bad film/bad camera? both?

[skery]

Hi,

I am returning to photography after several years off. I currently am
using my old Canon EOS 10s and an Olympus c-3020 digital camera. I am
saving for a Digital rebel or 10D (20D?). After using my Olympus almost
exclusively for the last year or more, I decided to bring out the
Canon, I miss having the flexibility of my lenses, longer zoom, wider
angles, etc. So I went to the beach to take some pictures near
sunset, get some action shots of surfers, etc.

The pics came out terrible. Some had a large black line on the
top/side, some where extremely dark, all were very grainy and
generally nasty looking. Most of my shots were attempts at playing
with DOF. Even with my 10S in the past I shot mostly with the normal
point and shoot mode, occasionally changing to shutter speed priority.
This time I shot mostly with aperture priority, normally at an
aperture of 5.6 or 4.5, with shutter speeds of 1/1000 or faster,
usually, depending on the length of my zoom at the time. I was using
an older 100-300 canon usm zoom, if I remember right. I also used a
24mm wide angle, with some larger aperture settings.

Some of the pics I assume are bad because of the exposure meter was
off because of the direct low sun over glistening water I was shooting. But nothing is
good.

Here are a few other, probably more vital facts. My camera has not
been professionally cleaned in probably over 10 years. My film has
been sitting in my fridge for probably several years, there is no
expiration date on them (Kodak Gold Ultra 100). I had them developed and
then scanned to a photo cd, normal resolution, no prints.

I wasn't anticipating great shots, I was just hoping for some
education in using DOF. In other experiments with my Olympus, I
noticed the effect of exposure compensation, however I did not do any.

Here are a couple of examples of pics, and what was happening. If
anyone can give me advise, or has any ideas of what the main problem
is, I would greatly appreciate it. I should be getting the B&W on
Friday, and I can hopefully narrow it down a bit.
Any other tips or observations, based on my entirely not edited shots,
would be appreciated, bad film, etc. aside.

I had written this a couple of days ago, but was unable to post until now. I also shot a roll of Tmax 400 B&W that is about a year old. I just got those back. Only 12 of 36 shots were of anything other than complete black, and a couple of those were terrible. The other shots that came out seem ok, much better than the others, I think part of the problem was old film for the color, but the 24 that didn't come out here, there seems to be a serious problem. The only ones that came out were shots taken underneath a pier. The other shots were directly into the sun, over the water and came out perfectly black. I talked to the developer, he thought maybe there is something wrong with the camera, and its shutter. I'm going to take it to him to run a roll of test shots and see what happens. He said that some older canons like mine exhibited this problem. I didn't have such a problem a year ago, but I was usually shooting in a program mode, or shutter priority, not aperture priority.

thanks for any ideas you might have, I'm quite sure its due to several factors, the first being the old film, but then the black & white stuff... definitely camera related.

here's a couple of photos, one is really bad, shot into the sun, the other is better, but still not great.

Sorry for the length.

Chris

[another view]

First scenario - surfing shots with direct sun - would probably underexpose a lot without compensation or manual metering. That's probably what's causing the grainy shots, the lab trying to lighten them too much to get anything to show up on the print.

The color film being old but refrigerated shouldn't be that much of a problem, not compared to serious underexposure. Even if the colors are bad, it's still probably the under exposure that's the main problem. Do the negatives look thin from underexposure (as in not much there, mostly clear)? I wouldn't use film like that for something important and it's probably a good idea to try new film just to rule out that possibility. One year old T-Max isn't a problem unless it's been stored in the oven ! I suspect the same underexposure - but the black that you're seeing, is it the prints you're talking about or the negatives? Black prints would mean clear (or almost) negatives which would mean underexposure.

My suggestion would be to get a new roll of color negative film, go out and shoot it under more "normal" circumstances and see how it does. Take it out on an overcast day, don't shoot into the sun, etc. You want situations that won't fool the meter, that's all. Don't get me wrong, you can get very dramatic results by shooting in tricky lighting situations, but it does take some exposure compensation to get it right.

[another view]

Looking at your edit where you added the shots - first one looks like under exposure, but need some info to be sure:

Did you scan negatives or prints? If you scanned prints, we really can't tell you what went wrong because we don't know what corrections were made in the printing process.

If you did scan the negatives, what adjustments (if any) were made - like adjusting contrast, levels, brightness, etc.

Even properly exposed and developed T-Max 400 is grainy when scanning it. It's a weird film to work with. If you're going to scan B&W film, try out some of the C41 (color process) black and white films like Kodak BW400CN. That's a brand new one from Kodak that I haven't personally tried, but I've shot both of it's predecessors and scanned with great results.

[skery]

thanks for the reply.

After I started to think about it more, I was wondering how much it had to do with the noncompensated exposure. I was sort of doing that on purpose, expecting not so great results, but not expecting such bad results!

Most of the the negatives of the B&W film came back perfectly clear. On the color, some of the negatives have a clear bar taking about 1/3 of the frame. (So to answer your question, the black is on the print, not the negative.) I don't have those shots on this computer, i will post more examples later.

If much of my problem is exposure related, do you have any advice on how much compensation I should add to get a proper exposure when shooting into the sun like this? For what its worth, I shot aperture priority on my olympus digital, and those shots came out fine.

I will definitely be shooting a roll this weekend to see what happens under normal circumstances.

thanks again.

skery

[skery]

one other note, the second shot was taken under the pier, with the sun at about 3 o'clock, as you can probably tell by the shadow... in this case, with an aperture of 5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/1000 or 1/3000, I don't remember, I would need only a couple of steps of compensation, but the more direct shot, I would need more, because the sun is making the meter think there is much more light than there really is. Is that the idea? \

I'm not sure how to judge the amount of compensation. I don't have a separate light meter.

I have always felt I have a good eye for photography, but I haven't learned much about the technical side of it, hence my experiments with the DOF. I have a lot to learn! thanks again for your help

skery

[skery]

here's a couple from the color shots

the first is an example of the sun and the black bar at the top, the second, seems fine, the problems I'm guessing are more due to the old film. the third is another of the sun and the bar, but showing it doesn't have anything to do with the where the sun is, is this from the old film.

[skery]

the negatives were scanned by the lab. there actually were not any prints, I had the negs processed and scanned for photocd. I don't know of any corrections made. the remaining 24 shots on the roll were all completely clear.

I think most of it is the exposure. like you said. What I'm curious about is that did it come out better in the color shots, with the exception of that weird black bar, the shot might have been okay. I suppose that could be the difference between 400 and 100 film.

thanks for the tip on the film. I hope to not have to worry about scanning for long, I want a 20d!

Looking at your edit where you added the shots - first one looks like under exposure, but need some info to be sure:

Did you scan negatives or prints? If you scannped prints, we really can't tell you what went wrong because we don't know what corrections were made in the printing process.

If you did scan the negatives, what adjustments (if any) were made - like adjusting contrast, levels, brightness, etc.

Even properly exposed and developed T-Max 400 is grainy when scanning it. It's a weird film to work with. If you're going to scan B&W film, try out some of the C41 (color process) black and white films like Kodak BW400CN. That's a brand new one from Kodak that I haven't personally tried, but I've shot both of it's predecessors and scanned with great results.

[another view]

Yeah, looks like a combination of the two - and there may be more problems due to the old film than I originally thought. The reason I say this is because of the shot of the gulls. That's side light and your camera's meter (assuming no problems with it) may have been off a little but not enough to give you a severly underexposed negative. I'm going to stick with my original advice though - best way to work through a problem is to back out all of the potential problems and rule them out one by one.

(Stepping up to digital soapbox now) A DSLR won't solve exposure problems - actually they'll get worse. The latitude with a digital sensor is probably closer to what you get with slide film, 1/3 of a stop makes a difference. Highlights are even easier to blow with digital than slide film. However, the nice thing about digital is that you can have instant feedback to see how you're doing with exposure and what works. Don't use the LCD screen to judge exposure though, use the histogram.

Best way to learn exposure is trial and error. The people who nail it every time are the ones that pull out the spot meter (or have one built in the camera) and set camera exposure manually based on their reading (or readings). Another possibility is to learn how your camera reacts in certain situations. That's a lot more trial and error, and then you've only learned how that camera works. Get another camera and it's practice time again. Once you get the prints how you want them, then maybe try slide film. It's a lot more demanding of proper exposure - a good reality check!

[Clemmie]

Those are mightily Grainy for 100 film - and the colors are definitely 'off'.

I would say that, besides the effects of being several years old, the Film appears to have suffered a number of freeze and thaw cycles while in cold storage. This will cause random separations within the emulsion layers, which greatly roughens the grain, as we see here. Also contributes heavily to color shifting.

[FREELANCE2004]

shutterspeed is way way to fast,you dont have enough light for that by the looks of your picturees,depending on your lense,if its 300mm or so you want to shoot at a minimum of 1/300 sec shutter speed.id try like 1/250 or something and youll get a much better exp.

[FREELANCE2004]

1/3000 of a second is flying,why are you shooting that fast.

[skery]

thanks for the tips everybody. I brought my camera in today to get fixed. It seems to be a shutter related problem. it sticks intermitently and has a gooey residue on the shutter. I was reading up on my camera again and found this:

Many late 80s/early 90s EOS cameras, including the 10/10s, have a known problem of black sticky tar-like stuff appearing on the shutter. This is caused by a foam piece inside deteriorating and turning into sticky black glue. Fixing the problem requires replacing the shutter and replacing said piece of foam. Moderately expensive, as you have to open up the entire camera to do it. You can also clean the shutter yourself if you feel like taking the chance.
This isn’t a trivial problem. I recently lost about two dozen shots on a recent shoot because of a gluey shutter - the pictures simply turned out blank or occasionally grossly underexposed. Frustrating.

I think this is much of the problem. I'm getting this fixed, and we'll see where we end up. Again, thank you for all of your help!

skery