Wow, Freehold. Great town. Part of my old stomping grounds. I spent ten
years or so up the road in Matawan. I remember that diner well.
In regard to pushing film and determining exposure, you're guess is
correct. You need to determine the exposure of the scene. In manual
mode, you check your exposure by whatever means your camera provides
(you mentioned lining up the dots). If this occurs at an aperture and
shutter speed that works for the subject, then the film speed is
adequate. For example, if you're hand holding with a 50mm lens or a zoom
set to that range, you'll want a shutter speed of 1/60 second or faster.
Minimum shutter speed for handholding is about 1/focal length for the
average photographer. If your scene is anything but flat in terms of how
far things are from the camera, you'll also need depth of field to keep
it in focus. That comes into play in choosing the aperture. To get
adequate depth of field for something like a diner where you want to see
the sign in front quite clearly and you also want to see inside, you
probably need an aperture of f8 or smaller. (Smaller apertures = more
depth of field.) Okay, so now you know you want f8 at 1/60 second (or
faster if possible). If at 800asa, the light meter (and your camera
settings), tell you that this scene is f8 at 1/30 or f5.6 at 1/60 (the
two are equivalent), then you would want to reset your meter to 1600asa
and have your lab push the film one stop. Of course one stop only buys
you one stop. In this case, I would probably choose to try and make do
with 5.6 at 1/60 or f8 at 1/30 and shoot at 800 asa, because the film
will be grainier if push processed. The other alternative, of course, is
to use a tripod. With a tripod and a cable release on the camera, you
can shoot at very slow shutter speeds. In this case, you might want to
try an even slower film that offers more saturation and less grain. Hope
this helps.
Paul Stenquist
ex-Monmouth County Boy
dosk wrote:
>
> Fr Skip
>
> Had a great time earlier tonight strolling thru town (Freehold, NJ) trying
> out some night photography experiments. The streets were mostly empty, but a
> few Mexican kids still out and about smiled and said hello. (A rarity;
> they're usually so shy... Must be the addition of a camera into the
> setting?) )
> There's an old fashioned chromed railway-car diner in town, situated right
> next to a brightly neon-ed gas station. Everything was wet from rain, and
> the light and the various reflections were wonderful! Hope the camera's
> settings caught it. (But the spot isn't going anywhere either; I'll have
> other cracks at it. Oh yes!)
>
> This time I took the ZX-M off auto and tried aperture priority first, then
> switched to full manual. Great fun lining up those little dots in the
> viewfinder in light where I wouldn't've been able to even see my old match
> needles... Used the M's memory lock, used EV adjustments. This was really
> enjoyable stuff for me! (Now to see the results...)
>
> Question about "pushing" film. I don't quite understand it... Let's say I
> suspect the pictures I took tonight, with ISO 800 film and with the camera
> automatically set to ISO 800 also, will be too dark. Would I then ask the
> lab to develop the roll at an ISO 1600 setting? Or should I have set my
> camera's manual ISO setting to 1600 while using the 800 film, before I ask
> the lab to do the "push"?
> And, is a "push" irreversible? Once the negatives are developed that way, if
> they're too over-exposed, then I cannot go back and re-obtain an 800
> development again, right?
> So then how do you know whether to "push" or not? Is it always a gamble? (Or
> should I be using a separate hand held light meter here?) (Which I don't
> have...)
>
> But perhaps it's better to always chance under-exposure, as I could always
> lighten my prints up some with the computer, right?
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks for any assistance here,
> Skip
>
> -
> This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe,
> go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
> visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org.
-
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe,
go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org.
