first ever slides: sedona arizona w mamiya universal

[rbelyell]

we just returned from a driving trip of the u.s. southwest. i took my newly acquired mamiya universal with 100mm 3.5 lens with 6x9 back. i metered the pictures with my canon 5d, i used fuji velvia 100 and most taken at 8.0. for my first time i was quite pleased, but as i am a novice i welcome c&c. also, these are resized from large tiff files for 1600x1200. anyway, hope you enjoy, and will post separate slides of the grand canyon.
PLEASE, YOU MUST CLICK ON EACH PHOTO FOR BEST RESOLUTION AND COLOR!!!!

[Attila]

Slide...... I am glad you start to use it .... I expect more blue sky and more saturated colors from Velvia. Perhaps a bit overexposed or just light was very strong there.

[rbelyell]

the light was extremely strong! many told us it was the worst time of the year to take pictures! still, never having used this camera or slides before, i was pretty happy with the result, though i did think velvia would yield more saturated colors, which is why i chose it. at the grand canyon, the naked eye could see only whitewashed rock in the distance. i should have brought along a polarizing filter, but foolishly left all filters at home....

also attila, if you click on each picture you will see much closer to what i see on my monitor--much deeper color.

[Attila]

Slide can do magic , but very sensitive for right lights and exposition. In my practice better to underexpose a bit if I am unsure how accurate is my light meter.

You did measure light on ground, on these slides. If no ND filter I think better measure to sky , see samples

http://forum.mflenses.com/tenerife-on-film-t11528,highlight,tenerife.html

[cooltouch]

#1 and #2 are pretty close to correct exposure. #3 and #4 look to be maybe 1/2 stop overexposed.

Attila brings up a good point. I've learned from experience that metering with slides can be tricky. Often I don't even meter the scene but will look around for something that's 18% gray (which is what a camera meter considers to be "correct" exposure) and meter it instead. The blue sky away from the sun is 18% gray. Green grass is 18% gray.

If I must meter a scene, I prefer a camera with selective area metering. My favorite one for this is the old Canon F-1, which meters only about the central 12% of the viewfinder, indicated by a rectangle. So it's possible to place the rectangle in ways that average a scene's brightness without having to resort to using a spotmeter. Your 5D has selective area metering. So does my XS ((1000D), but I'm not convinced yet that it's really "true" selective area metering, cuz it still seems to detect light sources outside the selective area.

Also, the old "Sunny f/16 rule" works amazingly well. In bright sun, correct exposure is 1/ISO @ f/16. In your case, at ISO 100, correct exposure is 1/125 @ f/16. Or 1/250 @ f/11, etc. The only real exception to this is snow scenes or perhaps scenes on beaches with white sand, where it becomes the sunny f/22 rule.

Slides take practice. Keep it up!

[Attila]

[cooltouch]

Well, there's your typical UV haze filter that does some good. Polarizers will also cut through haze. But if it's already there on the images, I'll try using a Curves adjustment to get rid of some of it, and this often works well, but you usually can't get rid of all of it without degrading the image.

[Attila]