Question from newbie

[phquest]

Hi all, I've been using digital cameras for the last few years. Not long ago I bought my first 35mm camera, a pristine YE GSN.

I just had developed my first roll of negative film (a 400 ISO Polaroid) from Walmart. I took a series of pictures, indoors and outdoors. The outdoor pictures came out okay, although a bit underexposed (about 2/3 of a stop). The indoor ones are sharp and with a lot of detail but they have a very strong red cast.


The GSN uses a discontinued 5.6V mercury battery. I'm using 4LR44 6V. Is that extra voltage the reason my pictures are underexposed and what should I do in order to fix that problem?


I'm in the process of ordering some color filters for B&W photography. I sort of understand the relationship between dif colors. Now, I'm wondering if a blue filter will eliminate or at least reduce that red color cast or do I need a specialty filter for that.

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi,
When you took the indoor pictures, were you using available light and if so what sort of light was it? It does sound as though it is a colour balance problem. Digitals have an automatic white balance which tends to avoid the problem

Kim

 

[bmattock]

Hi all, I've been using digital cameras for the last few years. Not long ago I bought my first 35mm camera, a pristine YE GSN.

I just had developed my first roll of negative film (a 400 ISO Polaroid) from Walmart. I took a series of pictures, indoors and outdoors. The outdoor pictures came out okay, although a bit underexposed (about 2/3 of a stop). The indoor ones are sharp and with a lot of detail but they have a very strong red cast.


The GSN uses a discontinued 5.6V mercury battery. I'm using 4LR44 6V. Is that extra voltage the reason my pictures are underexposed and what should I do in order to fix that problem?


I'm in the process of ordering some color filters for B&W photography. I sort of understand the relationship between dif colors. Now, I'm wondering if a blue filter will eliminate or at least reduce that red color cast or do I need a specialty filter for that.

Any help will be much appreciated.

1) Yes, the different battery can cause a problem, but usually C41 film has enough latitude to be able to ignore it.

2) Is the automatic speed setting working? I had a problem with indoor and low-light photos in my GSN - turned out that automatic shutter speeds were not working at all. The default speed is 1/500, which would get you through most sunny outdoor shots. But 1/500 indoors is generally way underexposed an nearly any ISO or f-stop. Way to tell - does your shutter speed SOUND different when you shoot in different light conditions? Slower shutters make a different sound than faster shutters.

3) Indoor lighting is not really 'white' although the human eye fools itself into thinking it is. Color casts can be made by color film used indoors, but I don't know what color the cast would be, as I'm color-blind. This problem primarily affects color slide film, though, as I understand it. Still, there are color-correction filters made for taking photos indoors which balance the white light.

4) The GSN does not have the light sensor in the lens barrel, so it will not 'know' that you have a filter on - and will hence underexpose. Even assuming everything else is working right, you'd have to adjust the ISO setting to compensate for the filter factor on your lens that the light meter can't tell is there.

The GSN is a fine camera with an excellent lens. I'm not sure it's a great indoors camera, but I could be wrong. I tend to prefer a camera I can control the shutter speed on as an indoors camera myself.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

Digitals have an automatic white balance which tends to avoid the problem

I think you mis-spelled "tends to make the problem much much worse."

LOL!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[fgianni]

I think you mis-spelled "tends to make the problem much much worse."

Now then Bill you are a bit harsh here, every now and then even auto white balance manages to make things better

 

[WDG]

One additional thought on the underexposure. The meter sensor sits above and to the right of the very shiney silver lens, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find light reflecting off the lens throwing the metering off a bit, especially if the sun was to the right. I always wondered how much effect this might have, but haven't tested the theory on mine. Seems like a black lens finish would have been a better choice in this respect.

As Bill Mattocks pointed out, if you were using a filter, but didn't compensate the ASA, that would be cause for underesposure.

 

[CleverName]

Make sure the battery is making a good connection. You usually need some kind of adapter to make modern batteries work (tin foil and cardboard with a little spring works). Obviously, the battery check light should come on, and you should get "over" or "slow" lights if you are over or slow.
Since the GSN defaults to 1/500th it's possible you just got lucky with that roll 🙂 A good way to test is to switch it to "B" and see if the shutter stays open.

Also, how are you holding the camera? Once my wife picked up my GSN and was playing with it, pretending to take pictures (actually she was making fun of me, but that's not important here). I noticed that she had a finger covering the widow where the light meter is. Had she actually been photographing me rather than mocking me, none of those photos would have been properly exposed.

 

[phquest]

Thanks to everybody who replied to my message.

@bmattock - Yes, the shutter speeds are working correctly on my camera. I replaced the POD using the pin method. The fast/slow lights are also correct.

I realized that on those underexposed pics, the sky is a very dominant part of the scene. My guess, is that somehow the camera metered off the sky which led to underexposure. I'll have to take more care next time.

As I mentioned above, the pics taken inside of a dark restaurant came out pretty good. I'm after reading a lot about the low-light capabilities of the GSN, but still, I'm amazed at the quality of those shots I took, even though I didn't use flash (next thing on my agenda, after the 80A filter .....thanks G'man).

Tonight, I was out on the city taking pics of the night streets and X-mas stores. Can't wait for tomorrow to have them developed.

I'll let you know, how they fare.