On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:18:29 -0500, you wrote: >Duh...sorry...I'll probably use Kodak Gold 400. >Maybe I'll use 800. Would 800 would be better in >this situation? Thanks for reminding me that I >need to buy film today. :)
Splurge - take two rolls! Just make sure to avoid that nasty Kodak Max 800, or whatever they are calling it nowadays. I was thinking the zoo might have more ambient light than one might expect. They would want enough light for the safety of the visitors. I became curious, so I decided to do a little test. My neighborhood has a lot of nice Christmas light displays. I took a PZ1p and FA 50/1.7 and my big friendly dog for a stroll around the neighborhood. It was well after dark. The metering on several nice bright home displays was consistently 1/8 at f2 with ISO 800 film from our position o the street in front of the house. I did this little test using both center-weight and matrix metering, and switched from Hyper Program to Hyper Manua, and used both the A setting and selecting the aperture on the lens, all to avoid some mis-reading caused by some obscure camera Program unknown to me. In all cases, the exposure was consistently within a third of a stop of 1/8 at f2 with ISO 800 film.. Spot metering wasn't much help. I had a hard time identifying an area that I knew had a value of middle gray, or some value a known number of stops from middle gray. I'd say spot metering on Christmas lights should be left to those with lots of experience shooting nighttime exposures. I recommend being prepared for 1/8 at f2 with 800 film. Oh, and a lens wider than 50mm would be handy too. -- John Mustarde - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
