hi. i always take pictures at the concerts i go to. and this is the first time i have used my manual camera and flash for this. the pictures came out with very poor contrast and the negatives were so thin that i could barely see the image on them, i had to hold them up to the light to see what it was a picture of. i dont know weather or not it was because of too much or too little light. i was right up front against the stage. i estimated about 5 feet or so from who i was taking pictures of, maybe less at some times. 400 speed film.. the f stop was usualy on either 16 or 22, or between, a couple times i moved it to between 11 and 16. this is my first time using the flash in a dark area , does anyone have any advice/suggestions on what i screwed up?!? please answer thanks

-- melissa (kantina@aol.com), March 10, 1998

Answers

Thin negatives means too little light. Why f11 to f22? Try opening up to f8.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@ase.com), March 12, 1998.

If your negatives were that thin at f11 (underexposed by more than 2 stops), try opening up to f5.6 or wider. Overexposing color negative film by a stop or two won't hurt your pictures.

Mike

-- Mike Dixon (burmashave@compuserve.com), March 12, 1998.

Don't use flash; that eliminates the lighting effects you see and makes for just an ordinary flash snapshot. With ISO 400 film try exposures around 1/250 at f2.8. Shoot some with more exposure and some with less. Did that with good results for years at arena-type concerts. In small clubs you may have to use ISO 1600 film and maybe give more exposure still. It can be very difficult to meter these things. First of all, you'd need a spotmeter and, secondly, light intensity is always changing.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), March 14, 1998.

melissa,

Bag the flash....shoot wide open with iso400 film...it doesn't sound like your flash fired and at f11 or f16.....too little light! f2.0, 2.8, or 4 and no flash !!

-- Jim McCullough (jmccull1@bellatlantic.net), May 13, 1998.