How do I do test shots on dslr for film?(URGENT!)

gorila

Hi there. I'm cry out loud for help! It's been my 5th roll of failure!
My university res I lived, a 100-yr-old heritage, is being demolished. And I want to document it. This month, the workers are on turbo to level it. When I see a good ruin, one night it's here, next morning it's gone.
I was told that my rolls r 400. N when I saw good scenes, I stuck out my 7d in 400 same parameter n roughly capture all those would b in the pic. So far, all the frames r underexposed while in dslr, I could still see all the detail I want.
Detail: canon elan2+24 1.4; canon 7d+60 2.8
The last 2 were just to show how it is in 'normal lighting'

gorila

gorila

gorila

ziggy53

I think that you may be dealing with 3 problems:

1) Film Reciprocity Failure
2) Absolutely extreme dynamic range in the scenes as shot.
3) Poor film scanning technique.

For the first problem see:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/reciprocity.htm

For the second problem, either add light to the dark areas to reduce the overall dynamic range, or take multiple exposures and use HDR or tone blending techniques after scanning the film. I do not think that you will ever succeed to capture the entire dynamic range in a single exposure using ordinary film. (Most ISO 400 films are higher contrast than lower ISO films, compounding your problems.)

For the third problem, work on using your film scanner to reduce contrast and scan the film at multiple exposures to try to recover what detail you can recover.

The second and third problems are somewhat interrelated.

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My real suggestion is to just use the 7D and don't mess with the film camera. You will get much better results, and do it more quickly, using the digital camera for acquisition. Even that will require reducing the dynamic range or multiple exposures or a "painting with light technique" and composited layers. A tripod is a must for this project.

gorila

Thx, ziggy!
In the sewage photos, I deliberately set up the composition to include a drastic range from pitch black to the shinny outdoor. But my little plan was to let the exit completely blushed out while the inside being 1-2 stops dimmer. Then it seems the camera/the film just gave in to bright side.
With the normal lighting shots, I'm thinking it maybe becoz of the film. ( oh, I pushed the image in laptop by a lot already)
Hmm, is there any damage control j can do for the films still?

gorila

Here's an update: it's f22 with 1min+ already. But I still had to boost the in computer expo like crazy! Thus a lot of detail, more specifically, my "dance move" was lost!

aj986s

Are you shooting in RAW? If not, your JPG saves may be eliminating some usable details/exposure.

gorila

aj986s wrote: »

Are you shooting in RAW? If not, your JPG saves may be eliminating some usable details/exposure.

Oh, no, aj. I was messing with film as I wish it works well w the demolished heritage. It's a notoriously haunted residence with a lot of ppl committed suicide and was a hospital in ww2.