Overexposed

[Betaman8]

The past three or four rolls of film I've shot in the last year have often come out vastly overexposed-any shots with the least bit of sunlight in them quickly fade to white, and remain so until the sun is gone. Only very faint outlines of the actual images are left. As a wild guess, I changed the battery just before I shot the last roll I've taken (back in October), and while the brightness has gone down a bit, much of it is still unwatchable. Does anyone have any idea what this might be, or how I might hope to fix it?

[bigmasi]

What camera you have and what lense?
What film did you use?
Did you shoot on tele or wide?
What does the lighting meter say?
Is the meter on automatic or locked or what?
Have you had any good material with that camera ever?
Is the material bad troughtout the film?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 23, 2004 10:13 AM: Message edited by: bigmasi ]</font>

[Betaman8]

"What camera you have and what lense?"

I'm not sure...it's a Cannon model.

"What film did you use?"

Kodachrome 40.

"Did you shoot on tele or wide?"

??

"What does the lighting meter say?"

It's in the red shaded area.

"Is the meter on automatic or locked or what?"

??

"Have you had any good material with that camera ever?"

Yes.


"Is the material bad troughtout the film?"

Only in strongly lit scenes.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 23, 2004 03:07 PM: Message edited by: Will Dyess ]</font>

[cameraguy]

It would REALLY help if we knew which Canon it is. When you say you changed the battery do you mean a small button battery seperate from the AA batteries?

[Betaman8]

I mean the small button battery.

[bigmasi]

I really don't know what to say, but if you have had good footage in the past there might be a problem with the lighting meter. If you use the automatic exposure it should adjust the exposure when you are panning (it looks terrible, but anyway...)and the picture should stay in correct exposure. And if you use the meter "locked" (it means that it's locked to a certain f-stop and stays there) you shouldn't pan from deep shadow to a bright sunlight. Good thing about film (compared to video) is that you can see more of the shadows and more of the bright, but still... the filmcamera can not do magic tricks! If the lightning changes more than (I'm not sure so correct me if I'm wrong guys) more than let's say 3 f-stops... other end is gonna be under- or overexposed. Did I make any sense?

And tell us more about the camera. What does it say on the lense? What are the numbers 1:1.7 / 7-60 ...for example???

If the exposure meter is on the red shaded area it might mean that you are overexposing. Maybe the shadows are also overexposed but you can't notice it when projecting???