Sounds like you might try an XA or one of the older fixed lens
rangefinders like the Oly Rx series (or one of their contemporary
competitors recently discussed here) to see if you like using a
rangefinder for around the house and convention snapshots. The XA has a
little lever on the bottom that increases exposure by 1.5 stops for
backlighting compensation, very easy. I don't know if the others have
such a thing.
On the 4 shots where the subject is underexposed, you may have some fine
shots if you are judging from 4x6 prints from standard automated
processing. First, color negative film generally has a stop or so of
underexposure latitude. Second, the auto processor tries to balance the
print to a standard overall brightness (perhaps with some center
weighting?) so it will tend to print shots with a small 0f dark
subject extra dark as they try to bring the overall brightness down.
It's quite possible that a custom print or a scan with brightness
adjustment either in scanning or graphics program will give the results
you were looking for. Particularly considering these were shots where
you didn't think the backlighting was too bad, at least some should only
be slightly underexposed.
Not to push you towards yet another camera, but.... the OM-PC (OM-40) AE
metering with ESP turned on does a pretty fair job of handling backlit
situations where the subject is near the center of the frame and of
reasonable size - like a person or group of people. And it works with
all your existing lenses.
Moose
Richard F. Man wrote:
Before I go on, I should fully admit that I understand it is the
photographer who makes the pictures, not the tools. I just finished
taking 3 rolls of slides, and doggone it, out of 36x3 pictures, at
least 4 are mis-exposed because I still did not realize the backlight
situations. I caught most of them, and use the spot meters. Those 4
though, I didn't think it is a problem but turns out I was wrong. If I
were smarter, I would have use the spot metering anyway but those
grabshots, the expressions are so fleeting. Fiddle a bit more, and the
moment is gone :-(
May be I should explain what I do :-) Mainly I take (snap-)shots and
informal "portraits" of my kids. We do hiking/travelling when we can,
so I do some amount of landscape / travel / insect macros pics. We
also go to (a lot of) Science Fiction and Japanese Anime conventions
where we and the participants wear costumes a lot. Some of these
costumes are quite amazing, rivaling the best anywhere. So of course I
take a lot of pictures in those events too.
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