of people their faces will come out far too bright, and the sky is totally white as well. Because of this the light seems to diffuse around sharp edges making it appear out of focus. The camera however seems to work far better in slightly low light, where there is no bright relflections or anything.

Thanks</font></font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

If your camera is shooting 18 fps, and has a wide shutter of 220 degrees, it's possible that your camera is overexposing AND your f-stop is f-16 or higher (f-22).
This too can cause fuzzyness, especially if you are shooting outdoors. In this instance, a neutral density filter would help bring your f-stop into a more friendly f-stop range. Instead of having the f-stop be around f-16 or f-22, (which is not optimal for most if not all Super-8 lenses) the correct Neutral Density filter will force your camera's exposure meter to reset the f-stop to a much more favorable reading such as f-4, f-5.6, f-8.0, depending on which neutral density filter you buy.

I believe the neutral density filter works in factors of 3.

An ND-3 absorbs one f-stop's worth of light, an ND-6 absorbs 2 f-stop's worth of light...an ND-9 absorbs 3 f-stops of light. (I'm not entirely sure about this)

Very rarely would you use an ND filter for indoors. However, if the overexposure is caused because your camera meter perhaps is not working properly, and it is "fixed" at a lower f-stop (such as f-2.8 or even lower) then putting a neutral density filter on the camera will cut down the amount of light reaching the film plane, thus making the exposure on an improperly functioning meter closer to the correct f-stop, but only because your autoeverything camera's auto exposure camera is not functioning properly to begin with.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by technicolour:


Please can you explain what backfocus is?

Thanks</font></font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>


Backfocus is an adjustment that is offered as an adjustable element on professional video camera lenses.

You zoom in, set focus on an object far away, (presumeabley with the f-stop open all the way, such as f-1.4 or f-1.8) then you zoom out to the wide angle position.

If the picture does not stay sharp, you "reset" the "backfocus ring element" until it comes into sharpness.

This procedure is then repeated until the professional video camera holds focus from close-up to wide shot.

With Super-8, there is no such back focus adjustment, your camera is either stays in focus, or it does not.

If it does not, perhaps a service technician can fix it, but I doubt it. Cameras with removeable lenses, such as the Beaulieu cameas, probably can have the back-focus adjusted because the lens is made to come off the camera, therefore it is easier to service.

However, the specific super-8 camera you are using is not allowing you to learn the maximum about technical issues such as f-stop and focusing. Hopefully you can look into getting a camera with manual exposure control and one that is focusable. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 26, 2002 12:54 PM: Message edited by: Alex ]</font>