Underexposure

I've had 8 or 9 rolls of film through the Nikon F in the last few months. Every one of them has been underexposed by about 2 stops. I realised this suddenly whilst scanning the 2 rolls from the Orange Walk, and 2 more from the anti-Trump protest in George Sq. And I cast my mind back to the black and white darkroom course I did at Streetlevel back in March, when my prints were all coming out underexposed.

Since then I've learned to compensate with the enlarger, which is ok, but one wants good negatives. You can compensate in scanning software, too, but you lose that pin-sharpness you should get from an F and the f1.4 50mm lens.

Soon after I got the F I sent it off for a CLA to a company in Liverpool. That was back in 2011, and after seven years I'm unwilling to say categorically that they didn't do a good job. It does seem that a year later I blamed myself for the fact the F wasn't taking quite the photos I wanted, "If you take a not-very-good photo with an F, you've no bugger to blame but yourself.  You need to look at it, as I am with this one, and say 'Wtf went wrong here?'  And when you've worked out wtf it was, work out how not to do it again."

It is perhaps not coincidental that I lost interest in photography altogether around that time. So the realisation that it actually WAS the camera at fault, not me, was quite something. As soon as I left Street level with the 4 rolls of underexposed negatives last Monday, I walked around to Merchant City Cameras and told them the situation. They don't deal with that sort of thing, but suggested Cameratiks in Edinburgh. I at last got around to contacting them this morning, and will take the train through there when I get the time.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there
Read more

LTPTP XXV: We Shall Overcome

Image
We shall indeed.  It's a lovely wee tune to learn.  I've almost memorized it this morning, the idea being, when I encounter a piano, I want something to sit down and play on the bugger.  I've a feeling that my keyboard's keys are lighter than a proper piano's, and there'll be a bit of effort transferring the skills I've gotten so far.  Probably, at some point this year, I'll be in workplace with a piano.  I'll print off some simple music and scales, and work at it, but it's likely to be in a public place so I want something to avoid making a twat of myself initially. It feels right that this should be the first tune I learn by heart.
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more