Why are some frames on my first roll completely gray while others look normal?
Asked 1/15/2025
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I’m new to film and shot my first roll in a Nikon F-501 with Fujifilm ISO 100 film. I used full auto, left the camera’s ISO setting changing based on a light meter app, and set the aperture ring to 22. Some frames came back completely gray while others were fine, with no gradual pattern of over/underexposure. The issue seemed to happen more at the beginning of the roll and then mostly disappear. What could cause this, and how should I be setting up the camera correctly?
Originally by Kai Lehr. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Kai Lehr
1y ago
2 Answers
3
You can't
...set the ISO...
of film. It's already more or less locked in. When you change the ISO setting on your film camera, you're actually recalibrating the camera's light meter to account for film with a different sensitivity. You have no way to make the film more or less sensitive than it actually is.1
In other words, the ISO setting for film cameras doesn't affect the sensitivity or 'speed' of the film at all. Rather, it affects the calibration of the camera's meter by telling it how sensitive the film that is loaded is.
When you tell your camera that the film you've loaded is more or less sensitive than it actually is, this will shift the camera's exposure calculation to account for the different film speed. If you tell it you've got slower film in the camera, it will overexposure the film you have loaded. If you tell the camera you've got faster speed film in the camera, it will underexpose you actually have loaded.
1 There is a technique used to expose an entire roll (or a single frame of sheet film) at higher or lower film sensitivity than the box speed (the number printed on the film's box). The development time is altered to compensate for the under or over exposure. Such a practice also changes the amount of contrast between the darkest and brightest areas of the image. This is one of the key ingredients in Ansell Adams' "Zone System".
Originally by Michael C. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Michael C
1y ago
0
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The main issue is that film ISO is fixed by the film you loaded. With ISO 100 film, the camera should be set to ISO 100 for the whole roll. Changing the ISO on a film camera does not change the film’s sensitivity—it only tells the camera’s meter how to expose, so changing it frame to frame will cause bad exposures.
If the F-501 was in full auto, you also shouldn’t need a light meter app. Let the camera meter for the film speed you loaded. If f/22 is the camera’s auto setting on the lens, that’s fine; if you manually forced f/22, that could also cause exposure problems.
The fact that the bad frames were more common at the start of the roll suggests a possible mechanical problem too, such as a sticky shutter in an older camera that loosened up after a few shots.
Best practice: load ISO 100 film, set the camera to ISO 100 once, use the camera’s meter in auto mode, and have the negatives returned so you can inspect whether the gray frames are underexposed. If the problem continues, the camera may need servicing.
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