Hello to my colleagues in MF3d and slide-film-fandom!

How did you work out that the exposure should be f22 for 30 seconds?

I used to shoot quite a lot of night and "available light" shots and I used to use 30 seconds at f8. Whatever the film stock.

Because, over a few seconds (at f8), reciprocity failure kicks in with a vengeance...

Depending on your circumstances, the film is quite likely to have gathered enough light to compensate for the use of f16ish.

I'd take a chance and process normally.

Bob Aldridge

On 12/03/2012 17:46, Boris Starosta wrote:

 

Hello to my colleagues in MF3d and slide-film-fandom!

I recently shot a 120 roll of Kodak E200 under a mix of tungsten and "who knows what the color is" compact fluorescent light bulbs, using a Sputnik.

The situation called for shooting at f32 with a 30 second exposure, which is what I did for the whole roll.

After I got done, I discovered the camera was not stopped down all the way - but in my discovery I lost the precise f-stop at which it had been set!  So the roll was shot at somewhere between f16 and f22.

My question now: how much do I pull the processing on this film?

Considerations:

pull 2 stops: because slide film looks better underexposed rather than overexposed.  Can E200 even be pulled two stops?

pull 1 stop: because reciprocity failure may have minimized the effects of the overexposure

I would really appreciate comments from anyone with relevant experience!

Many thanks!

Boris

~-|**|PrettyHtmlEnd|**|-~ end group email -->

Some labs can pull 1-1/2 stops. For E200, I think the film handles overexposure better than underexposure. You could also try a coin throw to make your decision.
Steve

Boris Starosta wrote:

>
> My question now: how much do I pull the processing on this film?
>
> Considerations:
>
> pull 2 stops: because slide film looks better underexposed rather
> than overexposed. Can E200 even be pulled two stops?
>
> pull 1 stop: because reciprocity failure may have minimized the
> effects of the overexposure?

Kodak E200 has excellent reciprocity characteristics. I wouldn't
expect an exposuure as short as 30 seconds to exhibit reciprocity
failure on E200. So don't expect reciprocity failure to compensate
for overexposure of 2 stops.

--
Brian Reynolds | "It's just like flying a spaceship.
reynolds@panix.com | You push some buttons and see
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | what happens." -- Zapp Brannigan
NAR# 54438 |

Hi Boris,

You only get one shot at getting it right. If it were me, and the roll was
precious enough, I'd load a similar roll in the sputnik and shoot it under the
same conditions. Get the non-precious roll developed and interpolate from those
results.

2nd best option would be to shoot under same conditions with your dSLR. Then
bring the photo into something like adobe camera raw. You can use the program to
simulate increasing or decreasing exposure by fractions of stops. If you don't
have the program you can send me a file and I'll do it for you.

cheers,
Bob Venezia
Seattle, Washington

Quoting Boris Starosta <boris@starosta.com>:

> Hello to my colleagues in MF3d and slide-film-fandom!
>
> I recently shot a 120 roll of Kodak E200 under a mix of tungsten and
> "who
> knows what the color is" compact fluorescent light bulbs, using a
> Sputnik.
>
> The situation called for shooting at f32 with a 30 second exposure,
> which
> is what I did for the whole roll.
>
> After I got done, I discovered the camera was not stopped down all the
> way
> - but in my discovery I lost the precise f-stop at which it had been
> set!
> So the roll was shot at somewhere between f16 and f22.
>
> My question now: how much do I pull the processing on this film?
>
> Considerations:
>
> pull 2 stops: because slide film looks better underexposed rather than
> overexposed. Can E200 even be pulled two stops?
>
> pull 1 stop: because reciprocity failure may have minimized the effects
> of
> the overexposure?
>
>
> I would really appreciate comments from anyone with relevant
> experience!
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Boris
>
>
>
>
> --
> A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems -- Alfréd
> Rényi
>

"Boris Starosta"
wrote:

>After I got done, I discovered the camera was not stopped down all the way

- but in my discovery I lost the precise f-stop at which it had been set!
So the roll was shot at somewhere between f16 and f22.

It could be that the F stop was accidentally moved while shooting so your exposure could the
different start to finish. I would just process for 200 ASA and hope for the best.

Hopefully that doesn't happen often.

Chuck Holzner

Thank you all for your excellent replies! So many things I hadn't thought of in my panic:

I decided on the exposure parameters after metering with both a Minolta digital incident light meter (very accurate) and a digital spot meter (also very accurate) - so I'm quite sure of the exposure parameters being correct.

I'm also sure I didn't shift the aperture during shooting. Camera was tripod mounted, and I set at only one focus distance for that first roll of film. I discovered the mistake in the aperture when I went to shooting a second roll, refocused and then took the opportunity to check aperture (primitively by trying to close the aperture further by hand without actually looking at it, had it been set correctly it would not have closed further).

While a test clip is a great idea (that I hadn't thought of), I don't want to risk damaging the first frame. I don't know how accurate they are at the lab with cutting a test clip (I've never had that done with 120 film). Then again, maybe risking the first frame is worth getting the most accurate results. Thankfully all exposures were the same - I don't recall bracketing any.

I really like Bob's idea of re-creating the conditions of shooting with a DSLR and testing with Raw format files (I have that ability). Bob, have you actually done that? Compared raw DSLR files to slides shot under identical conditions? I think I can re-create the lighting situation in my studio. The only problem then is, I don't know what the actual f-stop on the sputnik was...

That's where Brian Reynolds testimony about reciprocity failure (or tolerance) of E200 is very valuable. It's good to know that I cannot rely on that effect to cover a stop overexposure in processing. Steve's report that the film handles overexposure better than underexposure is further encouragement towards pulling just one stop.

Another idea I just got is that I do have one roll shot of the same situation with the exposures set correctly (i.e. to my metered parameters). I'm going to hold my suspect roll back until I get that second roll processed, which might aid in the process. Who knows, maybe the second roll will look too dark for me, and I'll then process the first roll with no pull at all.

Many thanks again for all the replies!

PS

The pictures are going to be precious and rare (do I shoot any other kind?? ... well, yes, actually, a lot of times. They will not be easy to reshoot before film might go out of fashion;-). They are a series of ghost images shot at a beautiful Victorian historic Inn in Asheville (The Cedar Crest - I recommend it!). We had to shoot very early in the morning to avoid the possibility of interfering with guests or staff, and we were quite lucky to find a beautiful empty guest room to shoot in...

The parameters I obtained by metering were f32 for 30 seconds for the e200 film. I'm using a Chuck Holzner modified Sputnik which stops down to about f32. Excellent camera, thanks Chuck!!

Bob A., my shots were indoors. I imagine shooting f8 for 30 seconds outdoors compensates for the fact that most of the imagery is far away from the light sources (streetlamps, windows, neon signs etc.)? Inside the room, light sources are quite a bit closer to the illuminated surfaces - that would be my guess as to why I got meter readings unlike what you shoot at.

But thanks for that tidbit of information about how you shoot night scenes, I'll keep in mind because I like night scenes. (confirm you'd use f8 for 30 seconds with 200ASA film?) Now that I think about it, I also shot some exteriors of the Inn at the magic moment (about 30 past sundown) and was shooting f11 or so for 30 seconds onto 100ASA film, i.e. giving it much more exposure than my interiors.

thanks to everyone for replies again.

Boris

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Bob Aldridge wrote:
>
> How did you work out that the exposure should be f22 for 30 seconds?
>

> I really like Bob's idea of re-creating the conditions of shooting with a DSLR and testing with Raw format files (I have that ability). Bob, have you actually done that? Compared raw DSLR files to slides shot under identical conditions? I think I can re-create the lighting situation in my studio. The only problem then is, I don't know what the actual f-stop on the sputnik was...

Yes, I've used dSLR shots in Adobe Camera Raw to simulate another exposure and had the lab run the film based on those results. In my case it was an underexposure. One of the sliders in ACR is for Exposure and you can adjust it in full stops or fractions.

As you mentioned, the problem is you don't know what the actual f-stop was.

I also do a lot of night photography. There's no universal exposure I've ever used that works for all of it. It depends a lot on what you're shooting. It might be 8 seconds at f22 for carnival rides, 7 minutes for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Good Luck!
Bob

I got the film back from Denver today, and the interiors that I shot at f32/30 sec. exposure turned out perfect. Guess I'll be pulling that other roll at least a stop.

thanks again to everyone for the advice.

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "borisstarosta" wrote:
>
> The parameters I obtained by metering were f32 for 30 seconds for the e200 film. I'm using a Chuck Holzner modified Sputnik which stops down to about f32. Excellent camera, thanks Chuck!!
>
> Bob A., my shots were indoors. I imagine shooting f8 for 30 seconds outdoors compensates for the fact that most of the imagery is far away from the light sources (streetlamps, windows, neon signs etc.)? Inside the room, light sources are quite a bit closer to the illuminated surfaces - that would be my guess as to why I got meter readings unlike what you shoot at.
>
> But thanks for that tidbit of information about how you shoot night scenes, I'll keep in mind because I like night scenes. (confirm you'd use f8 for 30 seconds with 200ASA film?) Now that I think about it, I also shot some exteriors of the Inn at the magic moment (about 30 past sundown) and was shooting f11 or so for 30 seconds onto 100ASA film, i.e. giving it much more exposure than my interiors.
>
> thanks to everyone for replies again.
>
> Boris
>
>
> --- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Bob Aldridge wrote:
> >
> > How did you work out that the exposure should be f22 for 30 seconds?
> >
>