Albert said:
"I just got 4 rolls of my slide film back.. Most were too dark, except
for the ones that were in bright daylight. As much as I love my OM, my
friend who took all his pictures on his Minolta 9, has PERFECT
exposure... And it almost makes me want to move to a wonderbrick."
Several folks responded but I'm not sure anyone paid much attention to
the specific complaint of underexposed slides as opposed to
overexposure. While you should certainly check your equipment (and
especially the battery) the underexposure problem is exactly what you'd
get by having your eye too far from the eyepiece on an OM-1. Stray
light entering the eypiece leads the camera to believe that the scene is
brighter than it is. That would lead you to select a smaller aperture
or faster shutter speed than required to center the meter needle and
thus give you underexposure.
I just did some experiments with my own OM-1 placing the morning sun at
my left and right sides as I was metering. It was easy to get a 1/2
stop error by moving my eye even a very short distance away and a full
stop by moving a bit further. I always use a 3rd party teardrop shaped
eyecup which helps considerably. However, even with the eyecup your eye
must be pressed fairly tightly against it to prevent stray light from
affecting the exposure. Try cupping your hand around your eye when it's
at the eyepiece. If the meter needle drops when you cup your hand
around your eye then your are letting in stray light and need to improve
your technique.
Albert said:
"In bright daylight, the meters read the same. BUT, in slightly dimmer
light, mine actually reads a f-stop slower. Also, it's somewhat
difficult to compare, because his will do 1/3rd of a stop and so I can't
tell..."
Today I'm more inclined to use an OM-2s for most of my photography and I
use a lot more negatives than slides. Negative are more foregiving of
exposure error. However, for 15 years I only had the OM-1 and shot
almost nothing but K64 almost all of which is perfectly exposed. If the
OM-1 couldn't meter accurately it certainly wouldn't have become as
famous as it is. It's also perfectly capable of measuring 1/3 stop but
you'll have to estimate it as something a bit less than the 1/2 stop
that's indicated by boundaries of the "C" shape in the meter. The meter
is an analog device and won't give you the fixed digital indications of
the wonderbricks. I often wish that my OM-2s had the analog meters of
my OM-1 and OM-2.
Albert said:
"As far as sharpness, he uses all tokina lenses, and they were sharp,
his zooms and my primes look no different, when the metering was dead
on."
Your primes may or may not be sharper than his zoooms. However, you're
not likely to be able to tell the difference without shooting on a
tripod, using a high resolution film, optimum aperture and examining the
results side by side at high magnification.
Albert said:
"Is the Om4Ti's metering a lot better?? I hear it's great, and now it's
making me wondering if I should move to a different camera body, as this
one is not providing me with what I want/need."
"I find that maybe a spot meter might cure the problem, as there is
often the case I have a subject (in shade) with bright sun in the
background.. Or something to that effect.."
"I sometimes shoot with sunglasses on, will that cause an effect also??
I shouldn't but sometimes, I just pick up and click, and forget..."
The OM-2s (and up) can assist metering in difficult situations by using
their spot meters. However, you still have to interpret what to measure
and how what you measure relates to the full range of the scene. You
still have to stop and think for a second and engage the brain before
pressing the shutter release. If you have a subject in the shade with
bright light in the background and you don't have a spotmeter then
simply point the camera at a place that is fully shaded, set the
exposure and then point back to the subject and take the shot. If
necessary, walk into the shade to set the exposure and then move back.
If you can't measure the exact taking light then estimate. If the
subject is in shade but there's bright light in the background then you
know the the meter will be affected by the background light. So, try
opening up a 1/2 stop of full stop to compensate. Your guess may not be
precise but it will certainly be closer than taking the cameras literal
recommendation which you already know to be "wrong".
Albert said:
"In bright daylight, the meters read the same."
Be careful to compare apples with apples. When comparing exposure
between two cameras make sure that the focal lengths are the same so
that the lenses see the same field of view of an evenly illuminated
surface. Also, don't try to compare a simple prime (with few elements)
to a complex zoom or mirror lens. The zoom will have a lot more glass
which will absorb more light than the indicated aperture would suggest.
The mirror lens will have a similar problem based on the blockage of
light caused by the central obstruction of the secondary mirror.
Albert said:
"How do I check for the "snappieness" of the blades in my lens? I had
my 50mm gum up, and that was obvious because they wouldn't open up all
the way, but I mean aside from the seriousness of situations like that,
is there any quick and dirty way I can check myself? Or just click
click click on it and see if it's opens and closes quickly and all the
way"
First, remove the lens, close down to minimum aperture and snap the DOF
button several times while looking through the lens. Check to see that
the lens opens fully by setting to a small aperture and then, while
depressing the DOF button, rotate the aperture ring to fully open and
note that the blades keep moving until you hit max aperture. Set back
to minimum aperture. When you snap the DOF button rapidly open and
closed the diaphragm blades should be moving just as fast as you can
snap the button. Familiarize yourself with what the size of the minimum
aperture looks like when it's closed down. Then put the lens back on
the camera, open the back, point to a bright area and try firing several
times at various shutter speeds.
When the shutter opens the lens should already be fully closed down. If
the blades are sluggish in closing it will cause overexposure since
they'll not be fully closed to the correct aperture when the shutter
opens.
If they don't open all the way then you would get underexposure in
situations where you were using an aperture larger than the point at
which the blades stick. For example, if the blades were sticking
partially closed at f/4 instead of being fully open for focusing before
exposure and your exposure was calling for f/2.8 then the frame would be
underexposed by one stop.
Chuck Norcutt
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
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