Topic: bl%$dy £$%ing idiot t*&"ting grrrr!*$"

[LT]

picture this scene if you will:

you are travelling through the lake district ... for those who dont know, this is probably the most naturally beautiful area in England (although not Britain I hasten to add) with mountains, lakes, waterfalls, wildlife a-plenty... anyway, I digress.  So, you're driving along a windy one-track lane past Crummock Water - a lovely lake with steep mountains all around, groups of trees clundered* on the shoreline, small islets with little shrubs growing on them.  The light has been flat all day, with low grey featureless clouds.  Then suddenly, the sun appears.  It is blocked from above by a heavy cloud and from beneath by some mountains leaving a spot light shining through and hitting a small islet.  you shout at your wife/husband/partner/self to

"STOP THE CAR IN THAT PRECARIOUS-LOOKING LAYBY OVER THERE.  I CAN NOT MISS THIS"

You leg-it (run) from the car to the edge of the lake, setting up the tripod at full steam ahead,  snap the camera into place, whip out the trusty spot-meter, line up the shot as quick as possible.  You are terrified the light will go.  A quick double checking of exposure/ focus settings, flip the mirror lock and snap.  YOU GOT IT!  then the sun moves over to a line of trees, the dark hillside behind making them glow with a luminosty you have never before seen - snap YOU GOT IT AGAIN!  things are never this good for you.  Then it moves again to light up one huge fir tree , snap. YOU GOT THREE.  You are nearly wetting yourself with excitement.  Can things really be this good.  You check all your kit.  Yes, you have done everything right this time.  absolutlely no mistakes here.  this is the REAL THING.  these shots are going to be your best ever, your Magnum Opus, it will NEVER be this good again.

Then you get home, develop your films and find out you had the lightmeter set to iso 400 not the 100 that you needed.

Shit.

Not that i would ever make such a fundamental mistake - of couse not ... me?  no, surely not.  I wouldnt would I?  erm ...

Shit.

 


*Clundered - made up word - a mixture of gathered and cluttered. Invented by several Social Work students about 10 years ago after a few sherberts.  Has since appeared in various official documents and even in one court report.  Please try and use this word as much as possible, it is our aim to get it into the OED.  Thankyou.

   

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[Francois]

You don't need a big spotmeter... You need an expomat!

Now, I can hear you say "what the **** is this?"

Well, it's an exposure calculator I found online. Print, cut and glue... no batteries and it seems to work surprisingly well.
And since you reset it every time you use it, no mistake and all the exposures are in the ball park.
OK, it's pretty rough estimates and not the zone system but give it a whirl and check it out. Better than nothing when the batteries in your lightmeter decide to die.

expomat.tripod.com

The thing is precise from EV 5 to EV 16, ISO's 5-800, Exposure speed 2-1/1000 second, aperture f/0.5-22 in 1/3 stops.

[lauraburlton]

Oooohhh I know how you feel. I did the exact same thing once with a photoshoot. Arranged a model, set up a bunch of lights..... but I did catch it before I developed the film so I underexposed when developing and managed to somewhat save the photos.  I feel your pain

[FrankB]

Can you salvage anything?

I know it's no consolation whatsoever, but we've all got similar tales - like when I did a few half-arsed tests and convinced myself that Rodinal was definitely the dev for me, souped 14 rolls of 135 that I'd shot in Canada and ended up with more grain than Kelloggs!

Or the time when I cleaned the focus screen in my C330S, didn't seat it right when I put it back and shot out-of-focus abstracts for the rest of the day.

Or the Sunday in Liverpool when I was shooting with an old Pentax S1a and ran across a film crew making a movie. I finished the roll, loaded another and went snap-happy. I didn't realise that anything was wrong until the film counter hit forty... When I got it home and into the changing bag I found that the sprockets had torn through the holes after about five shots.

Or the time on my first model shoot when a heart-stoppingly gorgeous brunette in a severely backless, black evening dress came up to me and enquired with a demure smile, "Where do you want me?"    (Do the words "camera-shake" strike any chords?!)

Mis-setting the ISO just makes you human.

Of course, that's a loose term...!

[LT]

Can you salvage anything?

not really frank - the dark looking slope behind was placed on zone 2 1/2 so that it would only just show the slightest detail (if it were properly exposed! so now it is on zone 1/2, just a blank featureless block.  some ore ok, as I changed film to a 400 speed one half way through, then back to the delta 100 (and remembered to switch the spot back to the right setting).

AO - i dont think a sunny-16 stype calculator would have worked in this situation ... i needed to know exactly where the highlight tones would fall and where the shadower were at in order to decide where I wanted tone and where I didnt as the SBR was quite long.  It does look liek a goos thing to have as a back up, although sunny 16 (or sunny 11 in our weak light) does work just as well.

I think we've all got stories like this, but last night, I was fuming and instead of beating myself up (literally) I needed an outlet

[FrankB]

I'm a firm believer that every silver lining has a... er, no. Wait a minute.

"Into every life some..."    No, that doesn't work either.



Okay, whatever! Five positives from a negative -

1) It's a motivation to put a sticker saying "Check ISO" on the lenscap of your spotmeter (or some other aide-memoire)

2) It's another measure of angst to help you on your way to the revered status of "Tortured Artist". (Nearly there!)

3) It's a tale to tell at the next APUG UK Gathering. Lay it on with a trowel and someone might even buy you a sympathy pint. Not me, obviously, but some fool might...!

4) It's a "The One That Got Away" article idea for your monthly "Druid's Corner" column in Ailsa's rag esteemed publication

5) It's an excuse to revisit the scenic (if nippy) North!

(And next time, let me know you're in the area!)

[Ailsa]

6) It provides you with the perfect opportunity to let off steam by giving a good slap to the sort of person who proferrs a list of irritating platitudes as compensation... ( to Frank!)

(Apologies if violence isn't generally advocated on the pages of Filmwasters...)

[FrankB]

Stone me, I think I've just been Edited...! 




 

[Ailsa]

Stone me, I think I've just been Edited...! 

It's pretty obvious when it happens, isn't it? 

[FrankB]

It's a privilege to watch an expert at work!

(...from a safe distance!) 

[Ed Wenn]

Leon, I feel for you. The thing is that you youngsters will get all excited and go off half-cocked which leads to all sorts of mistakes. Not so with Old Skool Ed of the Very Cool Head. There's absolutely no way that I'd shoot off the majority of a film (on last week's trip to Marrakech) in blazing sun with a dark red filter attached only to find that it was a colour film not a b/w one!!!! Doh! Embarrassed and angry is a bad combination.

I got a few really decent shots too from the look of the test scans. Oh well. I've played around with my scanner a bit and it looks like I can get something half-decent out of the negs, but they won't work out quite the same.

[astrobeck]

Leon, I feel for you. The thing is that you youngsters will get all excited and go off half-cocked which leads to all sorts of mistakes. Not so with Old Skool Ed of the Very Cool Head. There's absolutely no way that I'd shoot off the majority of a film (on last week's trip to Marrakech) in blazing sun with a dark red filter attached only to find that it was a colour film not a b/w one!!!! Doh! Embarrassed and angry is a bad combination.

Oh Now you've gone an spilt the beans on one of my most memorable goofs.   Except I was visiting an Indian Pueblo, with permission to photograph one of their historic Missions.  They get a bit cranky, and will call tribal police if you go about shooting with out proper acknowledgments or fees paid.

I shot color with a red filter thinking B&W was loaded. 

I'll join the lineup of misfits here anytime though 

[Skorj]

My errors are too many to catalog. Yours included Leon, but in my Polaroid world, I wish it was ISO100 to 400 mistakes. With my films the spread is often ISO3000 to ISO50; try and recover from that! And, try I have... Skj.

[artpunk]

Whats an ISO?
 

[db]

jeez, welcome to my life.
I've lost track of the number of episodes I've had like that. Fortunately, with therapy and alcohol, I've managed to blot most of them from my memory. Otherwise I'd likely have chucked it to become a bus driver by now.

(err.. sympathies, none the less)

[LT]

thanks Don - and sure, a few glasses of the brown stuff sure makes it easier.