Questionable Broinca Metering

[Kev M]

I've brought my newly aquired Bronica into work with me today to have a fiddle with. I know this is going to be slightly subjective but the prism is metering at 1/500 2.8 with ISO 400 film inside and I reckon that's a bit on the low side. Given that it's fairly sunny here in loughborough I'd have thought I could get away with a smaller aperture at that shutter speed than that.

Can I really compare the metering on the Bronica to my DSLR at another time or is it something I don't know about MF cameras where they require more light than other cameras?

Is it possible to have these things tested and calibrated?

Could it be a dodgy battery in the camera? All I know is it's supposed to be a 6V battery, I just tested mine and it's putting out 5.7V and 220mA

 

[dougdarter]

Difference between film/large format/digital SLR shouldn't make any difference as far as metering is concerned - an Ev is still an Ev.

The speed. 1/500th @ f2.8 doesn't seem that bad at 400 IS0. Iv've been out today, it's fairly sunny here too, with the 300 2.8, with the ISO set to auto, and looking at the exif, To get 1/500th, the ISO has been pushed to 620!

Autumn sun, whilst looking bright, can be half as bright as summer sun, because it's lower on the horizon.

 

[Kev M]

The speed. 1/500th @ f2.8 doesn't seem that bad at 400 IS0. Iv've been out today, it's fairly sunny here too, with the 300 2.8, with the ISO set to auto, and looking at the exif, To get 1/500th, the ISO has been pushed to 620!

Autumn sun, whilst looking bright, can be half as bright as summer sun, because it's lower on the horizon.

Cheers for that Doug, puts my mind at ease a bit.

 

[percymon]

6V battery should push out about what you have measured - a 1.5V AA pushes out about 1.2-1.3V as a comparison.

You could always buy a light meter off ebay - i'm using a Weston Master V (£5.50!!) with my ETR-Si as i don't have the metered prism and so far its been pretty much spot on even in some difficult conditions.

Comparison to dSLR ? - something i've said i would do since buying my ETRSi; just not got round to it yet. Was going to compare lightmeter to EOS30 film SLR to EOS500 film SLR to EOS5d digital.

Remeber if you are using B&W film you have a fair degree of lattiude when it comes to metering, much less so with colour slide film !

 

[joxby]

I used my D70 to meter my first ever shots with a Bronica EC, it was in studio with tungsten balanced film, fuji 64T slide film, a few calculations there to equate iso 64 with D70's lowest iso setting of 200, but they came out perfect.
These were just test shots to see if the camera actually worked, you should get comparable readings between that metered prism and you're dslr

 

[Kev M]

Hmmm, I've just tested the broinca alongside my DSLR and there's a huge gap between them.

Bronica: f2.8 - 1/30
Minolta: f2.8 - 1/500

That's a full 4 stops difference. Either i'm going to get some very under exposed shots or they'll be fine and there's something else going on.

I'll get a new battery today to see if that helps but any other suggestions would be appreciated. Can these things be sent off for calibration anywhere? Something else I found odd was that increasing the ISO dial from 100-400 only increased the shutter speed by one stop instead of two.

 

[Chappers]

Kev

A few years ago I had a Bronica ETRs and found the metering to be fine, especially with reversal film . I did tend to underexpose by about 1/3 stop as standard. Apart from that results were fine. I vaguely remember a battery check button, but can't remember where it is, I think it's on the metering head somewhere

I moved to digital and got rid of the Bronnie. It was getting rather heavy with 4 lenses 3 backs Polaroid back and 6 packs of film. Strange my 2 camera Canon kit now seems to weigh the same.

John C

 

[CT]

You shouldn't be seeing much difference between your Bronny and the DSLR Kev. Before you condemn the metering in the Bronny though, remember that this is an older camera, probably using centre weighted metering, so you'll see a big difference, especially if you're using evaluative metering on the DSLR which averages the reading over the whole scene.