My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to develop a roll of B+W film. Easy, or so I thought.
A friend was kind enough to lend me their Konica FT-1 with a Hexanon AR 50mm f1.8 and Konica FC-1 with a Hexanon AR 50mm f1.4, as well as a zoom-Hexanon AR 80~200mm f4.5, a Hexanon AR 100mm f2.8 and a Hexar AR 28mm f3.5. The FT-1 was released in 1983 and was Konica's last SLR before they decided to make photocopiers.
The camera's had not been used in a couple of years but everything looked in good order. The FT-1 took four AA batteries while the FC-1 took four watch batteries. I decided to go with the cheaper option of AA's and fitted them to the FT-1. After loading the batteries I checked the meter and noticed a little red light in the meter field of the eyepiece and then turned the camera off and loaded the film. Turning the camera back on I hear the motor-drive whir into action as it loads the film onto the spool. I click off a frame with the lens cap on just in case that frame had a light leak from loading. It was now getting late so I turned the camera off and put it to bed.
Next day after breakfast I wake the camera up and go outside to get a light reading and check it with my digital. I look into the eyepiece expecting to see a red dot on the 'M' for manual and a flashing dot on one of the f numbers... nothing... what. I switch the camera off and back on, I look again... nothing, just a blank screen. Crap. I take the batteries out and check the contacts and decide to clean them again. I reinstall the batteries and again... nothing. WTF!
Several things start to race through my mind. Did I break this camera. Did I load the film correctly. How am I going to expose this roll, I could use the digital for a meter but I wonder whether ISO 400 on a digital exposes the same as ISO 400 B+W, then there is the fact that the lenses on the film camera don't match any on my digital. Apparently a 25mm digital lens is equivalent to 50mm film lens but the film lens is a prime and my digital 25mm is on a zoom. The more elements on the zoom are going to mean that the light will be slightly weaker by the time it hits the sensor compared to the more direct path that the light will take going through the prime.
After all these considerations I choose to look into my old Gossen Lunasix 3 meter. I take the watch batteries out and study them. Shit, what are these old chunky things. I know a watch repairer in town who has a large assortment of watch batteries and they were helpful in the past, maybe he has some. No such luck, those old suckers are now practically extinct except in some lesser known Baltic states. Great, now what.
I begin to Google and immediately come across two sites that were golden. The first was about the 'Sunny f16 Rule' which simply states that on sunny days your exposure will be the reciprocal of the film speed at f16. Put into plain English that means that if you are using ISO 400 and the sun is out you will use 1/400 at f16. Woah! Hang on. There is no 1/400 setting, but there is a 1/500 setting. Now you could use f16 at 1/500 and bracket or open up a stop to f11.
Now don't get me wrong, the 'Sunny f16 Rule' is good but I found it a little vague, I needed more understanding and more control. Lucky for me my next site answered all my questions and gave me the confidence I needed to expose a roll without a meter. The 'Ultimate Exposure Computer' provides an Exposure Value Chart and an Exposure Factor Relationship Chart. Using these two charts has hopefully saved my roll of film from being an overexposed blizzard or an underexposed nightmare. Needless to say I used a generous amount of bracketing just to be on the safe side.
For me it was a good thing that my meter failed, if it hadn't I may never have learned how to expose without one. Now if my meter ever plays up again I can just refer to my charts and feel confident that I can get a good exposure.
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