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Thread: light metering.

  1. #1
    Inactive Member Hanthx's Avatar
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    Question

    I own a canon 814 autozoom, and the film I have recieved back from processing (multiple times) has come back a little underexposed. I almost all the time spot check my subject(s) and hardly shoot in auto light metering mode (unless I cant avoid it) but am a little discouraged about the results. I use fugi in Arizona for processing/Walmart because of the reasonable price plus no extra cost for shipping. This is for only kodachrome 40. I've read that in most super8 cameras that some of the incoming light is lost. How much light are we talking about? The lens is a 1.4, thats pretty fast, but if anybody has any suggestions or have come across this problem help would be appreciated. Im also thinking of sending my film somewhere else to be processed, any reputable places that are not too costly would be appreciated too. Thanks! Scott.

  2. #2
    eddie
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    Did you use the inbuilt lightmeter in the camera or an external one?
    If it was an external one then all you need to remember is in the future open the aperture an extra stop than the lightmeter says. I think this is a pretty common thing to happen, its highly unlikely that a 3rd party lightmeter will accuratley match your camera's features and quirks. An inbuilt light meter is calibrated for the camera. A 3rd party lightmeter isnt. It just follows a general calibration.
    It might possibly be due to a filter. My camera has a filter for shooting outdoors (most film works OK for artificial light. (balanced for artificial (tungsten I think) light) This means if you dont use a filter outdoors you get a blue tint on everything. If you use the filter then it will look fine, *but* open up the aperture an extra stop to allow for light lost in the filter.)
    Perhaps your camera has an automatic filter on it?
    This is called a Neutral Density, or ND filter I think.

  3. #3
    eddie
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    I just remembered. If you are spot checking light, I assume you mean you get really close and measure localised light, instead of general light ? The same thing has happened to me. I accidently did a close up 'spot' check, as a result the light reading was higher than it would normally have been for a general light reading. So I closed the aperture to match the reading. This meant that my subject was underexposed, since I was using bright lighting it was quite a nice effect (very contrasty, the image was very dark, except in the areas lit (where I took the reading)). I hope you understand what I mean. Perhaps thats the problem? Try taking a general light reading and work with that ????
    I hope this helps.

  4. #4
    Inactive Member mattias's Avatar
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    about 30% of the light is diverted to the viewfinder in most cameras (the 814 being one of them) so you must open up half a stop to compensate. to determine the exact setting for your camera, compare your lightmeter with the internal one by pointing them towards an 18% card, or anything else with a fixed reflectance fot that matter.

  5. #5
    Inactive Member Hanthx's Avatar
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    Talking

    Thanks guys. I sometimes use a nd filter if the light is too strong, but I always have a 1A filter on the front for protection. I dont use a external light meter, just the built in meter. The 1A filter actually stops down the light 1/2 of a stop. I just noticed this the other day while trying to figure out this underexposure problem. I thought (but wasn't for sure until now) that some of the light was going be allocated to the view finder, but how much...now I know. I shot off a roll two days ago and opened up the iris between 1/2 a stop and a full stop and will get the results back in 2 weeks. Thanks again for the replies guys, much appreciated! Scott

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