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Exposure problems

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Paul66

Guest
I really like my new Mamiya but....... I am having issues with the exposures it is giving me, I am metering with a Seconic L358 and I set the camera to the exposure it says and the in=mages are all very dark if I fix the problem in post it makes the images grainy, what am I doing wrong??????
 
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Shelby Lewis

Guest
I can only venture a few guesses...

Firstly, you can't trust that the Sekonic and Mamiya are calibrated together until you've checked it yourself. My sekonic (same one) is pretty close to my Aptus II6, but worlds away from my canon 5dII (since canon doesn't rate ISO to the true standard). So a simple fix might be to try and calibrate the two such that the two are in agreement.

Also... are you sure the back's ISO setting is what you think it is? Sounds silly, but I sometimes shot at ISO50 when I thought I was at ISO 100 simply because I had no in-viewfinder reminder like with my 35mm gear.

Mechanically... it could be a sticky shutter mechanism or something similar, but we'd more details to start narrowing the choices.

I can say this, I never trust the image on the back of the LCD as a judge for accurate exposure on my aptus... only the histogram. It was always different once I got it into the computer than I thought it would be if I just chimped and hoped.

Shelby
 
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Paul66

Guest
I plan on calibrating today so we'll see, I did a shoot yesterday and didn't trust the LCD and got home to see it wasn't wrong everything was under exposed. The light meter was dead on with my 5D mark2, hopefully I can fix this with a simple calibration.
Thanks for responding :)
 

johnnygoesdigital

New member
I'm not sure about the Phase, but make sure there's no exposure compensation set to a pre-determined level. Also, the metering could be set to spot, when you might need average only. I've sometimes forgot to change the metering mode in my Sekonic, and it was measuring a very small 1 degree area.
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
grainy images in post show that the files were boosted too far.
Trust the histogram, only trust the histogram in the field.
-bob
 
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Paul66

Guest
Yeah I know that Bob, what I don't know is why I'm having to do that, my wife thinks we should buy a new meter but I don't want to waste money when this one has always been dead on before.
 

Thierry

New member
Paul,

You don't need to buy a new light-meter, it would be much more precise and easy to use the histogram. It couldn't be more precise.

Thierry

Yeah I know that Bob, what I don't know is why I'm having to do that, my wife thinks we should buy a new meter but I don't want to waste money when this one has always been dead on before.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Why a meter? I agree with the others, use the camera to determine exposure, which will be far more accurate.
 
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Paul66

Guest
Shooting natural light yes it works great, with studio lighting not so much.
 

Thierry

New member
Of course it does also with studio light, Paul.

You have the most fantastic and precise light-meter with the histogram, one each zone-system user would have dreamed to have 20 years ago. You can meter each single point of the scene, to the pixel and get precisely the exact density you which to have.

Thierry

Shooting natural light yes it works great, with studio lighting not so much.
 

Willow

New member
"You can meter each single point of the scene, to the pixel and get precisely the exact density you which to have."

How do you do that with a IQ back?
I know you can do that tethered, but to a CF card???
 
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Paul66

Guest
Shooting Manual mode1/125 f5.6 ISO50 and using Elinchrom 600RX's it's not like the shutter didn't open all the way they just look under exposed.

I really don't want to use lights without metering, I know a lot of people do it but I feel more comfortable using the meter, might have to change that though ha ha
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Shooting Manual mode1/125 f5.6 ISO50 and using Elinchrom 600RX's it's not like the shutter didn't open all the way they just look under exposed.

I really don't want to use lights without metering, I know a lot of people do it but I feel more comfortable using the meter, might have to change that though ha ha
I have those same lights as well as some pack lights.
Do me a favor and switch to X 5.6 ISO50
thanks
-bob
 

Thierry

New member
I don't know where in the menu of the IQ's, but there is (should be) a feature to measure each point of the preview and get its transcription in the corresponding histogram of the image, giving the position of this particular point on the whole scale from the shadows to the high-lights, with even the value in EVs. It is even possible to measure that way each color channel separately.

Thierry

"You can meter each single point of the scene, to the pixel and get precisely the exact density you which to have."

How do you do that with a IQ back?
I know you can do that tethered, but to a CF card???
 

SergeiR

New member
I know it sounds like daft question, but do tell how you meter.

(and yes, Shelby is right they are calibrated differently, thats why 758DR is best thing to have, as you can calibrate it to camera that you use, but still.. It shouldn't be farther than 2/3 Ev out).

And secondly - posting image would help too.

It doesn't look like you out on sync speed, and you should be well within power peak of lights. So culpit is either meter (does it work well for other cameras?) or , or metering technique, or some filter... or could it be LCC target that got stuck somewhere?
 
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