Yashica T4 flash overexposure (Tri-X)

[Rauti]

Dear rangerfinders,

nowerdays I'm a happy user of a YASHICA T4 point&shoot.

Lovely camera although the internal flash often tends to overexpose the image which leads to blown out and therefore blank faces.

I thought it's maybe a case of coming to close (MOD) and the flash cannot power down as much as it would be needed.
But then there are close-ups which are totally fine and medium-shots which are blown out.

The only consistent fact is that there is always no or very few ambient light in the pictures which turns out overexposed.
This would support the theory that the camera does some kind of average metering and therefore thinks more flashlight would be necessary than there really is.

As there is no exposure/flash-compensation-fuction or manual asa-setting what can I do to solve this problem in low-light?

If average-metering is the problem, would it solve the problem if i put an ND-filter/gel (0.6 - two stops) over the flash and therefore reduce the power in general. Or does the camera make a preflash, meters, then adjusts the firepower according to the preflash? Then my nd-filter-solution would be useless (exept when the flash is at his maximum).

Here are some sample pictures, some faces turn out to be just plain white.

thanks for your help, guys!

cheers,

rauti

 

[Landshark]

the pic with the two gals looks like you're too close but the one with the men looks like background is too dark & the camera's trying to compensate.

There may be a limitation as to how close you can be with flash. I'd imagine you're right at the edge.

 

[Rauti]

Thanks for your reply, landshark.

Thing is, I can get pretty close at night without problems:

dark bg

bright backround

but how do I avoid this?

I mean there are other guys how get pretty close too without burning it....

😀

 

[Dwig]

Are these "overexposed" negs actually significantly denser than the other "properly exposed" images??

How are you printing the negs??

 

[Rauti]

Are these "overexposed" negs actually significantly denser than the other "properly exposed" images??

How are you printing the negs??

Hi Dwig,

the B&W negatives look very dense to me (if I compare it to what I remember from my medium formats)

(Too) Much silver there. (cheap flatbed scan)

The only yashica film to have proper exposure is the 400 Portra, which looks alot less dense to me. But I dont know if I compare apples with oranges this time. (b&w / color)

So I strongly assume it has nothing to do with the printing...?

 

[Rauti]

Printing? The lab does it for me, as I'm rubbish with chemicals.

 

[Ranchu]

The only thing I liked about the T4 is it's amazingly good flash exposure. Are you overdeveloping?

 

[Rauti]

The only thing I liked about the T4 is it's amazingly good flash exposure. Are you overdeveloping?

Ok good news and bad news. That means things are normally better and are not how they should be.

I bring the film to a supermarket which sends the film to the biggest film-lab in germany. I could switch to a smaller pro-lab (more expensive)

Does anyone know if ND-ing the flash would work or would it be compensated by the external metering?

thanks and cheers

rauti