Did I do something wrong?

[Richard G]

In bright sun there’s a lot to be said for setting manual exposure by just using Sunny 16, and with colour negative film erring on the side of overexposure. For instance 1/250 at f11 would have been fine here. There is the temptation to assiduously balance the M6 meter’s LED red triangles, and so often it gets it right. Your lens doesn’t look to be wider than 35mm, but with 28mm and wider the sky contributes too much to the meter’s calculation, causing underexposur, and this is probably the case with the M6 as well.

 

[Steve M.]

I agree w/ fireblade, it's very easily fixed.

I ran it thru my Noiseware Community Edition software (free to download) on the default setting to deal w/ some of the grain, then opened it in PS and hit Auto Levels. Took about one minute. Here it is. It's not perfect, I could have made it look much better (that horizon line needs to be addressed), but now it's at least presentable.

I think those shadows on the other photo were outside the film's latitude capability. Bright sunny day, and that part of the cliff was in shade. Could have been metered a little differently perhaps, but that side of the cliff was probably very dark in real life.

 

[Steve M.]

Here's the cliff shot w/ the horizon line fixed w/ a crop, and the same software fix as the above photo. The dark side of the cliff is what it is. It's just dark over there on the back side w/ a bright sun lit day. If you meter to show detail there you blow out the rest of the pic. It's over sharpened, but that's an easy fix too. I ran out of time and have to run.

 

[nukecoke]

For already expired colour negatives from dodgy sources/sellers, I usually over-expose as possible as I can, say 2 to 4 stops. There will still be bigger grains but the colour would not look so "bleached" as shown in the first two shots.

This one was shot on Kodak Portra 400 from a dodgy source, I think it might have expired for 5 or more years. I overexposed it for 2 stops.

 

[ultra8]

The scans are all not the best - your lab should be able to scan the tonal values for a better contrast overall. Or try a better lab for better scans (aka MeinFilmLab in germany). Or correct the files with your software. Lomofilms are wonderful effect films, no fineart films. Better you expose the Lomofilms one or two steps more (Your Fuji Pro400H performs best at 200!). If you want great effects, unpredictable colors, mistakes or anything else, Lomofilms are really great. But it is better for the manufacturing industry to buy fresh films from Fuji, Kodak or Ilford.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

We can agree to disagree. I happen to think shadow detail is overrated in most cases... it depends on the image though really. In the OP's case, if she were to increase exposure, the white concrete would be overblown, as well as the sky in the second image, no?

Nope. She is using color negative film. You expose it for the shadows, not the highlights. Neg films have the ability to hold detail in highlight areas even overexposed a few stops, unlike slide film, which has no overexposure latitude.

I'm primarily a slide film shooter for color, so maybe that's why I think that way.

Your experience really isn't relevant to the OP's situation. Slide film and negative film have very different exposure requirements and different capabilities. Slide film has a limited dynamic range; in high contrast scenes you often have to sacrifice either shadow detail or highlight detail. Most people find blocked up shadows less ugly than blown out highlights, which is why people expose slide film to maintain highlight detail.

You don't have to make that choice with negative film because its much greater dynamic range can usually maintain detail in both shadows and highlights even in contrasty light, though in extreme cases it requires advanced printing or scanning skills to do so.

 

[Pioneer]

Thanks for this post Sara. It is interesting to see how this film responds. I recently received some of this film and I suspect that others, like myself, who have purchased some of this film will learn from your experiences.


I do have to agree with some of the other comments regarding Lomo films in general. I love using them from time to time but for me they are fun film and I only use them when I am interested in exploring my creative side. I don't really expect much and most of the time the results don't turn out the way I had hoped. In my case I really haven't lost anything except for a bit of time and some money.



However, I never treat Lomo as serious film where I need the results to be correct. In many cases you won't get repeatable results; not even with exposures on the same roll. I am pretty sure that even if you take a roll of this film and overexpose it by a couple of stops it probably will not consistently come out the way you would like.


Fortunately, in our current digital world, even poor exposures can often be fixed to some degree and your memories can be rescued. If you have any interest I am pretty sure this would be good training to improve your digital editing skills.


You did nothing wrong here, and even though you may have been able to improve your exposure technique a bit, most color negative films have adequate exposure latitude to survive our occasional over or under exposure bloopers. Unfortunately for you this particular film is already pretty old so it has lost much of that forgiving latitude.



All that being said this was a great learning experience so thank you for taking the time to post your experiences. Both Roger and Chris are great resources for improving our technical ability with regard to exposure and it doesn't hurt any of us to refresh those lessons from time to time.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Nope. She is using color negative film. You expose it for the shadows, not the highlights. Neg films have the ability to hold detail in highlight areas even overexposed a few stops, unlike slide film, which has no overexposure latitude.

Your experience really isn't relevant to the OP's situation. Slide film and negative film have very different exposure requirements and different capabilities. Slide film has a limited dynamic range; in high contrast scenes you often have to sacrifice either shadow detail or highlight detail. Most people find blocked up shadows less ugly than blown out highlights, which is why people expose slide film to maintain highlight detail.

You don't have to make that choice with negative film because its much greater dynamic range can usually maintain detail in both shadows and highlights even in contrasty light, though in extreme cases it requires advanced printing or scanning skills to do so.

Dear Chris,

Bloody FACTS again! You've been warned about using these before.

Cheers,

R

 

[Tim Murphy]

Thank you both, Chris and Roger!

Thank you both, Chris and Roger!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

View Post
Nope. She is using color negative film. You expose it for the shadows, not the highlights. Neg films have the ability to hold detail in highlight areas even overexposed a few stops, unlike slide film, which has no overexposure latitude.

Your experience really isn't relevant to the OP's situation. Slide film and negative film have very different exposure requirements and different capabilities. Slide film has a limited dynamic range; in high contrast scenes you often have to sacrifice either shadow detail or highlight detail. Most people find blocked up shadows less ugly than blown out highlights, which is why people expose slide film to maintain highlight detail.

You don't have to make that choice with negative film because its much greater dynamic range can usually maintain detail in both shadows and highlights even in contrasty light, though in extreme cases it requires advanced printing or scanning skills to do so.

Dear Chris,

Bloody FACTS again! You've been warned about using these before.

Cheers,

R
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Dear Chris and Roger,

I've learned more from your posts back and forth than I would have ever learned by accident burning film.

Whether I ever apply what I've learned is another story entirely, but I'm glad I got to learn a lesson here today. Too bad it wasn't lesson about double quoting though!

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg, PA

 

[gnuyork]

Nope. She is using color negative film. You expose it for the shadows, not the highlights. Neg films have the ability to hold detail in highlight areas even overexposed a few stops, unlike slide film, which has no overexposure latitude.



Your experience really isn't relevant to the OP's situation. Slide film and negative film have very different exposure requirements and different capabilities. Slide film has a limited dynamic range; in high contrast scenes you often have to sacrifice either shadow detail or highlight detail. Most people find blocked up shadows less ugly than blown out highlights, which is why people expose slide film to maintain highlight detail.

You don't have to make that choice with negative film because its much greater dynamic range can usually maintain detail in both shadows and highlights even in contrasty light, though in extreme cases it requires advanced printing or scanning skills to do so.

OK, man, lol. I already know this, however, I see enough detail in her shadows for my taste, might be my screen vs yours. Just looks grainy due to the film stock.