Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [OM] Candles:Exposure:processing

Subject: Re: [OM] Candles:Exposure:processing
From: Tris Schuler <tristanjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 10:25:17 -0800

Now, I'm a bit confused here. I've taken some pictures of a friend by candle light, using the "auto" setting on my OM2n. She's a tall woman and was standing by 2 candles, the flames of which were in the vicinity of her midriff. Used various apertures and the exposures were ranging from about 5 to 40 seconds. ALL of them came out hopelessly underexposed.. practically nothing at all on the neg. I did of course expect the negatives to be a bit thin, but this is ridiculous. Has anyone successfully done these sort of photos that can give me any hints?

I haven't done much in this area. The source for the following is pretty good, though. I take these figures from a book on low-light techniques by Lee Frost. For what it's worth, I've found this guy's published exposure tables (guidelines) to be useful.

Using 400 ASA film, the suggested exposure is 1/4s @ f/16. I'd suppose you could double or even quadruple that with no problem for your bracket. For example, Frost shows a picture of his son blowing out a candle shot at f/1.8 for 1/30s using 1600 film.

Variables: strength of light source, subject distance from that source, properties of the film, etc.

(ps I've just realised that I haven't bought any Oly gear for over a year now.... am I likely to get thrown out of the club?)

Same here, though I've been threatening to send one of my bodies into John for checkup . . . if that counts.

Tris


< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz