Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/05/08

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Subject: [Leica] Black cat contacts
From: "Birkey" <dbirkey@uio.telconet.net>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 10:05:03 -0500

I wouldn't waste money on a contact sheet.... you can look at your negs and
see whether they have good exposure or not....  Most labs will tend to make
the contact sheet a little dark so you can see detail better as opposed to
really light images... Some minilabs aren't terribly careful with their C-41
film processors , so you might be getting underdeveloped film too...

Basically if any part of your neg is as clear as the border is..... you are
underexposing the film...  looking at the three negs you'll be able to see
if some areas are losing detail as they get thinner....

Not having seen the picture of the cat, but knowing how the M-6 meters....
my first question would be how light was the background and how much of it
was included in the original metering...

My second question would be whether you are rating the neg film at the
packaged speed or not....

And your results are exactly what one would expect from negative film....
the negative with the most exposure wins...  I prefer denser negatives and
normally give between a half a stop or one whole stop of extra exposure to
my negs....

Remember negs and slides are opposites.... overexposed slides (and digital
images) and underexposed negs are unsalvageable.....

If you are going to make an error on exposure.... give a slide a tad less
exposure and a neg more!

Duane Birkey
HCJB World Radio, Quito Ecuador
Duane's Photographs of Ecuador:
http://ecuadorphotos.tripod.com