Confusions with M7's first rolls

[Janjan]

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Hello. I have been mostly a digital photographer until this time. And I just purchased M7. It is an awesome camera. The seller gives me a one-month guarantee. I've just picked up scans of the first two rolls. When saw the pictures I was confused. There are a few weird frames. In my point of view is pretty hard to find out whats happened. So that is why I am here.

I am trying to find out if it was the camera error, developing error, scan error, or just my fault which the last option is the best for me. I am posting here a couple of mentioned pictures. 

 

Sample 1. This picture is foggy and at the bottom is an odd red light gradient. Maybe I slightly covered the lens by the strap, I tried to simulate this with the same lens on my digital camera, but the result was different. I also see in the picture some strange shapes inside of the red light gradient.

Sample 2. On the left side, I see some light ghost. 

Sample 3 and 4. This is strange to me. The same camera setting and two different color and shade render. Is this overexposed I am totally lost here.

 

I hope this post will not bother anyone. I will be happy to any help here. 

Thanks a lot.

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[jaapv]

What lens did you use?

[Janjan]

It is Voigtlander 35 1.4 II multicoated. I have an adapter for my X-Pro3, it is not the sharpest lens I ever used, but it works on a digital camera ok. 

[mickster]

Sample 1 I'm not quite sure what we're looking at here. Is this the full frame as shot, or a crop? There's significant vignetting  and severe underexposure. I'm not seeing the 'red light gradient' you mention, but this part of the image is very noisy. This looks like scanner noise and typical happens when you scan thin, underexposed shadows on C41 film. I'm not sure where the vignetting has come from.

 

Sample 2 is lens aberration (tangential astigmatism, plus some chromatic aberration). You have single source points of light at the corners of your lens, shot wide open at f1.4 - this is about as difficult as it gets for such a lens. Solution: close down a stop or two, or dont put bright single point light sources at the corners of your frame, at night.

 

Sample 3 looks to be a slight colour balance difference. How was this scanned? If these are just quick auto scans from a processing lab then this is the kind of variation you'll get with auto-scans. Getting consistent colour balance with film scans - particularly colour neg - is a bit of an art in itself. Nice shot, btw.

 

Sample 4 the shot on the left looks like it has been underexposed compared to the one on the right; hence the noise and lack of detail in the shadows under the bridge. This is typical of what happens when you underexpose C41 colour neg film. What film were these shots takes with?

 

Shooting with film is different to shooting with digital, and learning how different films behave when you get things right & wrong is all part of the ride

One initial bit of advice based on the images above is don't underexpose colour neg film. Colour neg has a very wide latitude ('dynamic range' in digital) when it comes to highlights, but really falls down when its underexposed. So with C41, make sure your shadow areas get enough exposure and allow the wide exposure latitude to take care of the highlights. So in the bridge photo above,  expose your shot to ensure some detail in the big shadow area under the bridge and the lighter areas will take care of themselves.

 

hth

Edited December 15, 2020 by mickster

[pedaes]

43 minutes ago, mickster said:

very wide latitude ('dynamic range' in digital)

Understood latitude as forgiveness (tolerance)  in exposure and dynamic range to be shadow and highlight detail recordable. Agree colour negative film has wide latitude.

[mickster]

26 minutes ago, pedaes said:

Understood latitude as forgiveness (tolerance)  in exposure and dynamic range to be shadow and highlight detail recordable. Agree colour negative film has wide latitude.

Suspect that 'latitude' could refer to both 'tolerance in exposure' and 'dynamic range' depending on the context it's used in and the point being made. My intention here was just to give the OP a quick metaphor for how colour neg film behaves in terms more commonly used in the digital world he's coming from.

I also wonder if this isn't ultimately just two different aspects of the same characteristic? Doesn't the 'latitude' (tolerance to over exposure) of C41 with regard to highlights come from the fact that it has a wide 'dynamic range' in the +EV part of its exposure-density curve?

Edited December 15, 2020 by mickster

[Janjan]

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In the Czech, we have a proverb like 'Good advice is more than gold'. In this case, is this fit as a fiddle. Thank you guys a lot! I am pretty happy it is, it was, my error. More range for learning, trying, and make mistakes. The film which I used is Portra 400 processed with C-41. So, if I'll taking picture of someplace where bright sky and half-frame shadows, I have to precisely meter the shadows, expose it correctly and not look at the sky? It is funny, with the digital I photograph exactly the opposite way. The first sky, shadows can restore from the raw file (maybe it is cheating).

Not every frame from the rolls is a disaster as I post up there. Here are a few frames which I am quite happy with the results.

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[Janjan]

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[andrew01]

Not sure if you used the M7’s auto exposure mode or not, but if so the following could be the cause of inconsistent exposure.

The  metered M cameras have a semi-spot meter taken from the center of the frame.  You can see the metering pattern by looking at the white spot painted on the front shutter curtain.  In my opinion this is not an ideal metering pattern if using an auto exposure mode, because it is too easy to fall into the trap of using the camera like a point and shoot without giving enough consideration to how the scene is being metered.  If the spot is not located on a mid-grey tone the auto exposure will not be correct.  It is better to use manual mode and make a conscious effort to find a mid-grey part of the scene to meter.    Knowing what tones are mid grey takes some practice.  I recently bought a spot meter and have found that what I actually perceived as mid grey is mid-grey plus one stop!  An easier strategy is to meter the darkest shadow areas that you want to keep detail in and subtract 3 stops.

Edited December 15, 2020 by andrew01

[Kl@usW.]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Janjan:

I have to precisely meter the shadows, expose it correctly and not look at the sky?

That's the point. absolutly the opposite to E 6 ( slides ) and digital, where you have to meter the lights.

K. 

[250swb]

13 hours ago, Janjan said:

 So, if I'll taking picture of someplace where bright sky and half-frame shadows, I have to precisely meter the shadows, expose it correctly and not look at the sky? It is funny, with the digital I photograph exactly the opposite way. The first sky, shadows can restore from the raw file (maybe it is cheating).

 

You don't need to precisely meter colour negative film stock, but some is better than others for it's latitude. You can safely overexpose Portra 400 one or two stops, and over exposing one stop is generally a good thing because it reduces grain and the highlights won't be blown. Many landscape photographers will overexpose two stops, but they often have a tripod and don't need the extra film speed. Listen to the advice about the metering pattern of the M7, but instead of having to search for shadows to meter from you could simply override the meter and dial in +1 exposure on the ISO dial.