>> I tried to take pictures from slides using
>> ISO 100 negative film with my F90-X and AF-D
>> 105 mm micro-Nikkor set at f/2.8 aperture
>> and matrix metering exposure mode. I used a
>> home-made apparatus with a well diffused
>> light source.
> I'm not an expert at copying slides, but here's
> my advice. Did you use a low contrast film?
> Otherwise there will be _too_ much contrast and
> the lights will be overexposed and the shadows
> underexposed.
Yeah, but 3 stops overexposed sounds like something
went totally wrong, not just too much contrast.
Frankly I'm baffled. I didn't respond to this earlier
because I don't have any idea what went wrong. It
ought to work.
> If you duplicate slides, there is (was?) a film by
> Kodak "Ektachrome Slide Duplicating Film". There
> might be a similar print film, perhaps somebody
> else can help you out here.
Kodak makes all kinds of duplicating film -- negs
from slides, negs from negs, slides from slides,
slides from negs -- you name it, they've got it.
> > I got catastrophic results! I took 20 pictures.
> I got just 2 properly exposed!
There's a clue. Many years of debugging experience
tells me that if you can figure out the two exposures
that worked differ from the 18 that failed (either how
the original slides differ, or how what you did when
you copied them differed), you'll be able to figure
out what the problem is.
>> Why did the sensors fail to calculate the correct
>> exposure with transmitted light through the object?
>> Has it to do with the contrast? When I take normal
>> pictures (reflected light) the matrix metering works
>> well, even at reproduction ratio 1:1.
> You said it yourself. Your camera's meter works only
> with reflected light, not direct light through a
> transparency.
No, light is light. The meter doesn't care where it's
been before it reached the camera.
> Why don't you project your slides on a (very good)
> screen and take the pictures from there?
What he's doing should work, and produce much better
results than copying a projection. This problem is
worth working out.
Set it up again and see if the matrix meter reading
and center-weighted readings differ by several stops
on the slides that duplicated incorrectly. That way
you'll know whether it really is matrix metering
that's the culprit, or whether you need to look
elsewhere for the answer.
-Don
