Newbie, Newbie, Newbie

[kmoss1101]

As the title implies, I'm a newbie to the forum and new to photography. I decided to get started with film and purchased a Nikon FE and a 20mm lens. I took the attached pics with 125PX film, but forgot to set the ASA setting on the camera to 125 - it was set at 400 for all the pics (oops). What is the impact of this mistake? Any feedback on the photos (technical or creative) would be very much appreciated:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kmoss1101/NikonFE20mm#

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

[Doug]

Welcome to RFF! Ordinarily, setting the camera to 400 for 125 film results in about 2 stops of underexposure... thin pale looking negatives. But in the linked Picasa shots I don't see any evidence of underexposure. Some blown highlights but that's sort of the opposite problem, or just the way they were printed. There are no photos at the second link. 😀

 

[hans voralberg]

Looks fine to me 😉

 

[gdi]

Welcome to RFF! Ordinarily, setting the camera to 400 for 125 film results in about 2 stops of underexposure... thin pale looking negatives. But in the linked Picasa shots I don't see any evidence of underexposure. Some blown highlights but that's sort of the opposite problem, or just the way they were printed. There are no photos at the second link. 😀

I agree with Doug those shots look fairly well exposed. If you had set 400 for 100 film, I would expect some of these shots to be very underexposed given the amount of sky in some shots and the FE's center weighted meter.

Maybe you lucked out and the exposure compensation was set to +2?? 😀

 

[David William White]

Looks definitely overexposed by one stop, and certainly two over for the last one with the girl, the black car, and the sidewalk. Hard to imagine how this would happen by uprating the film.

Were you shooting in A (aperture priority mode) or were you shooting manual and matching the two needles? Were you metering on a shadow area, or the grass/ground and locking in before recomposing?

Other than the exposure paradox, that's an interesting choice for a lens, but you certainly seem to know how to use it! Wait...that first picture with the child at the playground...that wasn't taken with the 20mm, more like 50mm, right?

 

[kmoss1101]

Thanks David - wow, that's impressive - you're right, the first one was 50mm, I had forgotten about that. Now here's a stupid question for you - how do I know if I was shooting in A? I was shooting in Auto mode (maybe that's A?) and I believe for this picture of my daughter I just focused on her and shot it...I changed the aperture to try and get the shutter speed correct (not that I necessarily knew what that was)...

Doug, the second link was me trying to put a smiley face in the post...I guess it didn't work - I'll go manual -> 🙂

 

[hans voralberg]

Yeah Auto is A on the FE. If it's on auto and it behave like that the meter might be overexposing by 2 stops, I guess.

 

[kmoss1101]

Thanks Hans, what's the best way to fix that?

 

[David William White]

Sorry, I couldn't remember if the FE was labelled 'Auto' or just 'A'. On the FE it means aperture priority. So, yes, you set the aperture to what you want and the camera finds the shutter speed for the film rating, exposure compensation, and meter reading (and indicates with a single needle).

With the ultra-wide 20mm, in Auto, the centre-weighted metering will be even more variable, either falling on a shadow area or a highlight area, so if you see the needle moving wildly as you change perspective, you might learn how to lock exposure with the timer lever & recompose.

On most days, you'll probably just set 'er to f/16 & set infinity on the barrel to the f/16 far field mark and not bother with the focus ring. You have that marvelous advantage & would be great for street shooting.

The exposure is still puzzling, however.

 

[David William White]

Thanks Hans, what's the best way to fix that?

Exposure compensation ring can be lifted and set from -2 through 0 to +2. There should be a little red mark (that may have worn off!!!).

That knurled ring sets the ISO when you press that little button down and rotate, and it sets the exposure compensation when you lift up the ring and rotate.

 

[kmoss1101]

well, I think it's safe to call my first post to RFF a bit of a disaster...after a few glasses of wine last night, I wrote "I took the attached pics with 125PX film, but forgot to set the ASA setting on the camera to 125 - it was set at 400 for all the pics"...when in reality I took the pics with 400 film, but forgot to set the ASA setting on the camera to 400 - it was set at 125 for all the pics...sorry for the confusion, I guess this explains it.

I believe this puts me in the RFF penalty box for a few days?

 

[David William White]

Nah! But that really explains the overexposure!

 

[hans voralberg]

Gotta stop drinking wine before setting up the camera now haha 😉