Take a look at your negatives. Are they really dark? Did the lab pull these images our of bad negatives?
It sounds like your metering is way off. Look at the batteries and the contacts in the battery chamber. New batteries are cheaper than another roll of film. Regards, Bob S. [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Dear group, I took a couple of rolls of color print film the other day, > half to play with some new toys, like my Refconverter-M, and half to > check a couple of MX bodies for light leaks and so forth. The prints > came out poorly, and wonder if you can think of why. > > On one body I had my 50mm f/1.4 M lens attached and was loaded with > Kodak HiDef 400ASA print film, while the other had a 100mm f/4 M Macro > lens and was loaded with Fuji X-TRA 800ASA print film. > > By the way I had used these two bodies to check some batteries, with a > single lens, to see if they gave the same metering with an old DL-1 > (CR1/3N), a new DL-1 and a pair of new MS76 batteries. All three > battery sets gave very similar readings (within 1/2 a stop) but I > noticed with the old DL-1, sometimes when I would adjust the shutter > speed the metering LEDs would either "run up and down" or just drop to > the bottom indicator. Playing with the shutter speed dial and/or the > aperture ring would make the symptom go away, temporarily. (More about > this later.) I decided the problem was the old DL-1 so I discarded it. > > The problem with the prints is they all look, for lack of a better > word, dark. Like there is a layer of darkened glass on top of each > print. Yellow poppies in the sun look dull for example, with no "pop" > to them at all. And this is on both rolls. I had them developed at a > local photo shop where they just used a C-41 mini-lab type thing, where > I usually have my print film developed (without this look to them). > > I had taken some macro shots indoors of the covers of some newly > published Ian Fleming James Bond books using some cheap "full spectrum" > fluorescent lamps and they don't look excessively warm, just dark. I > did my usual bracketing and the overexposed ones look overexposed to > me, with highlights too light and colors lighter than they should be, > but still "dark", with no contrast, no "snap". Other shots of flowers > out in the sun have the same problem. A few shots of my new-to-me > US$500 "beater" car are also dark this way. Curiously a trio of shots > of the neighbor’s Nomad wagon look much better, although still a trifle > dark. > > Any ideas what this is? Crappy film? Poor development or printing? I > would guess that they are all underexposed, except for how the > "overexposed" shots look from my bracketing. Buy maybe they are > under-exposed and the latitude of the print film and the processing are > fooling me? But why then are the colors washed out on the "overexposed" > shots?? > > Oh yeah, remember the symptom I saw with the old DL-1 where the > metering lights would "run up and down" when I moved the shutter speed > dial? I saw this several times with both bodies while I was taking > these pictures. And I think I also saw the "drop to the bottom LED" > thing a couple of times too! Are there contacts related to the shutter > speed dial that are corroded or loose or something? Is this a > recognized symptom of any particular problem? Is it related to my > "dark" prints?
