Exposure conundrum

[tiberiustibz]

I'm getting the sense that this is some sort of riddle.

Her red dress always came out black.

On what basis did she judge the overexposure?

[rthomas]

What Nikon camera was that? Sounds like a symptom an old Photomic meter might exhibit if it was failing.

[tiberiustibz]

Guess I missed the deadline...

[Anscojohn]

[QUOTE=tiberiustibz;756616]I'm getting the sense that this is some sort of riddle.
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In a sense it was because one has to go from where the person asking for a solution to the problem is "at." They can't always provide the info we need to solve the problem in the first go around. I used to try to train the kids who worked for me to speak "customereeze." This was not a pro shop with professional customers; just every day people. Learning to ask the right questions was very important.

[Anscojohn]

What Nikon camera was that? Sounds like a symptom an old Photomic meter might exhibit if it was failing.

******
Don't remember. I know it was not an F, though; a Photomic would stick in my memory. Some of the various situations were pretty amusing: like the lady who insisted the lab "had mixed her pictures up with someone elses." Yup, it happens. And she got half a roll of her pix, and some of another person's. Yup, that happens to. And, not only that, the lab mixed up her pictures with her mother's pictures. Hmmm, sez I to meself, sez I as I put the tracer book back.. It transpired they were on vacation together; with the same P and S cameras; Is it possible, I finally ask, that perhaps you just picked up her camera by mistake one day......???. Oh, yeh, I guess that's it, sez she.

[MattKing]

I have a couple of Olympus bodies that feature metering off the film. I've always wondered if there is any significant variation of reflectivity between film types. I was going to suggest that as a cause, if no one else came up with a solution.

Matt

[Anscojohn]

I have a couple of Olympus bodies that feature metering off the film. I've always wondered if there is any significant variation of reflectivity between film types. I was going to suggest that as a cause, if no one else came up with a solution.

Matt

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That's an interesting point, Matt. One would ASS u ME that the emulsion reflectance would be pretty consistent; but I wonder......

[Q.G.]

There are slight differences between films, yes.
So you need to learn how your favourite films behave, and possibly adjust your metering accordingly.

Old data, but illustrative all the same:

[BetterSense]

Is that data from Olympus? I understand that most common-speed exposures were actualy metered mostly off the shutter curtains, and only longer tripod-domain exposures metered off the film itself.

[Q.G.]

It's data from Hasselblad, to be used with their OTF flash metering.
They measured the reflectivity of the films available then.

You're partly right about the curtains.
Anything of 1/60 and longer is meassured entirely (or as near as) off film.
Faster speeds progressively more off the curtains, increasingly less off the film.

P.S.

Or have i got it wrong now, and is the OTF measuring only used for longer speeds indeed?