Cold Weather Problems

[Mark Cassino]

I went out to shoot the full moon setting over lake Michigan last
Sunday. It was 2F at the lake, with a very steady and strong wind
blowing. I shot two rolls for about 45 minutes from the top of an ice dune.

The first roll was fine - it was Velvia and I bracketed in full stops.
Everything looks like it should. The second roll - E100VS - was a total
bust. Everything is over exposed - even the bracketed shots that were at
-1 stop are at least 1 stop over exposed, if not more.

At first I thought I had either accidentally knocked the camera into manual
mode, or accidentally switched to spot metering. But neither seems to be
the case. Data imprinting shows both rolls shot in aperture priority. It
also shows the ISO for the E100VS correctly as ISO 100 and the camera was
set to evaluative metering for both rolls.

The last frame on the Velvia shows shutter at 1.5 seconds, aperture at f13,
and exposure compensation at +1 (the over exposed shot in the bracketed
series.) The first frame of the E100S shows 3 (I assume that's 1/3rd of a
second), f13, no exposure comp. Given the differences in film speed (ISO
50 vs 100) and exposure compensation (+1 stop vs none) it looks like the
exposures were made on the same basic light reading. But the E100VS is
grossly overexposed. Since I was shooting just before dawn it was getting
progressively lighter, and the data imprinting reflects this with shorter
exposure times as I worked through the roll of E100VS - but the film stays
consistently over exposed. The effects of bracketing in the over exposed
roll are also apparent, with some frames being less over exposed than
others. The last frame of the E100VS shows a shutter time of 1/6th of a
second, no compensation, indicating that it had gotten a stop lighter as
the sun rose - but that frame appears to be overexposed to the same degree
as the first frame on the roll.

Any thoughts about what could have caused this? The meter appears to have
been working correctly, but the actual exposures seem to be way off. I
thought that the shutter maybe was sticking due to the cold, but in that
case it seems like the bracketing would have no effect and the exposures
would be get worse as it got lighter. I guess I imagine a sticking
shutter as just always shooting at one speed and not shooting at a stop or
two over the desired speed.

Or could the film somehow be at fault? I can't see how cold could make
film be more sensitive, though. When I took the Velvia out of the camera,
the leader actually cracked, because it was so brittle from the cold.

I did shoot 3 more exposures on another roll of Velvia after the roll of
E100VS - so far I have not shot out the roll to see how those frames came
out. That will probably provide an extra clue.

Any thoughts about what the problem could be? The Mz-S has the battery
pack on it, and alkalines (fresh) in that. Could a voltage drop make the
shutter mechanism loose accuracy?

- MCC
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Mark Cassino
Kalamazoo, MI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Photos:
http://www.markcassino.com
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