Software adjustments

[Barney]

With several of the cameras I use there is no metering facility so I use incident metering, in PP (lightroom), I generally use the auto button.

One of adjustments it employs is to the exposure of the image, how is it doing this?

The reason I ask is because I have noticed the variance in the amount of adjustment is getting smaller, variance in yesterdays roll was between +.31 and + .71. The +.71 was an outlier and most were between +.31 and +.48.

Can I use these figures as a valid indicator for the film speed?

it was an ISO 400 film shot at Ei 320, if perhaps I had shot at EI 250 would I have been nearer to what the software thinks is correct.

Or have I under developed a tad?

 

[sirch]

My guess on LR auto exposure is that it takes the brightest pixel to close to the max before clipping so the amount of change will vary depending on the dynamic range of the scene. it will also be affected by any adjustments your scanner applied and I guess by how the neg was developed. It feels to me like there are too many variables for it to be an accurate guide.

 

[Barney]

My guess on LR auto exposure is that it takes the brightest pixel to close to the max before clipping so the amount of change will vary depending on the dynamic range of the scene. it will also be affected by any adjustments your scanner applied and I guess by how the neg was developed. It feels to me like there are too many variables for it to be an accurate guide.

Thank you Chris, it was just a thought! I will not stop having them even though most are incorrect.

 

[FishyFish]

I find that Lightroom's Auto function tends to be pretty heavy handed and rarely, if ever, use it. It can make a film picture look better than the flat scan, sure, but it often goes way beyond what I would do if manually editing a shot and results in overly contrasty images a lot of the time.

You'll get a much better results by using the sliders and curves adjustments manually.