I got a F5 for the Chritmas. I took some pictures using aperture priority mode with SB28 flash inside the house, in both verticle and horizontal positions. The pictures came out very nice. But I noticed that about 50% of vericle pictures had silghtly over or underexposure, but 100% of the horizontal picture came out perfectly exposed. I am not a professional at all (I take max. 20 rolles of pictures per year and I use Walgreen drug store for development). Are those slight aberent exposure variation due to the camera design or just my imagination or development lab was not doing a good job. Thanks.

-- (Q_shledon@email.com), January 04, 1999

Answers

If you are shooting print film, you can't tell anything about moderate exposure variations from looking at the prints.

-- Danny Weber (danny_weber@compuserve.com), January 04, 1999.

Boy, oh boy, I wish I knew someone that would give me an F5 for Christmas. :-)

I'm curious though, you say "I take max. 20 rolles of pictures per year and I use Walgreen drug store for development." An F5 might be a bit of overkill for you, don't you think?

-- Henry Richardson (henry_richardson@hotmail.com), January 04, 1999.

First, please allow me to make an apology that I mis-spelled Christmas. I am sorry for that.

Henry, I should have said that 20 rolls/year in the past tense. I promised that I will take more (and good ones I hope) pictures from now on.

Danny, I noticed the exposure variation based on the following. I took one roll of 36 frames of Fuji Superia ISO400 in front of fire place with kids laghing and jumping. The red bricks of fireplace in horizontal pictures came out with very similar color and tone as the real bricks, but they showed differently in the vertical ones, some times is darker, some times is lighter, and the kid's face color and tone also changed accordingly. I also suspected that the printing machine at Walgreen over/under exposed, but all of the horizontal one came out perfectly, so that I abandoned my suspicion. In Nikon's manual/literature, it was said that F5 has 30,000 picture stored as database for exposure determination. That makes me think that if the majority of database pictures are horizontal, camera might be confused. Please comment what is the best way to evaluate the exposure. I don't know how to tell the technicians to control their machine. Thanks.

-- (Q_shledon@email.com), January 04, 1999.

This is the same Walgreen's that is used by thousands of P&S shooters right? A $2000 camera body and $1.98 generic drug store photofinishing. What's wrong with this picture? I just hope you didn't get a Sigma 28-200 zoom to go with the F5!

-- Randy (photoman428@hotmail.com), January 04, 1999.

Acutaly it came with a very heavy 80-200mm ED nikon lens. It is so heavy together with camera, flash (SB28) and all those batteries that I don't think my tripot (came free with Sony 8 mm video camera as promotional package) is suitable for this camera. So, please help, which tripot should I use and which photofinishing service (in Boston area)? Thanks.

-- (Q_shledon@email.com), January 04, 1999.

Have the "technicians" print the vertical ones so they match the horizontal ones. Don't try to evaluate a $2000 camera with $2 processing. If you want to experiment, set the camera to center- weighted or spot-metering and place the meter over an area of the scene with a mid-tone reflectance. Take verticals and horizontals, but make sure the meter stays on the same part of the subject. Repeat each shot with Matrix and have them printed.

-- Danny Weber (danny_weber@compuserve.com), January 04, 1999.

For anyone wondering why I am talking about tripods, the person who asked the question asked about them later in the thread. When I post it ends up at the top, and can be confusing at times.

If you are planning to do much outdoor shooting the Bogen/Manfrotto 3221 (I like black, 3021 if you like silver) or similar like the 3221 wilderness are probably the best buy on the tripod market. If you are indoors only the 3011/3211 should be fine since you probably won't need the variable leg angles. Of course if money is no object there is the Gitzo carbon fiber series.

The list of heads for these goes on forever, and first you have to decide between panhead or ballhead. Then you have to decide between inexpensive but less precise (I just ordered a Bogen 3055 ballhead - $41) or expensive precision equipment like the ArcaSwiss ballheads. They all come with different types of quick release systems too. The two most popular are the expensive and precise Arcaswiss (surprise) style and the cheap and large Bogen hex style. There are too many others to list. Unfortunately Bogen has several different styles of QR plates, but the most popular heads like the 3047 pan/tilt and the 3055 ball use the hex plates.

-- Brad (reloader@webtv.net), January 04, 1999.

Shoot a roll of slide film and use that for your comparisons. I'd suggest using a 100 speed film of the Kodak (but not Kodachrome) or Fuji variety.

Note to others reading this I have nothing against Kodachrome I use it often and love the results. I just don't think that it's worth the processing hassles for "quick and dirty" testing.

-- Geoffrey S. Kane (grendel@pgh.nauticom.net), January 04, 1999.

It's possible that the different flash placement relative to the lens will affect your results. I am assuming that you are mounting the SB28 on the F5's hot shoe. If this is so, then the flash is no longer above the lens as in the horizontal shots, but rather placed lower and to one side.

This will create a dark shadow to one side of the subject. If you are consistently holding the camera body with the shutter release at the top (flash at left), the shadow will fall to the right side of the picture - if you ever hold the camera with the shutter release at the bottom (flash at right), the shadow will fall to the left side of the picture.

In addition, the vertical framing can change the exposure (from what it would have been in a horizontal frame) as different areas of the subject/background enter or leave the frame.

I achieve highly consistent horizontal and vertical exposures (and improve the lighting - especially on verticals) by using a Stroboframe Pro RL flash bracket which allows the photographer to flip the camera for vertical pictures, while leaving the flash placed above the lens - I usually adjust the bracket so that the flash is approximately 12 inches above the lens. In addition to improved and consistent lighting, this eliminates any chance of "red-eye".

This technique does require the use of Nikon's SC17 cord which connects the F5's hot shoe with the flash contacts. Also recommended are Stroboframe's anti-twist plates so the SC17 cord and the F5 are pin registered to the bracket.

Hope this helps!

-- Brian Duncan (bduncan@axionet.com), January 06, 1999.

Wow, Brian, you must be a veteran F5 pro. You really brought out the key point here (It's like I had showed you my pictures). Actually one more thing I was not satisfied with the vertical shots is that quite few of them had prominent shadows on the left side of the person (right side in the pictures). The few vertical pictures which did not had shadow were the ones where shadow was falling on the fireplace's black iron mental. I remembered that I turned the camera via the lens tripod ring so the two white dots on lens lined up (I was so proud to figure out this first) and was shooting with camera's vertical trigger facing upward so the flash was attached on camera's left side . Also the shadow in horizontal pictures were much less than the verticals, they were not obvious at all unless I examine them carefully. I guess that's how the camera's computer was got fooled. Many thanks to you all taking time answering my question. It does not sound so stupid now. :-).

-- (Q_shledon@email.com), January 06, 1999.

The meter that's being fooled is not the one in your camera, it's the one in the print machine. It is an averaging type that is heavily influenced by large dark or light areas.

-- Danny Weber (danny_weber@compuserve.com), January 06, 1999.