Here?s a little puzzler for those in the group inclined to cogitate and
speculate upon such things. This happened to me a month or so ago, and I
haven?t been able to figure it out, except that it may just be one of those
unexplainable glitches that occasionally happens with anything mechanical,
electronic, or any combination thereof.
I shoot transparency film 95 percent of the time and so am pretty
persnickety about correct exposure, even sometimes resorting to incident
readings with a Sekonic L-718 meter. Occasionally, I shoot color negative
film when in ?snapshot? mode, as I was doing on the occasion I?m presently
describing. Because of negative film?s wider latitude and the
unpredictability of machine printing, I usually just shoot on auto and take
spot readings or make exposure corrections only in fairly extreme
situations.
On the occasion in question, I was using an OM-4, MD2, 100/2 Zuiko, no
filter, Fujicolor 400, hand-held, shooting two Ragdoll kittens (Barnum and
Bailey, white/gray) playing among large tropical foliage plants in pots
sitting on our deck, in shade. Exposure was something like 1/125 @ f/4.
In a series of four frames about mid-roll, taken just one or two seconds
apart, the first is two to three stops underexposed; the second is
perfectly exposed, and the third and fourth are identical to the first. No
camera or lens setting, not even focus, was changed during this sequence.
The rest of this 36-exposure roll is properly exposed. The motor drive was
set to ?single,? the camera and lens are in excellent condition, and the
batteries were (and still are) good. Nothing like this had happened before
with this camera and hasn?t in the two or three rolls shot since.
Anybody got a clue? I?ll send a hairball to whoever can come up with an
even marginally plausible solution, winner?s choice, Barnum?s or Bailey?s,
fresh or freeze-dried.
Walt Wayman
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