Thanks for finally raising a crucial issue. I've stayed out of this
thread, since I've never shot Velvia in my life. There are a whole lot
of folks, and I bet lots on the list, who are shooting with meters that
haven't been checked for a long time. If you get into using a film where
1/3 stop makes a significant difference, you have to either get the
meter calibrated or calibrate the film and meter through bracketed test
shots until you find the correct iso for YOUR METER. Listening to some
guy(s) telling how Velvia is really an iso 40, or 60 or 25 or 100 speed
film (and I've heard all of these) and taking it on blind faith that
their meter(s) are accurate or inaccurate in the same direction as your
meter(s) is silly.
Just checking to see if a couple or three bodies give the same reading
on a white wall doesn't really tell you much. Part of accuracy is
linearity over a wide range of brightness and that needs to be checked
too. By the way, OM-1s that have been converted to take 1.5v batteries
become less linear.
As Schnozz says, the manufacturers actually go to some trouble to
determine the mid tone sensitivity of the film and reproduce it pretty
consistently from roll to roll. And they have more expensive, more
sensitive, more accurate and more regularly calibrated equipment than we
do.
Anyway, it makes no difference to me, I shoot almost exclusively color
neg film with huge latitude, partly because I don't want to have to
worry about adding or subracting bits of stops to decide whether I'm
going to lose highlights or shadows whenever there is a little contrast.
But I am amazed at some of the obvious BS that flies around about slide
exposure.
AG Schnozz wrote:
As with ALL films, if your meter is calibrated correctly, you
should be able to shoot most scenes with the meter set at the
published ISO film rating.
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